news hardware It wasn’t GTA 6 but Tesla that shaped San Francisco as a video game
The Unreal Engine is particularly well known for the video games that have been created with it. But did you know that Tesla also uses it for his electric cars? The company recently modeled on San Francisco to improve its technology.
Tesla Inc. is an electric car manufacturer best known for being headed by the famous Elon Musk. At the forefront of technology, it is one of the companies that comes closest to fully automatic driving.
But it is not tomorrow that we will see our roads littered with driverless cars or fully autonomous trucks. In fact, the technology is still developing and the associated problems are numerous.
And it is in this context that video game techniques come into play, allowing tests to be carried out in a completely safe environment!
Tesla recreates San Francisco with Unreal Engine 5
Unreal Engine is a game engine that allows you to create 3D environments. It is thanks to this tool that Tesla was able to recreate entire sections of San Francisco to test its autopilot function and autonomous driving systems.
The company even hired environmental artists who worked on some popular video games to develop this simulation. Tesla is also looking for others as “Autopilot Render Engineer” asking them to have experience in recent game engines and in particular the Unreal Engine.
Increasingly realistic simulations
Creating a 3D environment like San Francisco allows the company to create so-called “corner case” scenarios. These are extreme cases, situations that only occur outside of normal operating parameters. Although these scenarios will probably never occur in reality, it is essential to have tested them beforehand in order for the vehicle to perform as desired.
To avoid the criticism that the brand has received so far for its tests on public roads, the use of this type of tool is especially judicious. However, it cannot totally replace road tests. Rather, it should be viewed as an additional step that allows you to discover potential bugs and build new features upstream.
However, with the advent of these increasingly realistic simulations, Elon Musk even wondered if he would end up going public by creating video games based on this simulation. It would be a total win for him as he would get fantastic publicity and still make a little more money.