Epic Games has announced the pre-release of Unreal Engine 5. It is open for everyone to get acquainted and work. So far, the engine is available exclusively as part of early access.
As the developers themselves say, from a product point of view, it is not ready. But you can already get acquainted with the main innovations and features of Unreal Engine 5. Here are the main ones:
- NaniteThe key innovation of the engine is the Nanite geometry system.
It allows you to import objects of any complexity and detail directly into the game scene, and then work with them in real time (including multiplying millions of times) without loss in performance.
Lumen
- A fully dynamic global lighting system that removes the task of baking lighting maps from artists.
In Unreal Engine 5 games, it will be enough to place light sources on the stage to get the desired final result.
World Partition
- A system that automatically divides the world according to the grid and pulls up only those of its cells that are currently needed.
- One File Per ActorThe system will allow several team members to work on one scene at the same time.
- Data LayersIt preserves different variations (for example, location in the morning, afternoon, night, and so on) of the same world as layers located in the same place.
Control Rig
- Allows you to quickly create rigs and use them when animating various characters.
- Pose BrowserJust a tool that saves the created poses as assets.
- Full-Body IKA solution to create realistic character animations.
- Motion WarpingA tool that changes the character’s movement when interacting with other objects.
For example, it allows you to correctly use one animation to overcome walls of different heights by the subject.
MetaSounds
- A system for working with sound that provides the development team with full control over working with audio.
This is a “sound” analogue of the previously existing pipelines in the engine for programmable materials and rendering.
New UI
- The developers have completely redesigned the engine interface.
The authors of Unreal Engne 5 have tried to make sure that users have more space to work with the viewport.
The full release of the engine is scheduled for early 2022.
Before that, Fortnite will be transferred to it. Also, Hellblade 2 and new titles The Coalition and inXile are already being developed on the fifth version of Unreal Engine.