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Book of the Dead
Unity’s award-winning Demo Team, creators of Adam, is excited to announce Book of the Dead, a first-person interactive demo showcasing the capabilities of Unity 2018 for powering high-end visuals for game productions.
Book of the dead teaser

A powerful rendering pipeline

Book of the Dead demonstrates what is possible when using Unity 2018’s Scriptable Render Pipeline, which provides enhanced customizability of Unity’s rendering architecture, putting more control in the hands of the developers.

The project is built on the High-Definition Render Pipeline template which ships with Unity 2018 and various powerful customizations enabled by the SRP.

Making of blog series
Photogrammetry assets, trees, VFX
Photogrammetry assets, trees, VFX

CG and VFX artist Zdravko Pavlov digs into creating the photogrammetry assets, trees, and the VFX used in Book of the Dead. Take a look at the thought process and workflow that went into creating such a stunning environment.

Environment art
Environment art

Julien Heijmans covers Megascans usage, wind system, scene building and content optimization tricks in Book of the Dead.

Unity’s demo team: the creators behind Unity’s most stunning visuals
Unity’s demo team: the creators behind Unity’s most stunning visuals

A behind-the-scenes look at the Unity demo team, who are exploring and pushing the limits of what is possible to achieve with the Unity engine.

Concept art
Concept art

Georgi Simeonov goes behind the scenes of Book of the Dead. Explore the concept art and thought processes that the Unity Demo team went through when bringing this world to life.

Character and hero assets
Character and hero assets

Learn about the design and inspiration of ‘Screwie’ characters in Book of the Dead from Unity Demo team character/environment artist Plamen Tamnev.

Book of the Dead

Book of the Dead

The project ran 30 fps in 1080p on PS4 Pro, Xbox One X and Windows/DX11 (mid-range gaming system). It was also supported on macOS/Metal, Windows/Vulkan/DX12 as well as on PS4, Xbox One and Xbox One S.

Next level rendering
Next level rendering

GDC 2018: Book of the Dead and Unity’s new HD Render pipeline—in-Editor demo at Unity’s Keynote.

Book of the Dead on PS4 Pro
Book of the Dead on PS4 Pro

Book of the Dead is an interactive demo that combines elements from both film and games. The trailer is representative of the actual gameplay experience. The environments are built in a way that allows the player to move around and explore.

Book of the Dead at Apple’s WWDC
Book of the Dead at Apple’s WWDC

Running in real-time on the MacBook and eGPU on the massive keynote stage screen at WWDC 2018.

Real-world environment assets

Real-world environment assets

All of the natural environment assets in the demo are photogrammetry-scanned real-world objects and textures. The majority of them come from Quixel Megascans, a publicly available library of high-quality scanned assets, which is used widely by high-end game production and film VFX professionals alike.

For creating its own photogrammetry assets, the Demo team used the experimental Delighting Tool developed by Unity Labs in its workflow.

Pushing the envelope

Pushing the envelope

Unity’s Demo productions drive advanced use of the Unity engine through autonomous creative projects. The team consists of experienced game professionals led by Creative Director Veselin Efremov, who writes and directs the demos and is responsible for their final look.

Focusing on graphics, the team explores and pushes the limits of what is possible to achieve with the Unity engine. The unique position of an internal team is that it is willing and able to take the risk—and pain—of basing entire productions at the bleeding edge of technological innovation.

Credits

Demo team

Writer, Director, Art Director
Veselin Efremov

Producer
Silvia Rasheva

Technical Director
Torbjorn Laedre

Concept Art Director
Georgi Simeonov

Animation Director
Krasimir Nechevski

Sr. Graphics Programmer
Robert Cupisz

Character Art
Plamen ‘Paco’ Tamnev

Lead 3D Artist
Plamen “Paco” Tamnev

Environment Art
Veselin Efremov
Zdravko Pavlov
Julien Heijmans

VFX Art
Zdravko Pavlov

Systems Programmer
Malte Hildingsson

Junior Programmer
Dominykas Kiauleikis

Cast

Karen
Louise Ryme

Interviewer
Joshua Lenn

The Bishop
Stephen Rappaport

Screwies
Leonid Yovchev

Additional art

Sound Design and Music
Aleksander Karshikoff

Additional Environment Art
Tihomir Nyagolov
Tinko Wiezorrek

Scanned Natural Assets
Quixel

Additional Character Art
Alexander Ponomarev

Audio Production
Pole Position

Motion Capture & Additional Animation
Aneta Spasova

Special Thanks: Nikolay Toshev, Mihail Moskov

Music

Requiem in D minor, K.626 (Lacrimosa)
Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Arranged and Performed by Aleksander Karshikoff

Unity Technologies R&D

Sebastien Lagarde, Tim Cooper, Kuba Cupisz, Jesper Mortensen, Thomas Hourdel, Yibing Jiang, Julien Ignace, Morten Mikkelsen, Ionut Nedelcu, Xiao Ling Yao, Yuanxing Cai, Vlad Andreev, Evgenii Golubev, Uygar Kalem, John Elliott, Tobias Alexander Franke, Kasper Engelstoft, Mikko Strandborg, Felipe Lira, Arnaud Carré, Natalya Tatarchuk

© 2021 Unity Technologies ApS