Optim enhances Unreal Engine and makes it more user-friendly for enterprise-level use – review, design and visualisation. The latest version of the tool is designed to help businesses transform their projects seamlessly into collaborative apps, which lets multiple parties communicate using features like avatars, locomotion and voice chat.
Even though Unreal Engine is a leading game engine, people have been growingly using it for things like filmmaking, visualisation, planning, training, architecture.
Developed by Theia Interactive, Optim simplifies the Engine for non-developers and makes it feasible for businesses without expertise in game development to use it for non-game development cases. In 2018, Theia acquired a Developer Grant for working on Optim.
Recently launched, Optim 1.2 takes a different approach toward using several other tools. While many may think that data needs to be imported into another app, this version of Optim grants users the ability to turn existing Unreal Engine works into multiplayer apps. Users with access from anywhere remotely via desktop or VR.
After setting up an Unreal Engine project, one can package it as an app and transfer it to other participants who can open it without the need to install other tools. The app will automatically connect with every other participant anywhere on the Internet who are running the app at the same time. Users can partake using VR headsets or desktops. When connected, the participants can expect game-like capabilities such as voice chat and movement, all of which comes pre-configured. The tool also offers a virtual camera for saving photos, a laser pointer, a whiteboard & pen, and fully-featured avatars among others.
Rather than only including a few collaboration features, Optim also provides the users with pre-defined environments like office spaces and showrooms to make a wonderful presentation without putting additional effort.
Although Unreal Engine already involves a “Collab Viewer Template” with comparable capabilities, according to Theia, Optim eases the process for non-developers. Voice chat, latency compensation, and dynamic networking (users don’t need to mess with ports, IP addresses and firewalls). Optim 1.2’s new collaboration functionality is part of the tool’s feature set. These are developed to help businesses smoothly navigate Unreal Engine, optimising their current content and models to make them run in real-time.
Theia explains that the Optim Toolkit is created to sit over Unreal Engine’s viewport, and has a simple, sleek user interface to draw out the necessary functionality from the depths of detailed panels and extra windows. It offers a plethora of time-efficient features, such as light build scheduler, easy-to-use lightmap settings, batch LODs and clustered merging.
The subscription model of Optim begins at $12 per month. The amount is even lesser if the annual subscription is chosen. However, the Multi-User Collaborative Template tier which incorporates all the mentioned collaboration features begin at $90 per month. Similar to its cheapest subscription model, users can pay lesser for this tier if they pay annually. It goes without saying that enterprises are going to enjoy the experience even if it is relatively new.
