Epic Games today released version 5.1 of the Unreal Engine, a game engine update they hope will be used to build the metaverse and Triple-A games of tomorrow (don’t expect it before 2024 or 2025).
The new update aims to make the engine Unreal engine 5 makes it easier and faster to create 3D content. The company has added a number of new features and proven improvements in 5.1 that make Unreal more reliable, efficient, and versatile.
Epic Games to poke her chest said that more than half of the announced next generation games are built on the Unreal Engine. In addition, they made sure that developers can now take advantage of updates to the Lumen system: dynamic global illumination and reflections.
This is important if you are a game developer or work in the metaverse. The Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry system and virtual shadow maps have also been updated, which lay the foundation for 60fps gaming on next-gen consoles and PCs with 60fps support.
This development allows artists to use nanite to program the behavior of specific objects, such as nanite-based foliage with leaves swaying in the wind. This changes the development architecture forever.
What makes this UE 5.1 architecture special
Unreal Engine 5.1 adds several features to improve the efficiency of game developers and other large-scale interactive projects, helping teams to be more productive.
For example, virtual assets separate metadata from object data, allowing developers to sync only what they need from source control systems like Perforce, resulting in smaller workspaces and faster sync, Epic explains.
The new automatic Pipe State Object (PSO) cache for DX12 simplifies the process required to prepare a game for release on the DirectX 12 API.
And finally, the on-demand shader build only creates the shaders needed to render what you see on the screen while you work on it. Unreal publisherwhich can mean significant time savings and greater interactivity.
Ideal for creating huge open worlds
For developers creating huge open worlds, this version also brings additional features and improved workflows.
World section is now compatible with software Big world coordinates allowing you to create massive open worlds without loss of fidelity.
Users of the Unreal Engine 5.1 editor can also enjoy accelerated source code management workflows with World Partition thanks to an improved user interface in terms of managing, filtering, searching and viewing files and file lists.
New compatibility with Hierarchical Level of Detail (HLOD) for water rendering and streaming allows users to create large bodies of water in the open world. with better performance and less memory consumption. As you can see in the picture, it looks good.
Unreal Engine is also suitable for cinema.
Unreal Engine has already been used in more than 425 film and TV productions integrated into over 300 scenarios virtual production around the world.
The editor also contains an interface for an improved lightmap system, which is displayed as a preview. In addition to intuitively and efficiently creating, moving and editing lightmaps and saving templates, new lightmaps can hold their shape on the wall, eliminating distortion.
With these updates, artists can create a single rig control asset that can be built for characters that can have different proportions and skeletal properties; for example, the same control rig can correspond to a three-fingered monster or a five-fingered man without any changes to the rig’s asset.
Unreal Engine 5.1 also added support for constraints in Sequencer, the engine’s multitrack non-linear animation editor, including position and rotation.
Users can use them for quickly and easily create and animate relationships between any rig (not cryptocurrencies) control or actors.
For example: make the camera always follow the character, keep the character’s hands on the steering wheel, animate the juggling clown…
In short, the potential for Unreal Engine 5.1 This is reassuring and exhilarating for anyone who makes a living developing video games, watching animated shorts, or creating the metaverse.
Source: Computer Hoy
