Unreal — Process
Role in the pipeline: the master engine. One repository holds every character, place kit and program; builds are cooked per surface.
Version lock: Unreal Engine 5.8 (23 June 2026), the final planned UE5 release. Do not upgrade to UE6 mid-season. UE6 (UE5 + UEFN, Verse) Early Access is targeted for the end of 2027; Blueprints remain in early UE6 and will later be deprecated with conversion tools. See Tutorial — Blueprints for Augmented Traveler.
Project structure
AT_Studio/ (Perforce or Git LFS)
├── Characters/<Figure>/ MetaHuman, outfits, grooms, anim library
├── Places/<Kit>/ Vestal House, Atheneum hall, whaleship deck
├── Programs/<Figure>/ Sequencer monologues, program-clock state machine
├── Mind/ Conversation client, captions, logging hooks
├── Platforms/ Kiosk, Quest, Vive, AndroidXR, VisionPro configs
└── Tools/ Editor utilities, build scripts
Key systems
| System | Unreal feature |
|---|---|
| Program clock (monologue → Q&A → out of character) | State Tree + Sequencer + per-venue Data Assets (Tutorial — Authoring a Timed Experience) |
| Lip sync and expressions for live answers | MetaHuman Audio Live Link Source (real-time audio-driven animation) or NVIDIA Audio2Face-3D; test in a packaged build (Tutorial — Authoring a Q&A Experience with Ambient Idle) |
| Captions | Subtitles and Closed Captions plug-in (Beta) or UMG widget, driven by the script (monologues) or the conversation service's text (answers) |
| Waiting behaviour | Layered idle Animation Blueprint, Look At gaze, random fidgets, blinks, breathing |
| Costumes | Marvelous Designer USD → Chaos Cloth Cloth Asset → Outfit Asset → MetaHuman Creator (Tutorial — Marvelous Designer Garment to MetaHuman Outfit) |
| Lighting | Lumen / MegaLights for kiosk; baked or Lumen Lite for headsets |
| Crowds | MetaHuman Collections (experimental) |
| Streaming | Pixel Streaming 2 |
| XR | OpenXR, Meta XR plugin, Android XR plugin, Vive OpenXR; visionOS full immersion |
| Editor AI | MCP plugin (experimental) for LLM-assisted editor tasks; staff use only |
Per-surface build settings
| Target | Renderer | Character | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kiosk (Windows) | Deferred, Lumen/MegaLights, TSR | Cine, strands | Auto-start, watchdog, offline fallback |
| Quest / Vive standalone / Android XR | Mobile forward, MSAA, fixed foveation | Optimized, cards | 72–90 fps target; baked lighting |
| PC-VR (Vive Focus Vision via DisplayPort) | Forward or deferred | Cine where budget allows | Tethered hero demos |
| Vision Pro | Full immersion (Metal) | Optimized | Build on a Mac |
Owners: technical director, Unreal engineer, XR engineer. Tutorials: Unreal — Tutorials · start here: Tutorial — Getting Started with Unreal Engine 5.8