How do you make video game rocks look real? Sometimes, it involves a trip out to the desert.

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In this video, Vox’s Phil Edwards interviews Galen Davis of Quixel at Epic Games. His job is as a developer, but sometimes he goes out into the desert to scan rocks.

This scanning economy is a crucial new stage in making realistic 3D games today. Rather than modeling and texturing assets manually, designers often rely on scanned assets to make their games, movies, or other 3d productions look real. Quixel sent Davis to Moab, Utah, just to scan the exotic terrain there for use in Unreal Engine.

There are other ways to get assets for 3D productions, from your phone to the many different available marketplaces. These provide opportunities for photoreal assets to be downloaded instead of created, allowing designers to save time and improve the quality of their work.

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