Epic Games has made a car app that uses Google's Tango AR tech

Epic Games is best known for its console and PC game titles, including the creation of the Unreal Tournament and Gears of War franchises. It’s also the home of the Unreal Engine, the game development tool that’s used by a ton of small and large software teams. Today, as part of the 2017 Game Developers Conference, Epic showed off some upcoming features that will be added to the Unreal Engine, including one that uses Google’s Tango augmented reality platform.

According to Engadget, Epic teamed up with car maker Chevrolet and video production company The Mill to show off “Project Raven”. It allows filmmakers to add realistic CGI effects instantly into a live-action film, instead of waiting a day or more for the visual effects to render on a server farm. These features were showcased in a quick demo film, which showed how you can change the color of a 2017 Camaro ZL1 instantly.

In addition to making films, Epic has also developed an Tango-based AR app that allows users to not only see a 360-degree view of a Camaro ZL1 inside a smartphone screen, but allows the user to change the car’s color and see what it will look like in the real world. The bad news? This app has not been released; it’s an internal project at Epic, and there’s no indication it will be made available to the public.

Even though AR technology is still in its infancy (there’s only one Tango phone you can buy right now, the Lenovo Phab Pro 2), more smartphones will be released later in 2017 that will use some sort of augmented reality hardware and software. Epic Games’ CTO Kim Libreri told Engadget that the company wants the Unreal Engine to use AR tech beyond just games, and Project Raven seems to be a glimpse into what it can do.