Volvo Trucks Configurator
A playable UE5 truck configurator shipped, three trucks, four trailer scenarios, eight colorways and five weather states, all lit by Lumen in real time, seven weeks after the engine's release.
Unreal Engine 5.0 shipped on April 5, 2022. Its two headline systems — Lumen for real-time global illumination and Nanite for virtualized geometry — made a specific promise to automotive visualization: configurator-grade lighting without baking, and dense natural environments without LOD budgets.
Instead of reading about it, I tested the claim the only way that counts: by shipping something playable. Seven weeks after UE5.0's release, this configurator was public — video, posts, and a downloadable Windows build anyone could run.
Heavy-haul lowbed scenario under the rain state — wet-surface response is live, not graded.
A standalone real-time configurator built around Volvo's truck range: three trucks — the FH, the VNL and the FM Electric — four trailer scenarios (car hauler, tanker, cargo box, heavy-haul lowbed), eight named colorways, and five weather states running from clear skies to fog, rain and snow. That's 480 possible scenes, each one re-lit by Lumen the moment an option changes.
Even the cargo stayed in-brand: a Volvo CE wheel loader on the lowbed, a rack of XC90s on the hauler. The build included an in-app screenshot tool and shipped as a Win64 executable, distributed publicly at launch.
The architecture is the shape every configurator I've built since still follows: a category UI — trucks, trailers, colors, weather — feeding a central configuration state, which drives dynamic material instances for colorways and actor swaps for trucks and trailers, while a weather controller switches sky, precipitation and surface response. Lumen re-lights every change in real time; Nanite carries the Megascans terrain.
The asset strategy was deliberate: the vehicle models were licensed, and the environment came from Quixel Megascans — because a configurator case is won or lost in the system, not the model. The configurator logic, lighting, weather states, cameras, UI and the packaged build are mine.
Editor breakdown — the terrain runs as Nanite virtualized geometry; the lit view is the same frame the player sees.
Where the industry went. In 2024–2025, Volvo Trucks North America launched its official real-time configurator for the all-new VNL — built on Unreal Engine 5 by Rapid Images, a Gothenburg product-experience studio, as part of a digital-twin pipeline Volvo credits with millions of interactions and thousands of qualified leads within weeks. I claim no connection to that work. But the bet this prototype made in UE5's first weeks — that Lumen-lit real-time configurators would become the way trucks are sold — is now Volvo Trucks' official approach.
Looking back from 2026. What I'd change today: pixel streaming instead of a downloadable build, a data-driven variant schema instead of hand-wired options, and analytics on which options people actually explore. What I'd keep: shipping in the launch window. The point was speed-to-evidence — and that part worked.
Unofficial personal project created in May 2022. Not affiliated with, sponsored, or endorsed by Volvo Trucks or Volvo Group. Volvo marks appear solely to identify the subject of this independent study. Environment assets by Quixel Megascans.
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