For those who don’t know the tool: Twinmotion is a real-time viz app powered by Unreal Engine, built for quick scene assembly, lighting, and outputs without living in node graphs.

Photo matching, now less of a dark art

Twinmotion 2026.1 adds a photo matching workflow built around a new Match Perspective tool. You load a background image as a backplate, identify vanishing points (Lines or Grid), and the camera adjusts position and focal length to match the image. The goal is simple: get a 3D model to sit reasonably convincingly inside a 2D photo without hand-tuning camera parameters for an afternoon.

The tool also includes shadow projection from 3D objects onto the calculated ground plane. That helps sell integration when the backplate already has strong directional cues. If you do client-facing previz or quick location studies, this is one of those features that saves time. It also nudges Twinmotion closer to the familiar backplate plus camera-match workflow many artists already use elsewhere, just with fewer steps and less guesswork.

Autosoft edge: a band-aid, in the best way

CG edges can read too sharp, especially when you are chasing photo-like results in a simplified lookdev context. Twinmotion 2026.1 introduces Autosoft edge, a rendering effect you can apply to selected objects to soften hard edges to a specified radius.

Autosoft Edge works in Standard, Lumen, and Path Tracer modes. That means you can keep one scene and one intent while switching render modes, without losing the edge treatment that helps prevent the razor-cut silhouette look. This is not a replacement for proper bevels when the model needs to withstand close-ups or be exchanged with other tools. It is a pragmatic option for when the scene is already in motion, the imported geometry is what it is, and you want a controllable, consistent soften in teh renderer.

Lighting channels: finally, selective light sanity

Twinmotion 2026.1 adds support for lighting channels. Lights only affect objects assigned to the same channel. In practice, this gives you the abiility to isolate what a physical light influences, which is a staple control in many pipelines.

A concrete example: you can keep your background lighting from touching a hero object in a product or fashion setup. That is useful when you want a clean key and fill on the subject, while the environment stays moody or stylised without contaminating the hero’s exposure and specular response.

Lighting channels do not magically solve bad lighting decisions, but they do let you build a scene that behaves more like a studio rig. You can steer light contribution with intent instead of compensating with endless tweaks to intensity and position.

Camera and lens effects: focus breathing for people who enjoy pain

Twinmotion 2026.1 adds Auto focus for depth of field. With Auto focus enabled, the focal point can automatically adjust to the centre of the screen, effectively following the camera’s look-at point. You can set how long it takes to adjust focus.

There is also a hunting behaviour option. The setting lets you choose whether hunting happens occasionally, frequently, or not at all. That is a very specific kind of realism knob, and it is nice to see it treated as a creative control rather than a bug you have to hide.

Depth of field bokeh gets two new characteristics: Anamorphic oval and Petzval. These affect the blur quality in out-of-focus areas, including elongated and swirling bokeh looks. The two can be used individually or combined. Holga-Hipsters, eat your heart out :P

A Barrel distortion slider rounds out the lens pack, curving straight lines near the edges of frame like real lenses, especially wide-angle ones. All of this points at a consistent theme: Twinmotion is leaning harder into camera language, not just lighting and assets. Which is excellent, if your deliverable is stills and clips that need to read as photographs rather than renders.

Particle VFX: more control, less waiting

Twinmotion 2026.1 revamps the particle-based effects in the Twinmotion library. The update optimised performance and visual quality, and it adds new examples.

More importantly for day-to-day work, the particle effects now have exposed parameters, so you can customise them. The examples called out include fire, fog, smoke, and water.

If your scenes lean on atmospherics to sell scale or mood, parameterised VFX is much more useful than locked presets. It turns the library from a look-up table into something you can art-direct.

European trees, and the stuff you only notice when it breaks

Twinmotion 2026.1 adds a European tree pack: 10 new species of photorealistic European trees, each with three variations, added to the Twinmotion library. If you build outdoor scenes for European contexts, that is straight-up practical content, not just another generic “coloured blob” set. And we are not making any political jokes here; we are talking about trees.

The release also changes how asset libraries live on disk. Twinmotion now manages the location of all asset libraries, including user libraries and user-generated content, in a persistent folder structure. This replaces the previous per-version folder structure.

The point is to stop making you copy, move, or redownload content each release. The persistent structure is intended to enable content to be shared across future versions and simplify file paths.

This is the kind of improvement that rarely makes a reel, but it absolutely shows up in the daily friction budget. Fewer duplicate paths also tends to mean fewer broken links, fewer “where did that go” moments, and less time spent doing file system archaeology. N oinformation yet hopw that integrates with existing asset management systems, like das element or others.

Availability and pricing

Twinmotion 2026.1 is available to download. Existing users can download it via the Epic Games Launcher, and subscribers can also download via the Developer Portal.

Pricing depends on who you are and what you need. Twinmotion is free to use for individuals and small businesses under $1 million USD in revenue in the past 12 months, educational institutions, and students. For individuals and businesses over $1 million USD in gross annual revenue, and/or requiring access to Twinmotion Cloud, Twinmotion seats cost $445 per seat per year.

There is also an Unreal Subscription option listed at $1,850 per seat per year, which includes upgrades for Unreal Engine, Twinmotion, and RealityScan for one year, plus access to Twinmotion Cloud. The All-in-one-thingy sub :)

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/twinmotion/twinmotion-2026-1-release-notes

The post Epic Games ships Twinmotion 2026.1 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Epic Games has published Automotive Substrate Materials as a free download on Fab. The pack is built entirely on Substrate and is positioned as a production-ready material foundation for automotive visualization, with the explicit goal of delivering consistent results across Lumen and Path Tracing workflows. In practical terms: it is a big, curated library meant to reduce the amount of time artists spend reinventing “car paint, but again” in every new project.

Compatibility is spelled out, too: the materials are compatible with Unreal Engine 5.7.3 and later. If your studio is still emotionally attached to an older engine branch, this pack is not going to negotiate with you.

What is inside the pack

Epic’s own breakdown is specific, which is always a good sign on a Monday (We prefer small words in the Mornings, and even smaller words and easy, short sentences on a Monday Morning.). Automotive Substrate Materials includes 280 automotive-focused materials covering common vehicle material types. It also includes 150 material setup assets and roughly 50 reusable material templates (Fab’s listing calls this 47 templates).

On top of the materials themselves, there are two maps meant to serve as reference and validation spaces: a “zoo-style” overview map organised by material type, plus a calibrated look-development map built for high-quality automotive rendering.

The pack is not just a dump of nodes and textures. Epic frames it as a ground-truth reference for game development as well, meaning you can use it as a baseline for physically plausible values and repeatable results, even if the end product is not a configurator shot of a hyper-polished BMW coupe turning slowly in a void, without any other cars, which is the preferred state of being for BMW drivers. Otherwise, I can’t explain their behaviour on the streets.

Why Substrate matters here

Substrate is Unreal Engine’s newer material framework, designed to support more modular and expressive material authoring than the older fixed shading model approach. In this pack, Epic leans on that flexibility to cover surface and layering behaviour that was described as difficult or impractical with previous material systems. The examples are the usual automotive suspects, but done with the kind of detail that tends to break “generic” shaders: multi-coat car paints (single-, dual-, and triple-coat), waxed leathers, and advanced translucent materials with renderer-specific behaviour. (Indicators, which is useless if you render BMWs, but useful for all other cars.)

Epic also calls out complex surface responses, including glints and coloured glints, thin-film interference, anisotropy, perforation with masking, plus controlled imperfections such as fingerprints and scratches. There are also production-friendly controls for colour (tint and HSV) and map-driven parameters such as roughness and specular, alongside flexible mapping options, including UV and triplanar workflows. That is a long list, but the short version is: the pack is built to survive close-ups and does not assume your camera will politely stay far away. And this time, we are avoiding the BMW-in-the-rearview-mirror-joke.

One detail that will matter for pipeline sanity is that Epic says the materials are built on a shared library of reusable material functions encapsulating common behaviours such as base colour handling, roughness and specular control, triplanar projection, imperfections, anisotropy, emissive behaviour, and perforation. That modular architecture is presented as a way to keep results consistent and reduce duplication, which is the unglamorous kind of promise that actually saves teams money. Money you could spend on a company car, like a BMW.

Measured data, Blueprint lookup, and the “trust me, it’s calibrated” problem

Epic states that material parameters are derived from lab experiments and real-world measurements, providing physically accurate defaults for automotive scenarios. For metals specifically, measured data is exposed through a Blueprint lookup tool intended to help teams select and compare metal presets while keeping values consistent across a project.

The calibration story continues on the environment side: Epic says the lighting in the look development map has been cross-checked using luminance and colour temperature meters, along with photogrammetry-based measurements, and calibrated for both Lumen and the Path Tracer. The stated intent is that you can use the map as a reproducible validation environment for automotive visualisation and game development.

This is the quiet subtext of the whole release: the pack is not only “free materials” but it is also Epic handing you a reference lab in project form. Your future self, debugging why a clear coat looks different between render modes, may send you a thank-you card. Or a passive-aggressive Jira ticket. And I’ve run out of BMW jokes.

Fab listing: Automotive Substrate Materials on Fab (Fab.com)

Additional Notes:

Uses standard texture samplers (Virtual Textures not enabled by default).

Substrate must be enabled with Adaptive GBuffer.

Separate materials provided where Lumen and Path Tracing differ.

Includes calibrated physical camera exposure based environment for validation.

Emissive values support physically accurate luminance (nits).

Decals suggest using Decal Actors.

The post 280 free automotive Substrate materials for UE 5.7 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Fab is Epic Games marketplace for 3D assets, replacing the Unreal Marketplace. It regularly offers time-limited free asset sets that you can permanently add to your library once claimed. These packs are commercially usable, work in most DCC applications and engines, and are a practical way to expand or start an asset collection without cost.

Two weeks to go before the calendar expires, and if you are looking to bury your good intentions somewhere scenic, Epic Games has the perfect spot. The Cryptic Realms Necropolis pack, normally $99.99, is free on Fab until 27 January 2026.

The pack offers 371 placeable objects to construct a stylised graveyard environment. It includes 80 modular meshes for ruins, tombs and crumbling architecture, plus graves, coffins, and set dressing items to complete the scene of your artistic demise.

Death by detail

Each asset includes 23 materials and textures, up to 4,096 by 4,096 pixels. The models support Nanite and Lumen, Unreal Engine’s systems for high-density geometry and dynamic lighting. There are three preset lighting setups to choose from, along with a modular environmental audio system to ensure your ghosts sound convincing. The pack is built for Unreal Engine 5.1 and later. However, the Fab Standard licence allows use in any engine or tool, including commercial projects, as long as the Fab EULA is followed.

Available now, before it’s dead again

The Necropolis pack can be downloaded free from Fab until 27 January 2026, after which it returns to its regular price. Perfect timing if you plan to give your old projects a decent burial before the new year arrives. As always, test assets thoroughly before using them in production or before the next resurrection of your pipeline.

The post Bury Your Good Intentions in 3D first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Epic Games has released the Ancient Temple Ruins asset pack as part of its time-limited free content on Fab. The pack includes 80 modular environment assets for creating ruined temple scenes and will remain free to download until 13 January 2026.

Created by Shapefarm Senior Environment Artist Rasmus Bagner, the set provides modular architecture (walls, roofs, floors), vegetation (trees, palms, rubber plants) and a range of small scatter props. The assets are built for Unreal Engine 5, making full use of Nanite virtualised geometry. All textures ship at up to 4096×4096px resolution.

Lumen lighting and engine flexibility

The included sample project demonstrates the assets within a Lumen lighting setup, featuring four predefined lighting environments. According to Epic, only the main tree asset includes LODs; all other models rely on Nanite for rendering efficiency. The pack is compatible with Unreal Engine 5.2 or newer.

Although designed for Unreal, the assets are released under the Fab Standard licence, which allows use in “any engine or tool”, including for commercial projects, as long as users comply with the Fab EULA.

Download and production notes

The Ancient Temple Ruins pack can be claimed from Fab’s listing page before the deadline. Once added to a user’s library, the assets remain available permanently. The models can be imported into other tools such as Blender, Maya, or 3ds Max through standard file export.

As with any new asset pack, we recommend testing performance and compatibility within active pipelines before using the models in production scenes. Seriously. Remember your New Year’s resolutions!

The post Epic drops 80 free temple assets on Fab first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Epic Games and veteran studio Secret Dimension have released the Parrot Game Sample, a fully documented, pirate-themed 2.5D platformer available in both Unreal Engine 5.6 and Unity 6, designed to make switching engines as painless as possible for developers.

Unified architecture across engines

Secret Dimension’s team—formerly Unity developers—created identical assets, level structure, gameplay flow, and project layouts in both versions. This parity extends to additive scene loading, character movement, AI systems, and behavior graphs.

Blueprint logic and C++ code in the Unreal version is clean, straightforward, and heavily annotated to match Epic’s coding standards. Supplementary PDF guides map Unity workflows—like subsystems and serialisation—to Unreal Engine 5’s equivalents.

Engine features in action

On the Unreal side, the sample integrates:

• Lumen for dynamic global illumination
• Nanite for high-fidelity, high-poly geometry
• Behavior Trees powering enemy AI logic
• World Partition for streaming segmented levels
• Sequencer to orchestrate shark animations
• UMG/CommonUI for menus and HUD
• Enhanced Input system with rebindable controls
• Single Layer Water Shading Model over physics-based water

Jump mechanics are built by extending CharacterMovementComponent. Variables like time-to-apex and apex height are exposed for designer tuning, while coyote time is implemented for forgiving jumps. The camera uses a one-way follow system, mimicking classic platformers. Material configurations use Material Functions, and lighting setups are fine-tuned to match stylized asset pipelines.

Seamless setup in Unreal Engine 5.6

Parrot requires Unreal Engine 5.6. Earlier versions are not compatible due to API changes. Precompiled binaries are included in the Fab distribution—developers need only refresh their Fab library in Epic Launcher before creating the project. Community feedback confirms this improved installation flow. On June 25, a fix was released addressing compile errors for users running 5.6 with C++ build tools.

Learning and support materials

Epic has published extensive Developer Documentation covering gameplay framework, serialization, subsystems, audio, combat, character movement, and the “Unity to Unreal Engine Overview” guide. With this, users can follow well-documented steps comparing practically each feature and level between engines. Parrot is also featured in June’s free Epic learning content alongside Chaos Cloth updates and performance optimization guidance. All sample code and assets are under a CC0 license. They draw from creators like Kenney.nl, Quaternius, and OpenGameArt—meaning developers can remix without legal hurdles.

Why it matters

This isn’t just a demo—it’s a complete template for migrating entire pipelines. Input handling, UI structures, save systems, audio routing, and AI frameworks all align across Unity and Unreal, reducing friction when transitioning. Developers should still validate features and performance within their own pipelines before committing code—this is a guide, not a production guarantee.

Get to the Island here on Fab.com

And here you get the Full Docuimentation

The post Parrot Sample: Engine Switch from Unity to Unreal Without Headaches? first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.