MAKING DIGITAL TWINS PLAYABLE – FROM UEFN TO UE

A few months ago we wrote about our project called Playable Places in which we explored how an actual real place, based on a digital twin version of that place, could become interactive and immersive – playable. 

Last week we had the honour to talk about our project as one of the selected presenters at Unreal Fest, Epic Games yearly development conference that this year selected Stockholm as its European city of choice.

Our talk was called “Making Digital Twins Playable – From UEFN to UE” and in it we talked both about the background of the project and why we think digital twins should become playable at all. We also spoke about different building blocks that you need to capture reality such as Photogrammetry, Gaussian Splatting, Google 3D-tiles/Cesium, OSM data as well as Generative and other AI.

After you have the reality (whether that is a place, an object or why not digital twins of humans) captured you need to simulate and gamify that reality. We took our case working with Norrköping’s digital twin as an example and shared what we’ve learned along the way. Pros and cons with a game engine such as UEFN / Fortnite vs Unreal Engine.

Are you curious and want to find out more about how you can make your place or any real world objects playable in an online social gaming platform such as Fortnite, on your website or through an app? We’d love to talk more to see if and what we could help you with. Contact us here and we’ll set up a Zoom-call!

Below you’ll find a test we did with generative AI to change the time of day as well as lighting up some windows of a texture from a photogrammetry-based digital twin of the city of Norrköping.

Image texture above goes under CC By 4.0 Licence and is owned by the Municipality of Norrköping.