Unreal Engine
Dance Animation Challenge
- Client
- Epic Games
- Roles
- Creative Director, Stage design and lighting, Launch trailer
- Year
- 2025
In June 2025 Epic Games ran the Unreal Engine Dance Animation Challenge on ArtStation. Animators had to make a 10-second dance in Unreal Engine 5.6, all with the same music track and the same scene.
I made that scene, and the launch trailer.
The stage had to look finished straight out of the box and run well on lots of different machines, so the animators could focus on their dance. I went for a high-contrast studio stage with volumetric fog and rim lights to keep the character’s silhouette readable, with exposure and post-process already set up. The geometry and materials were kept light and modular, because every entrant had to download the file.
For the trailer I worked out the choreography of the cut and the cameras, and edited it to the challenge track.
The winners were announced on 4 August 2025. Their dances are their own work, and you can see them on my stage in Epic’s winners’ reel.
