Unreal Fest Stockholm 2025

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I have been lucky to attend a few conferences over the years, and I have presented internal talked a few times, But this was my first time presenting one at a public conference. It was also my first time attending Unreal Fest. This one happened in September 2025, in the beautiful city of Stockholm, Sweden.

Interactive Vines using Niagara and Position-Based Dynamics

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The topic of my talk was to present R&D work I’ve lead at Rare, to make foliage environment meshes simulated in real-time. This unlocks more realism and grounding for players to experience through world forces affecting vines swinging under wind forces, but also allows players (and non-players) to interract with the vines.

I have a firm belief that real-time simulations, allowing for interractivity, this is the next big opportunity in video games world immersion. We’ve reached marginal gains in terms of visual fidelity with high resolution detail meshes and material responses to lighting. Next - is making the worlds less static, more reactive.

I received some great feedback at the conference and after, inspiring others to invest in the same direction. The conference as a whole felt very well organised, and ran smoothly throughout. It also offered fantastic opportunities to make new connections across the industry as well as influence the Unreal Engine developers team in directions we’re interested in.