Nuked Swedish automaker will partner with Fortnite creator to bring’photorealistic visualization’ into its next generation of electric vehicles.
Volvo says that epic will help build a platform on which the automaker’s engineers can design software that will improve the HMI while also maintaining levels of safety.
The technology gives us the capability to create responsive, really high quality visuals, says the head of user experience at Volvo cars.’it’s really about creating the next generation of HMI for our customers,’ he says.
Volvo wants to use the Unreal engine to make what the vehicle’s external sensors are seeing outside the car to drivers without being’overwhelming’. The company has built its reputation on safety and quirky designs.
The presentation of information will be improved thanks to the collaboration with epic gamers, stovicek said. Other bits of information, like light, color, and motion graphics, will also be improved.
The Unreal engine is epic’s primary tool for the creation of realistic 3D graphics, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter unreal. Since then, it has been used in a variety of genres of games and has seen adoption by other industries.
Epic said it would be working with GMC to supply software for the 2022 Hummer EV pickup truck. The auto industry is a particularly attractive target for Epic Games.
Epic has become increasingly interested in the automotive industry. Cars are primarily designed using software and carry scores of onboard computers. Unreal engine is a great platform for building software.
‘from an HMI perspective, from what game capabilities can bring to the user experiences inside the car,’ said head of epic games’ Detroit lab.
Neither Volvo nor epic would say which vehicles will be the first to feature software provided by the Unreal engine or what sort of Timeline.
Volvo said it plans to sell 600,000 EVs by the middle of the decade. The company will build a battery manufacturing facility in Europe by 2026. The new batteries will enable a longer driving range between charges – up to 625 miles (1,006 kilometers).
The new operating system will be called volvocars.os. It will power the company’s next generation of electric vehicles. Volvo is also bringing software development in-house.
The new OS will act as an’umbrella system’ for all of the underlying systems that operate within the vehicle. Volvo said its new architecture will feature a core computer comprised of two Systems-on-a-Chip provided by NVIDIA. In the future, Volvo hopes to synthesize the two computers into one system for more efficient processing.
Volvo wants Epic Games’ help in modernizing its next-generation vehicles. Much sharper renderings, richer colors, and brand-new 3D animations will be included. But anything that distracts the driver wo n’t be part of the package.
