Director Chad Eikhoff harnesses Epic Games’ Unreal Engine technology to Craft Christmas Cheer for the 2020 Holiday Season
The director best-known for “The Elf on the Shelf: An Elf’s Story” and the founder of TRICK 3D Studio, Chad Eikhoff, today announced that his team has received an Epic MegaGrant by Epic Games, which is being used to create a 3D animated short for this 2020 Holiday season. The original short, titled "The Jolliest Elf," will transport kids and families to Santa's North Pole stage for a spectacular reality TV-style talent competition. "The concept of ‘The Jolliest Elf’ requires new technology to make it come to life," says Stacy Shade, head of studio for TRICK 3D. "And, Unreal Engine is the foundational element for the new pipeline Chad is spearheading for this short but also for subsequent projects coming from him and from our studio.”
Director Chad Eikhoff’s team is bringing together real-time gaming technology, Apple's iPhone 3D facial capture, inertial motion capture, key frame animation and NVIDIA's latest RTX ray tracing for real-time physics, lighting and rendering. “I’m ecstatic about this approach because I believe in empowering animators,” remarks Eikhoff. “My approach to updating the animation process focuses on bringing animators’ visions to life faster and with more clarity. It’s my goal to one day have animators' names be synonymous with their characters and Unreal Engine is key to making that happen."
The Epic Mega Grants is a $100 million program from Epic Games designed to support game developers, enterprise professionals, media and entertainment creators, students and educators doing amazing things with Unreal Engine. “Unreal Engine is empowering creators to usher in a new era of storytelling and media productions,” says Rob DiFiglia, manager of business development at Epic Games. "Through Epic MegaGrants, we are proud to support talented teams like TRICK 3D who recognize the opportunities of real-time technology.”
TRICK 3D is set to disclose the short’s release date next week as well as additional announcements pertaining to “The Jolliest Elf.” To sign up for news and updates, visit www.TRICK3D.com/Jolly. To learn more about the Epic MegaGrants program, visit www.UnrealEngine.com/MegaGrants.
ABOUT TRICK 3D
TRICK 3D is a 3D animation + innovation studio. TRICK 3D’s roots are in both commercial and original 3D content production, most notably as the production studio that brought the holiday special-turned-classic “The Elf on the Shelf: An Elf’s Story” to families everywhere. The studio’s client roster includes Turner Broadcasting System, Cartoon Network, The Coca-Cola Company, CNN, Delta Air Lines, Sprout, The Make-A-Wish Foundation and many more.
ABOUT UNREAL ENGINE
Unreal Engine (UE4) is a complete suite of creation tools for game development, architectural and automotive visualization, linear film and television content creation, broadcast and live event production, training and simulation, and other real-time applications from Epic Games.
