This is 3Lateral!
For digital characters to look and feel convincing, assets and animation must work together flawlessly.
3Lateral and Cubic Motion were acquired by Epic Games in 2019 and 2020 respectively. As a result, digital asset pioneers at 3Lateral have joined forces with world-leading animation specialists at Cubic Motion. Our combined team has established a digital character powerhouse that brings together decades of expertise across dozens of successful AAA game development productions.
Under the 3Lateral banner and as a part of Epic Games’ team developing the MetaHuman framework, we’re dedicated to delivering best-in-class digital character services that harness the power of proven MetaHuman assets and production standards.
We create innovative technologies that digitize human appearance and motion, and establish the next frontiers of realism.
As well as contributing to some of the most iconic narrative-driven and character- centric AAA games in recent years, our end-to-end services are used in animation, film, and VFX to bring the highest-fidelity digital characters to life.
Since our aquisition by Epic Games, we’ve supported the development of technology that aims to establish character creation and animation standards. These tools enable more than a million creators to tell stories with characters of fidelity previously only achievable in the most advanced professional productions.
In addition to our contribution to the MetaHuman framework, we also provide services supporting AAA game development projects that strive for the highest-fidelity characters and push the frontiers of interactive storytelling.
The 3Lateral Story
Over more than a decade, 3Lateral and Cubic Motion have been evolving side by side as teams renowned for innovation and research-driven production services, well established across the game development industry globally.
3Lateral was founded with the vision of creating interactive digital humans, while Cubic Motion has been built around complementary character technologies focused on performance-driven facial animation solutions. Early pioneering work put the teams at the forefront of digital human creation and animation.
3Lateral officially became part of Epic Games in 2019, advancing their character technologies stack and providing a foundation for Epic’s MetaHuman framework. The following year, in 2020, Cubic Motion also joined Epic Games to further accelerate MetaHuman development and to close the full character production pipeline within Epic Games.
Together, under 3Lateral brand, the teams share a passion for the development of their complementary character technologies and for the delivery of state-of-the-art character creation and animation services.
A Boy & His Kite
Epic Games and 3Lateral collaborate on the Unreal Engine 4 open-world demo and short film A Boy and His Kite. Released at the Game Developers Conference to celebrate Unreal Engine 4 going free, the demo showcases a character embodying childlike curiosity and freedom, demonstrating the engine's advanced capabilities in character animation and real-time rendering.
Hellblade Live Performance and Real-Time Animation
3Lateral collaborates with Ninja Theory on a real-time animation demo for their critically acclaimed title, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. The collaboration involves creating the lead character, Senua, in partnership with Cubic Motion and Epic Games, and having Ninja Theory’s Melina Juergens drive a live performance as Senua on stage at the Game Developers Conference. The game goes on to win multiple awards at the The Game Awards 2017 and earns recognition for Best Real-Time Graphics and Interactivity at SIGGRAPH 2016.
Meet Mike VR
Epic Games, 3Lateral, and Cubic Motion partner on an Unreal Engine 4 project featuring digital human researcher Mike Seymour using the latest techniques in advanced motion capture and animation to produce a runtime virtual realistic human at 90 fps in VR. During the SIGGRAPH 2017 live installation, participants were invited to have conversations in VR with Mike in order to experience new levels of photorealistic interaction.
Siren
Epic Games, Cubic Motion, and 3Lateral develop Siren, a groundbreaking digital human showcasing the capabilities of Unreal Engine 4 for realistic real-time character rendering and animation. The real-time performance at the Game Developers Conference delivered in collaboration with Tencent and Vicon demonstrates how high-fidelity facial animation and mirror human emotion. This development work leads to the release of Cubic Motion’s Persona facial mocap solution, enabling users to create their own real-time character performances.
Digital Andy Serkis and Osiris Black
Alongside Epic Games, 3Lateral showcases advanced 4D-derived digital characters featuring actor Andy Serkis at the Game Developers Conference. Using the MetaHuman framework, they demonstrate realistic facial expressions and movements rendered in real-time in Unreal Engine 4 and show how the same performance can animate two vastly different characters, paving the way for diverse applications in visual effects, interactive entertainment, and AI.
3Lateral Joins Epic Games
Epic Games acquires 3Lateral and invests heavily in the further development of digital character technology that supports the game, film, and broadcasting industries.
Cubic Motion joins Epic Games and merges with 3Lateral
Cubic Motion becomes part of Epic Games. 3Lateral and Cubic Motion merge to form a synergy of creative and technical mastery spanning across high-fidelity digital character creation and animation.
MetaHuman Creator
Relying on core elements derived from 3Lateral’s MetaHuman Framework, Epic Games releases cloud-based character creation tool MetaHuman Creator in Early Access. MetaHuman Creator enables users to design convincing digital humans by customizing preset 3D characters, and saves production time it takes to create high-fidelity characters from weeks or months to minutes.
MetaHuman Animator
Epic Games releases MetaHuman Animator, the much anticipated facial animation and performance capture toolset for its MetaHuman product suite, enabling users to create high-quality facial animation for MetaHumans in minutes.
BlueDot
3Lateral's animated short Blue Dot showcases their latest innovation in digital character production and pushes the development of MetaHuman Animator. The film features MetaHuman standards applied to a digital double of a Serbian actor Radivoje Bukvić, whose facial asset fidelity is upgraded with 4D data and rendered in real-time in Unreal Engine 5.
3Lateral announces new branding
3Lateral introduces its new branding and AAA centric character creation and animation services offering. Our team is present across three locations: Novi Sad (Serbia), Manchester (UK), and Los Angeles (USA).
Careers with 3Lateral
At 3Lateral, an Epic Games company, we’re always looking for people who can inspire us and bring new ideas, skills, and knowledge to the table. As part of our team, you’ll join a company with strong principles that nurtures creativity, promotes continuous collaboration, and strives to give you the tools you need to succeed.
What we offer:
- Flexible work hours to support a healthy work-life balance
- Long-term career development through continuous education
- The opportunity to work with exciting new technologies on ambitious industry-changing projects
- Opportunities to attend major industry conferences and seminars
- The freedom to work autonomously
- Friendly and supportive working environments
- A comprehensive benefit package that includes mental wellbeing and coaching
- Sessions, neurodiversity support, and reproductive and family healthcare support
- A generous time off policy
Interested in joining our team? Check out our current vacancies:
Current VacanciesWe are always interested to meet potential team members to join our fast-growing dynamic team of professionals. If you would like to join us, you can always contact us via email [email protected].
We're looking forward to hearing from you!
