Games Engines Increase Their Power

Game engines have been exploited in defence for many years but the companies behind them are also moving into providing professional services for the simulation and training community. MS&T Special Correspondent Andy Fawkes reports.

What is a Games Engine?

The term games engine started to appear in the early 1990s as some designers saw the economies of developing a series of games on a common software platform and separating the more technical aspects such as 3D image generation from the design and content. Early examples of games engines that were later licensed to other companies were id Software’s Doom (1993) and then Quake engines (1996) and Epic Games Unreal Engine (1998).

Now, games engines have grown to be a key part of the gaming industry. Although without a formal definition they are generally considered to be a software-development environment for the purpose of building video games and simulations. They have core functionalities such as 2D/3D graphics rendering, physics, sound, animation, artificial intelligence, and networking and may also have capabilities including data and analytics, multiplayer and matchmaking, and content libraries.

Why Games Engines?

Games engines service a $175bn (Newzoo 2020) growing global video games market that is dynamic, highly competitive, and technologically demanding. They have contributed to the rapid development of the industry providing a focus for technology development for all software, hardware, and business stakeholders, with each generation of knowledge built on the last. Games engines also enable personnel to transfer their knowledge more easily and move between projects, and the more popular engines have vibrant sharing communities on platforms such as YouTube and Discord.

Games engines also allow games designers to deploy their games and content more easily across a wide range of hardware including desktop, consoles, mobile and XR, whether locally or in the cloud. It is perhaps worth adding that using the best games engine does not guarantee success. Ultimately it is down to the games design, its marketing and often timing and good fortune.

Games Engines Diversity

Similar to other software, there are many ways games engines are developed, distributed, and managed. Some engines are proprietary and exclusive to a games publisher such as Frostbite (EA Games), some are proprietary but licensed to others, for example Unity and Unreal, and some are open source such a Godot. A key factor is also the skill level required to use the software. Roblox Studio enables children of age 7+ to design and share their own games on the Roblox platform and GameMaker supports commercial game design without having to learn a programming language first.

Whether designers should use a general-purpose games engine or more specialised bespoke software is an organisational and technological decision. Bespoke software provides the exact functionality required but is likely to require specialist support not just for the design but in the long term which is likely to drive costs up and lead to vendor lock-in. General purpose games engines may not provide the exact functionality required but costs are likely lower because design, support and training will be available from a number of different sources.

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The Military and Games Engines

Games engines have not gone unnoticed by the military and as early as 1996 “Marine Doom” was created internally by US Marines for 4-person fireteam training. Conceived in 1999 and still available, America's Army was the first game to feature Unreal Engine 2 and was launched in 2002 as a US Army recruitment tool. Working with the US Marines and Australian Army, Bohemia Interactive released VBS in 2004 based on the Operation Flashpoint game engine. Nowadays games engines are routinely used across defence as we shall see. It is perhaps worth adding that the military also exploit games off the shelf such as ARMA and also rely on specialised military virtual simulations such as BISim’s VBS4, Lockheed Martin’s Prepa3D, and MetaVR’s VRSG. However, the focus of this article are games engines that are used across industry sectors.

The Big Players

A previously mentioned, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine now has over two decades of development and later this year Unreal Engine 5 will be released. Epic’s founder and CEO Tim Sweeney developed the concept of the Unreal Engine in the mid-90s, telling Gamasutra in 2009 that “it was important to spend even more effort on the editor and tools than the actual game itself to empower the artists to make a great game”.

Now Unreal supports the development of some of the most popular games playable across multiple platforms including Epic’s own Fortnite which has 350m accounts. Unreal together with online services such as content libraries are also being exploited in a wide range of creative, marketing, engineering, and training industries. Epic told MS&T they: “provide an end-to-end digital ecosystem for developers and creators.”

Unity Technologies was founded in 2004 and like Epic Games the founders saw value in creating development tools to “democratize” game development. Early to deploy to Apple’s App Store in 2008, the Unity engine was largely uncontested on the iPhone becoming in time a dominant games development environment for mobile devices. Unity told MS&T that it now has 2.5bn monthly active end-users who consumed content created or operated with Unity solutions. Unity also supports content creation for game consoles, desktops, and augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) devices.

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Games Engines in Action

The use of games engines by the military is now a reality. We spoke to SimCentric who have developed their SAF-TAC™ capability based on Unreal 4. SAF-TAC supports individual training, collective training, mission rehearsal and experimentation, and through a UK DASA award they are experimenting with a VR-first approach complimented by desktop and mobile. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of SimCentric, Adam Easton explained that they looked at traditional defence simulations but felt that the open nature of games engines appealed as they could examine its source code, which gave comfort both to MoD customers and the company.

“When we are bidding on a tender, we can say with some confidence that we'll be able to provide a solution,” Easton said. For long term supportability it was preferable not to change the source code, but they knew they were able should it be necessary. A second advantage of Unreal for Easton was its Blueprints Visual Scripting system which provides a visual drag and drop fast prototyping scripting capability. “It allows designers and non-programmers to more easily add functionality,” he told MS&T.

Another area of advantage for SimCentric was support. Easton explained that when they started to work with Unreal “at the time Epic were far more active in terms of supporting and moving into the military space.” For the longer-term Easton explained how the games engine “is the glue that we are building a lot of our technologies around … it's not just its visual fidelity but it is sufficiently flexible and expandable that we're able to integrate our other products, providing one synthetic environment as a company that we can build around.”

MS&T also spoke to Niall Campion, Co-Founder and Director at VRAI about their use of Unity. Founded in 2017, VRAI create data-driven VR-based simulation training for high hazard environments, including for defence and for off-shore energy. VRAI is headquartered in Dublin and at the start Campion explained that it was all about the available talent pool and they chose Unity because “the only interactive 3D developers we could find four years ago were all Unity based”.

Many of their projects continue to exploit Unity but they see the need to be able to integrate VRAI technology into other simulation software. As an example, they are embarking on a UK DASA-funded programme to improve the RAF’s ability to measure and predict pilot performance using a combination of VR & data analytics technology, and for that they are using Lockheed Martin’s Prepar3D “because it already supports flying” Campion explained.

Another relatively young company, HTX Labs from Houston, Texas has also seen the benefits of exploiting games engines for training in highly regulated industries. After starting out in 2017 with a number of Unreal Engine-based demos they went on to provide a VR Emergency Procedure (EP) trainer as part of USAF’s Pilot Training Next (PTN) program. In 2020 HTX went on to secure a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II award from the Air Force to expand their EMPACT® a training management and delivery platform. Part of the “Maintenance Next (MXN) program”, a key driver is to exploit VR and Unreal capabilities to enable the rapid creation of immersive training content with the aim of transferring expertise from "exemplar" senior airmen to less experienced airmen.

Games engines are also finding their place in military AR applications. The US Army is developing the Microsoft HoloLens-based Integrated Virtual Augmentation System (IVAS) with plans to deploy 40,000 headsets by the end of 2021. Training content within the system is created with Unity. The games engine is also being exploited across a range of applications including maintenance and repair and real-world medical training applications, Unity told MS&T.

The Move to Services

Games engines have been exploited by defence for many years typically without the direct involvement of the games engine company other than for software licensing. However, in recognition of the potential growth of the interactive 3D simulation market companies such as Epic Games and Unity are moving into providing professional services such as support and training.

Unity is now providing services to help customers adopt their platforms, regardless of industry, telling MS&T: “we take the same approach to military simulation customers as we do with architecture, automotive and game developers: provide support and training to enable any customers to adopt - and optimize – real time 3D technology to meet their development needs.”

Epic Games have a dedicated team of experts to assist their customers including custom on-site training and support. Keen to work with existing simulation and training workflows, Epic told MS&T: “We believe there is a lot of wisdom in promoting the use of existing interoperability and format adopted industry standards.”

The Future

Games engines are a key factor in driving growth and technology in the games market but also are responding to wider advances in technology such as the cloud, AI, and data and analytics. Improving ease of use for games engines is another driver, especially as a whole generation of children have grown up with accessible platforms such as Minecraft. Perhaps the future will include a “Roblox for Training” where the military themselves can easily create and share 3D interactive content.

MS&T reported on the Metaverse in 2020 and Epic Games, Unity and many technology companies continue advocating this future construct. Building the Metaverse however, will require greatly improved interoperability between games engines, or at least the content that they use and generate, and this may well bring great benefits for future military S&T.

Procurement and Language

Although some organisations such as USAF have given security clearance to the use of specified games engines software, generally military procurement bodies take a “laissez faire” approach leaving it to their contractors to choose. This approach encourages competition, but without any co-ordination enterprise-wide S&T knowledge and content sharing is diminished.

Easton told MS&T: “the real benefit from game engines for defence is that they provide a mechanism to separate the management of simulation models and data from the management of the simulation applications.” There is also perhaps another issue of language. Games engines can for many customers be considered to be real-time 3D development platforms, a term used by Unity, but they also convey a message that the military is embracing and leveraging off the latest technology well known to Generation Z, something the senior military often wish to promote. Either way, games engines and the wider tools and communities they bring appear here to stay. Specialised military simulation software is by no means dead, but it looks like games engines will lower the barriers to entry for companies into the military S&T market and empower the military to create and share their own S&T content. The democratisation of S&T.