Future | FreeFlow

Unreal Engine 5 for early access – A New Dawn for Startups?

Epic Games have just launched the most featured and detailed version of Unreal Engine 5 for early access!

Unreal Engine 5!? English Please! What the hell is that?

Why don’t we start with some Visual coolness?

Now, at FreeFlow, Why are we talking about Unreal Engine 5?

To understand this, we have to understand a few new genres of startup categories. we have been recognizing them for the last 2 years. Some of those are:

Interior Designers
Architecture Firm
Automotive Innovations
Game Studios
Edutech/Content Creators/Provider
Augmented Reality Technology Products
Fashion Designers/ Fashion related solutions
Electro-Mechanical Machines/Tools Innovations like Turbines, Robotic arms, etc.
Home and Industrial Automation

All of these startups require some platform like Unreal Engine 5 to create amazingly detailed interactive experiences.

These Interactive Experiences make it easy to virtually explain the service or product they are going to deliver to their customer. This is a very required feature that Home/ Industrial Automation startups as well as, Augmented Reality Technology products must-have nowadays.
Pre-visualization also helps them to improvise the product/service at the planning stage. As a result, it reduces rework efforts to satisfy the requirement. In particular, this helps Interior Designer, Architecture Firms to deliver quality and accuracy.
Applying Physical Properties with the model design allows Simulation of different Real Life conditions. For this reason, it helps the design Process of Mechanical, Electro-Mechanical, and many other types of equipment for many Innovations.
Fashion, Product based, Automotive startups can enable customers with easy 3D product visualization along with add-ons as well as customizations.
Edtech Startups can design Amazing Interactive & Gamified Learning Experiences with all details required.

Check out how Shopify uses Unreal Engine for an immersive customer experience

Why we feel that Unreal Engine 5 is a very appropriate tool for startups

To understand this we have to look into the latest features of Unreal Engine 5 together with some of its differentiating factors.
Before we start on features, Let me tell you the best thing any startup would love to know.

It is absolutely free & codes are accessible for development!
So, some feature tweak, modification, Plugin design is also possible in case of very specific requirements.

It is easy to start and Lots of free Learning Resources
Epic Games have a lot of free courses, youtube videos, a huge community & Lots of free resources in the Market

It brings Future and Uber Coolness in Branding
Using an ultra-modern approach in branding brings startups an edge over other competitors.

New Features in Unreal Engine 5 that turns the game for startups

In general, if a startup company plans to develop a game or any kind of interactive experience. They require it with a good amount of details along with cool features. Therefore, they need a lot of tools,3d models, plugins to get these done. These tools, models, and other resources cost a hefty amount which creates splurges of expenditures. As a result, they either get discouraged at the initial stages or end up doing incomplete work or roughly done work.

Image Courtesy: Epic Games

The latest features in Unreal Engine 5 bring them way ahead in this matter than anyone who is using some other hefty costly tools and resources. Let’s talk about those features.

Nanite:

Nanite, Image Courtesy: Epic Games

It is a virtualized Micropolygon Geometry system to intelligently stream and process only the detail you can perceive of fine-tuned or scanned 3d models. Nanite allows designers to create games or interactive experiences with massive amounts of geometric details.

Nanite with High Poly Mesh

Nanite with Nanite Mesh

Lumen:

Lumen in the World of Nanite

A fully dynamic global illumination and reflections system, designed for the future. It renders diffuse interreflection along with infinite bounces and indirect specular reflections in large, detailed environments at scales ranging from millimeters to kilometers. In simpler terms, it lets the designer create dynamic, believable scenes where indirect lighting adapts on the fly to changes to direct lighting or geometry.

World Partition:

World Partition. Image Courtesy: Epic Games

With current-generation tech, open-world games and simulation projects quickly hit technical limits on terrain size. Creators have to struggle with the increasingly complex authoring and streaming workflows. They needed to keep it within memory and performance budgets. Developers require to manually divide maps into sublevels, then use the level streaming system to load and similarly unload them as the player traversed the landscape while building large landscapes. World Partition’s new data management and distance-based level streaming system provides a complete solution for large world management.

Animation Toolset:

Animation Window. Image Courtesy: Epic Games

Unreal Engine 5 brings new kinds of animation toolsets like Control rig, Fullbody IK (Inverse kinetics), Motion wrapping. Using these tools creators can fine-tune game character’s animation with natural life-like movements.

Control Rig
Image Courtesy: Epic Games

Motion Wrapping.
Image Courtesy: Epic Games

Fullbody IK
Image Courtesy: Epic Games

Chaos Physics:

Chaos Destruction
Image courtesy: Epic Games

It is a lightweight physics simulation solution, built from the ground up to meet the needs of next-generation creators. The Chaos Physics system replaces the legacy physics system and additionally comes with significant performance improvements. The system includes the following major features:

Rigid Body Dynamics
Rigid Body Animation Nodes and Cloth Physics
Destruction
Ragdoll Physics
Vehicles
Physics Fields
Fluid Simulation
Hair Simulation

MetaSounds:

Meta Sound Designer windows
Image Courtesy: Epic Games

It is a fundamentally new way of making audio. MetaSounds is a high-performance system that offers complete control over audio DSP graph generation of sound sources. Consequently, This allows creators to manage all aspects of audio rendering to drive next-generation procedural audio experiences.

MetaHuman Creator:

Metahuman Creator. Image Courtesy: Epic Games

A free app for easily designing photorealistic Human characters for Unreal Engine.

Qixel Bridge:

A quickly accessible library of preloaded with Free Megascans and amazing high poly 3d models.

Enough, I am done with my Tech talk.
Finally, What’s My Personal Interest in Unreal Engine 5?

Personally, I have always been a creator myself. From 3d Design to augmented Reality design, by using tools like Adobe full suite, Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya, Cinema 4D, Daz Studio, Unreal Engine I have tried it all. Sometimes from the personal passion side, and sometimes for a professional project requirement, I had to learn and use these.

FreeFlow Technologies joining the Game

Nowadays, at FreeFlow we have started our small new tech team setup. We have named this part of the team as ‘FreeFlow Technologies’.

This team is already into a Mixed reality game-based project for one of our upcoming startups. Furthermore, they are also doing projects ranges from Web Platforms to Computer Vision. As a CIO of FreeFlow, I have been talking with a lot of startups and henceforth I realized that they need solutions that require to be made by tools like Unreal Engine 5.

Some UE 5 snips from our own systems

There are few startups in my mind who, for sure would love to have solutions built with this. For example, IoT solution startups like Datoms would love to provide an interactive home automation experience to their customer. Embright Infotech one of our Extended Reality Startups is already into using platforms like this. F&B Startups like Jigsaw coffee, Tafreeh would love if their packaged food products can be made purchasable via an online cool 3d store. Edutech platforms whether be it a MasterMentors or a Collegeshala interactive learning is something they all are looking forward to as a future of their business.

At FreeFlow Technologies, our team is now ready to deliver these kinds of solutions for your startup or you can proceed with your own team, we are ready to assist you all.

Article by:

Rudranil DasCIO (Chief Information Officer)

May 30, 2021 Rudranil Business, Future, IT 2 comments

Electric Scooter for Logistics , Venture Built by FreeFlow

Electric Scooters for Logistics, why is it our next venture?

We are glad to announce the launch of our latest venture RideWise – Electric Scooters for Logistics. Suraj Juneja, the Founder of FreeFlow contemplated the idea of RideWise. In fact, around 8 months back during the first lockdown, the ideation happened. The modern world is constantly on the lookout for more convenient solutions. With this in mind, We created RideWise scooters as the most sustainable and eco-friendly Logistics solution.

The world is changing :

Currently, the world we are living in has been revolutionized by technology during the last 100 years. We have witnessed an up-gradation of traditional appliances and devices. However, witnessing the adverse effect of the industrial revolution on the environment over years. Humanity made conscious efforts to save our main source of existence, which led to the birth of the environmental revolution. The evolution of electric vehicles gradually began to become mainstream when the world realized the need for Green Technology.

At the core, RideWise is about developing its own fleet of electric scooters for logistics!

As a matter of fact, we have all heard about how electric cars and bikes are on their way to rule the roads across the globe. It’s the future of the automobile industry and it helps to make the environment livable in the long run. However, the question that arose was – how intelligent it will be to ditch fuel-powered two-wheelers and shift to electric two-wheelers? Anybody concerned about greener cities will know the importance of the shift. Electric bikes are well, electric. Hence, there will be a negligible carbon footprint.

A calculation by portals that sheds light on the planet’s greatest environmental issues and its advanced technology to solve them, found out that:

When 500 cities, each with a population of more than one million adopt e-scooters. It would remove emissions equivalent of 105,000 cars from the road every day.
In addition to that, there will be a potential reduction in noise pollution as these scooters are practically silent.
As a no-brainer, electric scooters are fast, environment friendly, and convenient.

The reasons we chose to develop Electric Scooters for Logistics:

Firstly it’s the need of the hour. No pollution, negligible carbon footprint, and less emission make e-vehicles a sought-after transport system.
Secondly, the youth are keen to take up the role of online food delivery executives who often cannot afford to buy their own two-wheelers as most banks cannot fund them. Consequently, the food delivery apps charge them a hefty amount as an investment fee to procure bikes for them. RideWise in collaboration with FreeFlow will help these youth to hire these electric bikes.
Thirdly, we found that restaurants and food brands are at the mercy of large aggregators. Aggregators either charge a hefty fee particularly for higher value orders or switch off the service of certain brands as per their choice. RideWise would be like their own fleet without having to own one for direct deliveries to their customers. A big boon for home chefs!
Fourthly, it’s way more cost-effective than guzzling fuel. These EVs cost a few paise per kilometer and the rates will only keep decreasing. Soon we will have charging stations all around.

Let’s Build the future with RideWise :

We would also have other models available for rent for a daily commute. People would be able to hire for themselves or their employees especially when shared commuting is avoidable in order to follow COVID norms.

With the changing times, RideWise makes your life super easy in the age of new normal across the country. We are excited to see where this brand heads in the future. We are also pretty confident as electric bikes are the future of the automobile industry. While doing our research we found that Steve Jobs believed, electric scooters would create a much larger influence than personal computers and most cities will be redesigned around them. No joke, and it doesn’t end here as Jeff Bezos was also a supporter and investor in the original Segway scooter released in 2001.

FreeFlow believes that with this team, their innovation and approach, it is a great mix to achieve success in their pursuit.

May 27, 2021 Anuradha Chandran Business, Future, Science No comments yet

RideWise - Electric Bikes for the Future Businesses

RideWise – Electric two wheelers for the Future Businesses

I had conceptualized Ridewise around 8 months back towards the end of the first lockdown and for obvious reasons. So elated, that it has now begun and is a formidable start-up in the making!

Saving the environment, saving restaurants, providing jobs, empowering small businesses, saving money and fuel, and ensuring a safer commute…just some of the things we intend to accomplish with this. For me, this is much more than just a business.

At the core, Ridewise is about rental of and deliveries via our own fleet of electric two-wheelers. Hence, creates an impact in areas that are of concern today.

Firstly, it’s the need of the hour for our environment. Since it doesn’t pollute, it should be the preferred mode of transport. More so since two-wheelers are increasingly being used for online deliveries.
Secondly, it will give jobs to a large youth population who want to take up the rather lucrative and flexible job of a delivery executive but they need to own a bike for that. Since most either do not have funds nor do banks fund them, they can now rent these bikes and get those jobs. Of course, we’ll be hiring delivery agents too.
Thirdly, restaurants and food brands are at the mercy of large aggregators that either charge a hefty fee particularly for higher value orders or switch off service of certain brands as per their choice. Ridewise would be like their own fleet without having to own one for direct deliveries to their customers. It would help and power a huge number of home chefs as well.
Fourthly, it’s way more cost-effective than guzzling fuel. These EVs cost a few paise per Km and the rates will only keep decreasing. Soon we will also have charging stations all around.
Lastly, we would also have other models available on rent for a daily commute. People would be able to hire for themselves or their employees especially when shared commuting is avoidable these days.

So Let’s Ride… but RideWise!

With an amazing team at the helm, I’m excited to see where this brand heads in the future and I thank my team members and partners who have made this a reality.

This venture is built by Freeflow venture builders. Taking ideas to execution and growth is what the company does and they particularly choose disruptive new-age businesses.

April 26, 2021 Suraj Juneja Business, Future, Science No comments yet

Investment Opportunities , Partnerships & venture ideas in Bengal

FreeFlow presents THRIVE 2.0 – launchpad for investment opportunities

April 10th, 2021 presented the City of Joy with a possibility of an economic surge – a welcoming feeling to the term “surge” which was only finding an association with “Covid 19” since 2020. FreeFlow launched its first session of THRIVE 2.0, its first surge of strategic Investment opportunities, amidst a crowd of investors and aspiring partners for venture building.

THRIVE 2.0 was all about opening and educating the crowd about new ventures, startups, and opportunities.

Venture Ideas

Facelabs :

In-house creation of solutions and sales via own sales team and resellers. Creation of Computer vision – powered products for various applications that make them easier, more effective, lower in cost, and manpower independent.

SignageKraft :

E-commerce platform with DIY ordering capability and IoT (Intelligence) driven signage automation. Own sales team and offline business, online sales and re-sellers, smart signage sales, and channel partners.

ControlMe :

Indian Manufactured chipset and devices, not dependent on the internet, priced right and with energy control and prediction mechanism. Manufacturing of the devices and sales via our corporate sales team and via channel partners like interior designers and resellers.

Partnership Opportunities

Zetta Farms :

A partnership entity under which the farm project will be developed and executed. The amount invested in the project will be considered as a loan to the project and this loan will be repaid at the end of the project tenure by the partnership entity

Click here to read more – Zetta Farms

Paan Casa :

All about PAAN, our Indian culture, and merging both to create something extraordinary. We seek not Only CARE for our community of regulars, but we wanted to Build a TOBACCO and NICOTINE free Paan Establishment and an environment where kids and women are also welcomed.

Click here to read more – PAANCASA

RAU Industries :

A cleantech startup engaged in creating sustainable high-end construction material from unsegregated plastic waste like bricks and paver bricks.

Click here to read more – RAU

The partnering ideas opened a new horizon in the field of startup facilitation, partnership, and investments.

Investment Opportunities

CartFace :

Identify Traditional Store Front Options across industries of Pharmacy, Food, Grocery, hyperlocal servicing and create a digital face for them for online payments. The focus is ‘Making a commerce platform better for doing business in a smarter way’ for every Retailer.

Click here to read more – CartFace

Resellme :

A low-cost, community-driven, D2C brand-building model for micro-brands. ResellMe enables a micro-brand to build their personal reseller community, who act as representatives of the brand with end- customers.

Click here to read more – Resellme

Jalodbust :

An opportunity for giving back a decent life to human scavengers. The concept brings the Technological Solution for the eradication of ‘Manual Scavenging’. It brings the Technological Solution for the eradication of ‘Manual Scavenging’. JALODBUST ‘IFS-RTS’ isolates the man from the septage and instead provides him a job with safety, dignity, and good earning.

Click here to read more – Jalodbust

Jigsaw :

The vision is to create the 3rd Best Coffee Wave Brand in India and scale the business Internationally. Sourcing coffee beans from the best coffee estates in India and providing the experience of freshly roasted ground coffee to the consumer is what the startup is all about. Bean Supply, Instant Coffee, Home Brew Kits, Café-in-Café Model, E-Commerce, Kiosks, Independent Jigsaw Café outlets.

Click here to read more – Jigsaw

The crowd was a mix of investors, industry heads, and entrepreneurs looking to diversify in different areas of asset making while being introduced to the idea of strategic intervention and market access facilitation. The opportunities that were presented are a varied mix of ideas like tax-free agricultural partnerships to deep learning & AI-based solutions on automation, hiring, security solutions, and much more.

Starting April with THRIVE 2.0, the second installment scheduled at the end of May. We will witness more opportunities that will finally create a countdown to the main Look East Summit. The Summit will be attracting the crème de la cream of investors of individual capacity to financials organizations.

FreeFlow stayed active during the pandemic stage. The organization presented online investment and startup events like Freedom Pitch and the more recent Flow Pitch, which was organized in association with AIC Nalanda, Bhubaneswar.

Till now FreeFlow from the various events organized under their aegis has successfully raised a cumulative fund of …

INR.

Crs.

April 21, 2021 Anuradha Chandran Business, Future, General No comments yet

Lockdown Perspectives: (Thoughts/ Ideas/ Concepts)

This lockdown the one thing that comes to mind as most important, not just to us as people but for us as a country too… is self-reliance and sustainability.

While people were/are home and having various insecurities about the future and their survival, especially those not privileged enough to sustain through smoothly, we realize that if we just had food, water, and a shelter on our heads and would not have to worry about these basics in life, most of the insecurities and anxieties would have gone, and we would have lived through any time frame of a lockdown without worrying about survival.

Most of the other things are what we don’t need, what we buy for comfort, luxuries, to pursue passions, or are advertising induced.

If we all did just one thing and that nature provides for free i.e. ‘Growing our own food’ it would lead to a happier and more secure society.

Now, this doesn’t mean we grow everything we consume but even if we grow a few things or some exotic things too, it means at least technically and conceptually that we could trade it for other things we consume. That’s the way life was always meant to be for humans – “live in loving communities, grow our own food, create art and not work day and night until we die”… well, at least we can get close enough.

In today’s day and age, you don’t need to own a farm or a piece of land. You can grow your own food even from space in your balcony, terrace, kitchen, space in your backyard, or building driveway if any,

or at any space that you can utilize for it.

There’s also a concept called ‘Hydroponic farming’ where you don’t even need soil and can have small plants growing in little spaces you create and with water-soluble nutrients only.

roof top hydroponic farming — Monica’s amazing addition on the roof of the house she designed

Whatever be the case, I think it’s imperative we all do this, it’s also important we teach our kids this in school rather than a lot of mundane things they learn. It’s also important we grow some at home and be self-sustaining in such a way that if everything is taken away from us, we still can survive with nothing at all…the way nature was actually supposed to be.

From a start-up idea point of view, I think it will make a brilliant business case especially at this point in time where these gardens/urban home farms can be set up for people and then regularly service them with seeds, planters, pots, etc and also help in getting the surplus to market. Also, there is an amazing opportunity for a co-owned/shared/fractional ownership farming on a real piece of land, where parts of it are assigned to many owners and the managing company services it, provides the product to their homes and markets the surplus. Organic food is the flavor of the day and it can be the U.S.P of the produce too where owners get fresh, healthy organic vegetables and it seeks a good price in the market. Those who want to get back to nature can help in farming too!

I’m tagging a post of a friend Monica Khosla Bhargava where she had shared a design of a beautiful home with a small area to grow plants, and also the post of another friend Pravin Singhania where he shares his perspective on the same and is an avid farming enthusiast. Food for thought? ….Well almost literally

#freeflow

May 20, 2020 Suraj Juneja Business, Future No comments yet

Emerging Technologies

Be on your toes and do not rest on past laurels

In today’s world, being technologically connected and updated is not only important but a requirement to survive. Customers have a lot of options and unless you constantly innovate and match your competitor’s offerings, you are going to miss out on your customers. Day by day the Indian IT scene is changing – not only professionals need to know the trends and stay updated, but they also need to be hands-on. Those who are only in middle management roles are gradually being let go. For long the industry has operated only on cost. To sustain in the future, the industry needs to offer innovative solutions and will need professionals able to pick up and learn new technology and devote time to those technologies. With the fast-paced today’s world where everything changes by the time you blink, it is difficult to pick any one technology that will differentiate in the coming days. But some technologies on the horizon have the promise of being disruptors and as professionals should be aware of the latest happenings.

The FreeFlow ecosystem is a perfect place to try out your ideas in these technology areas and make your mark.

01. Edge computing

02. 5G

03. Quantum Computing

Edge Computing

The explosion of IoT devices, along with new applications that require real-time computing power, continues to drive edge computing systems. Also, edge computing complements cloud computing – look for areas where you can build on top of existing cloud technologies.

5G

It is a capital improvement project the size of the entire planet, replacing wireless architecture created this century with another one that aims to lower energy consumption and maintenance costs. It’s also a huge gamble on the future of transmission technology, doubling down on consumers’ willingness to upgrade. Together with edge computing, it’s going to be a huge investment in the next few years

Quantum Computing

Of the three technology trends, this can be by far the most disruptive if it sees the light of the day. Seeing the nature of this technology, even the Indian Government has announced a budget outlay of Rs8000 crore over 5 years on Quantum Computing. Once this technology comes, the root of computing (bit) will need to be interpreted differently.

The digital world is at our doorstep and quite easily available. Also, these technologies are just getting started. It’s the right time to get started on these technologies and make the most of it.

Cheers,

Sourav Sen,
Partner,
Surd Technologies

Surd Technologies has been established as a Software consulting company in India. Their business model is based on the optimization of total software costs for their customers and clients. There is a great need for software that satisfies the user, by providing a quality product, meeting requirements, delivered when needed, at an appropriate cost. Their consulting service is aimed at optimizing this user satisfaction.

February 15, 2020 Sourav Sen Future, IT No comments yet