Epic Games Acquires Facial Mapping Firm Cubic Motion

Epic Games in the past few years following the market success that trailed free-to-play battle royale Fortnite has formed to be a conglomerate of other properties. While the company is notoriously responsible for the Unreal Engine and the 4th iteration of its kind is even more revolutionary to the industry more than ever, the firms has started putting the capital towards acquiring full studios.

Back in May almost a year ago, developer Psyonix revealed that Epic Games would be outright buying the San Diego team along with its most prominent property, Rocket League. Now in a report from earlier in March, Epic Games’ next victim is Cubic Motion.

Unsure what this studio is? The team is comprised of artists and programmers to create facial animation technology: most notably with their involvement with Ninja Theory’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and Santa Monica Studios’ God of War (2018). Under this new transaction of ownership, Epic Games confirms that all employees currently at Cubic Motion will still be operating now under the new company.

Facial animation that conveys the slightest nuance of human expression is essential to crossing the uncanny valley. We believe that holistically combining Epic’s Unreal Engine with 3Lateral’s facial rig creation and Cubic Motion’s solving technology is the only way to answer this challenge, and ultimately, to reach the pinnacle of digital human artistry with Unreal Engine.

Kim Libreri, Epic Games CTO

Elsewhere on the Cubic Motion’s website, the page has been updated sharing the team’s ambitions on the matter following the acquisition made. “Cubic Motion’s management team is delighted to announce the company’s acquisition by Epic Games. Together, we’ll push the boundaries of digital human technology, bringing ever more realism and immersive content to all forms of visual entertainment. Our commitment to servicing the needs of the video game industry remains unchanged – we intend to remain the partner of choice for developers who need the most compelling digital characters.”

In the statement, Cubic Motion is most excited about its new partnership with Epic Games by introducing the firm to Manchester, the city the studio is based in. Alongside being the birthplace of the world famous mathematician Alan Turning, the English city is thriving with talent from the cities individuals and Cubic Motion is ecstatic to the advancement imminent from the settled agreement.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz