I know very little about CGI, so sorry if this is dumb I guess…
But why would they even consider using a game engine in the first place instead of a program like Maya or Blender? Is it just a bit easier to use for simple things or something? Surely everyone who works for the studios is already used to using software that’s actually specifically for 3D modeling/animation. Also surely Maya/Blender will always give significantly higher quality renders anyway since it doesn’t have to render in real time like a game would… just why?
I know very little about CGI, so sorry if this is dumb I guess…
But why would they even consider using a game engine in the first place instead of a program like Maya or Blender? Is it just a bit easier to use for simple things or something? Surely everyone who works for the studios is already used to using software that’s actually specifically for 3D modeling/animation. Also surely Maya/Blender will always give significantly higher quality renders anyway since it doesn’t have to render in real time like a game would… just why?
Like he said, shortcuts. You have to make everything by hand in Maya, including the lighting.
Rendering in real time is, well, real time.
It takes dozens of hours to render seconds of some CGI movies.
It’s just cheaper in time and literal energy costs to use game engines that live render everything.