Epic acquires 'Shave and a Haircut'

oglu

Interesting move from Epic to acquire Shave.
I hope this will lead into some progress on xGen.

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/programs/shave-and-a-haircut/shave-and-a-haircut-v9-6-for-maya

[mod edit: because I hate fun, I changed the title to be more informative}

garcellano

So much for the headline, bro. I was expecting an actual image of an epic shave and a haircut. 
Ah well.
Interesting move, I'm sure they'll just integrate that to the engine, if they haven't already.

thomasp

And here I was hoping it would be a quick cure for those unsightly hipster beards....

So... apparently this is strictly a particle hair generator for offline renders - have Epic said anything as to how this is supposed to work with their engine? What do you use that for in the context of a game engine besides generating a hair texture which surely is not interesting enough on its own for Epic to purchase the whole thing and make it available?

And I am aware that they have used xGen or similar to generate hair geo for their Mike Seymour demo head (downloadable, mid six figure polycount just for hair if memory serves) but that doesn't look like the way to do it currently nor in the foreseeable future.

ZacD

My guess, it isn't going to be integrated into the engine. They wanted the tool and the team that made it for some project they are working on. They're making it free for UE4 use because making money off the tool isn't a priority. 

poopipe

I suspect they'll integrate something based on the tech. Epic aren't focused purely on games or even full realtime work these days  - throw enough hardware at the problem and you'll be able to run a hair sim at near realtime which will be great for previs /kids TV  etc.. 

melviso

Might have something to do with hair for future gen?
Frostbite engine released a demo showing realtime hair:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkQ-kR12kr4