Seventh International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

Video game engines are powering our visual futures as game developers continue to iterate their products to tackle new industry verticals. This analysis draws from software studies and studies of visual culture to examine an engine-based tool that is fairly new to the arsenal of game developer Epic Games—the in-development MetaHuman Creator—and poses the central question: Do the rapid prototyping and building tools of digital content support the free play of identity in playable media? The MetaHuman Creator is a cloud-streamed application that lets content developers create high-fidelity digital characters without being steeped in the technical processes of character generation, rigging, animation, and in-engine real-time functionality. Epic’s tool draws from a library of real scans of people and allows 3D content developers to quickly create unique photorealistic fully-rigged digital humans. The tool allows visual artists to rapidly and seamlessly manipulate a character’s facial features, adjust skin complexion, and select from a range of preset body types and styles. Commercial demonstrations of the MetaHuman tool speed through a series of mutable multiethnic, multiracial, transgender subjects as part of a fluid design process that cleaves bodies from politics. As the engine-driven traces of the natural world continue to move toward greater fidelity and to a greater alignment between physiognomic and mechanical systems, this research asks: Is the MetaHuman Creator an engine for diversity, or simply a spectacle of control?

Presenters

Eric Freedman
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Academic Affairs, Truman State University, Armed Forces Americas, United States