Twinmotion, created by the visualization studio KA-RA, was developed to assist architects with limited 3D experience in creating still or animated visualizations of buildings. The program allows the import of building models in various standard 3D file formats or through CAD application links.

After importing the building models, users can create background environments from the library of basic assets and set up lighting. Atmosphere properties, including clouds, rain, and snow, as well as ambient lighting based on geographical location and time of day, can be customized using controls. In 2019, the software was acquired by Epic Games and was initially available for free. However, in 2020, a new commercial release with a relatively aggressive pricing model was introduced.

Twinmotion 2023.2 updates the software to the level of Unreal Engine 5.3, the latest version of the game engine and real-time renderer. The updated engine brings several new features, with the most notable being support for Lumen - Unreal Engine's real-time Global Illumination (GI) system. Now, the program has two real-time rendering modes: Standard, which uses a volumetric approach to create ambient lighting, and Lumen, based on a surface approach and using ray tracing to calculate a single bounce of direct and reflected light. Lumen produces higher-quality renders but consumes more CPU/GPU and RAM resources. It represents a middle ground between traditional real-time rendering and ray tracing, which provides even higher rendering quality but demands even more resources. In the initial release, Lumen is not available in VR mode and on cyclo-sets and LED walls used in virtual production. However, support for the latter is expected to be added "soon."

Twinmotion 2023.2 also brings real-world values for sunlight intensity into the software. As a result, the auto-exposure algorithm has been adjusted to work with a wider range of exposure values: the overall range has been increased from 4 to 26 stops. Additionally, new local exposure settings have been added, allowing for the preservation of shadows and lighting details in scenes with high dynamic range.
Among other changes, a new material called Basic glass has been introduced, aimed at speeding up rendering as an alternative to more feature-rich materials like Standard and Colored glass, especially for scenes with a lot of transparent glass.
Furthermore, assets from Sketchfab, an online model library owned by Epic Games, can now be imported while preserving the hierarchy of models.

Epic Games has also replaced the old non-commercial free trial version of Twinmotion, which limited exports to 2K resolution but was otherwise fully functional, with a new version called the Community Edition. It remains free but, in addition to the resolution limitation, it includes watermarks and does not have access to the Twinmotion Cloud online collaboration system. Twinmotion 2023.2 Preview 1 is only available in the Community Edition, which, according to Epic Games, will be used for all future preview releases.

Twinmotion 2023.2 is available as a public preview for Windows 10 and above, and macOS 12.0 and above. Integration plugins are available for CAD and DCC applications, including 3ds Max 2016 and above, SketchUp Pro 2019 and above, and Unreal Engine 4.27 and above. Epic has not yet announced the final release date.

The cost of new licenses is $499. The software is free for students and educators, and there is also a free Community Edition with export resolution limited to 2K, watermarks on output, and no access to Twinmotion Cloud.