Unreal Engine for Auto with Mapbox
By: Christine Moloney
Epic Games is integrating Mapbox into its Unreal Engine as part of their HMI initiative to enable the next generation of infotainment and digital cockpit user experience — here’s a sneak peek.
The move to offer Unreal in an HMI-specific package brings the award-winning design features of the Unreal Engine to automotive, starting with GMC’s Hummer EV. These features enable developers to iterate on their vision faster and include version control, visual scripting via Blueprints, and direct access to the C++ codebase. With Mapbox, Unreal is incorporating map rendering and navigation capabilities into the real-time 3D creation tool that is completely customizable.
User interface elements are created and rendered with the Unreal Engine, enabling the full spectrum of capabilities of the game engine on the automotive infotainment screen. Maps are created with Mapbox Studio and then placed into Unreal. Epic will be rolling out more HMI-specific features in Unreal Engine in the coming months and throughout 2021.
“Mapbox’s powerful design tool, style switching support, and sleek performance make it a great solution for mapping. With its suite of other features for automotive, it is a compelling navigation solution.” — Joe Andresen, Technical Product Manager HMI, Epic Games.
Drop us a line to learn more about what’s in store for Unreal or sign up for a Mapbox account and start building your custom navigation experience today.
