Nov 10, 2021 11:50:00

Unity acquires Weta Digital, allowing anyone to use Avengers and Lord of the Rings VFX technology

'

Hara God ' and ' Pokemon GO game engine' that has been used in the development of the ' Unity ' is not only a game production video production andautomotive design has been utilized in a wide range of fields, such as. Unity, which develops such Unity, will acquire 'Weta Digital ', which has been in charge of VFX for super famous works such as 'Lord of the Rings ' and ' Avatar ', for $ 1,625 million (about 183.4 billion yen) I agreed.

Welcome Weta Digital! | Unity Blog
https://blog.unity.com/news/welcome-weta-digital

Unity announces intent to acquire Weta Digital's tools, pipeline, technology, and engineering talent | Weta Digital
https://www.wetafx.co.nz/articles/unity-announces-intent-to-acquire-weta-digitals-tools-pipeline-technology-and-engineering-talent/

Unity to Acquire Weta Digital VFX Tech Division for $ 1.625 Billion --Variety
https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/unity-acquires-weta-digital-1235107544/

Weta Digital is a company that has been in charge of VFX for many dramas and movies, 'The Lord of the Rings', 'The Lord of the Rings / Two Towers ', 'The Lord of the Rings / King's' He has won the Academy's Best Visual Effects Award for his six works, 'Return, ' ' King Kong, ' 'Avatar,' and ' Jungle Book.'

Weta Digital's official YouTube channel shows the making movie of the work that has been in charge of VFX, and you can check the tremendous VFX technology. For example, in the making movie of 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Adventure ' below, you can see the process of creating a large-scale group battle and a realistically depicted fictitious cityscape.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey VFX | Weta Digital --YouTube


In addition, in the following movie, you can see the production process of 'Large-scale battle scene where heroes gather' in ' Avengers / Endgame ' where Weta Digital was in charge of VFX.

Avengers: Endgame VFX | Weta Digital --YouTube


With the acquisition, Unity has '275 engineers who have designed, developed and maintained Weta Digital's VFX tools,' 'Dozens of Weta Digital's VFX tools,' and 'Thousands of Weta Digital's accumulated.' It is said that it will acquire 'Mono Asset Library'. Among them, 'Dozens of VFX tools of Weta Digital' includes the following tools.

・ Physics-based high-speed renderer ' Manuka '
-Rendering result confirmation system 'Gazebo' during work
・ Physics simulation tool 'Loki' for water, fire, smoke, hair, cloth, muscles, plants, etc.
・ Rigging tool 'Koru'
・ Facial expression capture tool 'Facial Tech'
・ 'Barbershop', a tool for realistically depicting hair and animal fur
・ Vegetation management tools 'Lumberjack' & 'Totara'

Both companies are planning to build a mechanism that allows users to use the above tools via the cloud. After the acquisition, Weta Digital will continue to be an independent organization called Weta FX. 'Weta Digital tools and great engineers will accelerate our mission to'provide high-performance tools that are easy to use to realize the vision of content creators,'' Unity said of the acquisition. 'Our goal is Putting these world-class VFX tools into the hands of millions of creators and artists around the world for next-generation real-time 3D creativity. We, Metaverse, are built by content creators. We believe that users can use Weta Digital's tools to create a wide variety of content, including metaverses. '

Unity's revenue for the third quarter of 2021 was $ 286.3 million (about 32.3 billion yen), up 43% from the same period of the previous year, and the revenue forecast for the fourth quarter of 2021 is $ 285 million to 290 million. It is estimated to be 10,000 dollars (about 32.2 billion yen to about 32.7 billion yen). Unity's acquisition of Weta Digital is also expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021.