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Draft:Unreal Engine 5

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Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) is the latest version of Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games. It was revealed in May 2020 and officially released in April 2022. Major features of Unreal Engine 5 include Nanite, a virtualized geometry system that allows game developers to use arbitrarily high quality meshes with automatically generated Level of Detail, and Lumen, a dynamic global illumination and reflections system that uses software and hardware ray tracing.

History

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[[File:Unreal_engine_5_demo_screencap.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.2|The cave system in the "Lumen in the Land of Nanite" Unreal Engine 5 demo was generated using real-world [[photogrammetry]] assets imported into the Nanite engine rather than detailed by hand.]]

Unreal Engine 5 was revealed on May 13, 2020, supporting all existing systems including the next-generation consoles PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.[1] Work on the engine started about two years prior to its announcement.[2] It was released in early access on May 26, 2021,[3] and formally launched for developers on April 5, 2022.[4]

Epic had worked closely with Sony in optimizing Unreal Engine 5 for the PlayStation 5, with Epic collaborating with Sony on the console's storage architecture.[5] To demonstrate the ease of creating a detailed world with minimal effort, the May 2020 reveal of the engine showcased a demo called "Lumen in the Land of Nanite" running on a PlayStation 5 that was built mostly by pulling assets from the Quixel library and using the Nanite, Lumen, and other Unreal Engine 5 components to create a photorealistic cave setting that could be explored.[2][6] Epic affirmed that Unreal Engine 5 would be fully supported on the Xbox Series X as well, but had been focused on the PlayStation 5 during the announcement as a result of their work with Sony in the years prior.[7]

Epic plans to use Fortnite as a testbed for Unreal Engine 5 to showcase what the engine can do to the industry,[2][8] with the game brought to use Unreal Engine 5 in December 2021.[9] Fortnite's Battle Royale mode received visual improvements via Unreal Engine 5.1 with the launch of Chapter 4 on December 4, 2022.[10] The Matrix Awakens, a tie-in experience ahead of the release of The Matrix Resurrections, was developed by Epic to be a further demonstration of Unreal Engine 5 along with other technology that they had acquired over 2020 and 2021, including their MetaHuman Creator developed and integrated into Unreal Engine 5 with technology from 3Lateral, Cubic Motion, and Quixel.[11]

In March 2024, Epic Games launched Project Titan, a collaborative art jam to create a free open world sample project for Unreal Engine.[12]

Features

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Nanite

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One of UE5's major features is Nanite, an engine that allows for high-detailed photographic source material to be imported into games.[13] The goal of Unreal Engine 5 was to make it as easy as possible for developers to create detailed game worlds without having to spend excessive time on creating new detailed assets.[2] Nanite can import nearly any other pre-existing three-dimension representation of objects and environments, including ZBrush and CAD models, enabling the use of film-quality assets.[14] Nanite automatically handles the levels of detail (LODs) of these imported objects appropriate to the target platform and draw distance, a task that an artist would have had to perform manually otherwise.[15] Unlike traditional LoD, Nanite can use different levels of detail within a single asset.[16] According to a talk by Epic Games' Brian Karis at Siggraph 2021, Part of the research done to create Nanite was to find a method that could stitch the edges of different levels of detail together such that there are no "cracks" between them at the boundaries when they are of the same asset.[16] In its initial release, Nanite could only be used for static meshes. [16]

With potentially tens of billions of polygons present on a single screen at 4K resolution, Epic also developed the Unreal Engine 5 to take advantage of the upcoming high-speed storage solutions with the next-generation console hardware that will use a mix of RAM and custom solid-state drives.[15] The Nanite virtualized geometry technology allows Epic to take advantage of its past acquisition of Quixel, the world's largest photogrammetry library as of 2019.[2]

Lumen

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Lumen is another component described as a "fully dynamic global illumination solution that immediately reacts to scene and light changes".[13][15][17] Lumen eliminates the need for artists and developers to craft a lightmap for a given scene, but instead calculates light reflections and shadows on the fly, thus allowing for real-time behavior of light sources.[15] It also allows for faster development cycles for game designers as they do not need to wait for the lightmaps to be computed.[15] Lumen can use either software or hardware ray tracing, with the software version being more widely supported by devices at the expense of lower fidelity such as in reflections or water.[18] It can be turned off with a fallback to Singed Distance Field Ambient Occlusion.[18]

Additional Features

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Virtual Shadow Maps is another component added in Unreal Engine 5 described as "a new shadow mapping method used to deliver consistent, high-resolution shadowing that works with film-quality assets and large, dynamically lit open worlds".[19] Virtual Shadow Maps differs from the common shadow map implementation in its extremely high resolution, more detailed shadows, and the lack of shadows popping in and out which can be found in the more common shadow maps technique due to shadow cascades.[20]

UE5 uses Niagara for fluid and particle dynamics and it's own Chaos physics engine in place of PhysX.[2][21]

Additional features planned for Unreal Engine 5 come from Epic's acquisitions and partnerships. The MetaHuman Creator is a project based on technology from three companies acquired by Epic—3Lateral, Cubic Motion, and Quixel—to allow developers to quickly create realistic human characters that can then be exported for use within Unreal.[22] Through partnership with Cesium, Epic plans to offer a free plugin to provide 3D geospatial data for Unreal users, allowing them to recreate any part of the mapped surface of Earth.[23] Epic will include RealityCapture, a product it acquired with its acquisition of Capturing Reality that can generate 3D models of any object from a collection of photographs taken of it from multiple angles,[24] and the various middleware tools offered by Epic Games Tools.[25]

Licensing

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Unreal Engine 5 retains the current royalty model, with developers returning 5% of gross revenues to Epic Games, although this fee is waived for sales made through the Epic Games Store.[26] Further, Epic announced alongside Unreal Engine 5 that they will not take any fee from games using any version of Unreal Engine for the first US$1 million in gross revenue, retroactive to January 1, 2020.[27] Epic unveiled per-seat licensing of the Unreal Engine, starting in April 2024, for its runtime use with non-gaming applications such as in film and television production if their revenues exceed $1 million, with each seat costing $1850/year.[28][29]


References

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  1. ^ Statt, Nick (May 13, 2020). "Epic Games announces Unreal Engine 5 with stunning PlayStation 5 demo". The Verge. Archived from the original on March 21, 2022. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Takahashi, Dean (May 13, 2020). "Epic Games: Unreal Engine 5 will bring a generational change to graphics". Venture Beat. Archived from the original on February 16, 2022. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
  3. ^ Makuch, Eddie (May 26, 2021). "Unreal Engine 5 Gets Stunning Demo With Incredible Graphics, Enters Early Access". GameSpot. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  4. ^ Sinclair, Brendan (April 6, 2022). "Epic launches Unreal Engine 5". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on April 7, 2022. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  5. ^ Statt, Nick (May 13, 2020). "Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says the PS5 is so impressive it's 'going to help drive future PCs'". The Verge. Archived from the original on May 13, 2020. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
  6. ^ Takahashi, Dean (May 13, 2020). "Epic Games shows off a stunning Unreal Engine 5 demo on PlayStation 5". Venture Beat. Archived from the original on May 18, 2020. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
  7. ^ Maher, Cian (May 16, 2020). "Unreal Engine 5 will be "fully supported on both PS5 and Xbox Series X"". VG247. Archived from the original on May 16, 2020. Retrieved May 16, 2020.
  8. ^ Bailey, Dustin (May 13, 2020). "Fortnite moves to Unreal Engine 5 next year". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on September 25, 2020. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
  9. ^ Capel, Chris (December 5, 2021). "Fortnite has finally moved to Unreal Engine 5 with Chapter 3". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on December 5, 2021. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
  10. ^ "Welcome to Fortnite Battle Royale Chapter 4 Season 1". Fortnite. Archived from the original on February 13, 2023. Retrieved February 13, 2023.
  11. ^ Egan, Toussaint (December 9, 2021). "The Matrix Awakens imagines the future of storytelling in Unreal Engine 5". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 10, 2021. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
  12. ^ Games, Epic. "Project Titan Announcement - Epic Games". Archived from the original on March 7, 2024.
  13. ^ a b Valentine, Rebekah (May 13, 2020). "Epic Games announces Unreal Engine 5 with first PS5 footage". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on May 20, 2020. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
  14. ^ Tarantola, Andrew (May 13, 2020). "Epic Games teases its new, nearly-photorealistic Unreal Engine 5". Engadget. Archived from the original on May 13, 2020. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
  15. ^ a b c d e Orland, Kyle (May 14, 2020). "How Epic got such amazing Unreal Engine 5 results on next-gen consoles". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on May 14, 2020. Retrieved May 14, 2020.
  16. ^ a b c Karis, Brian. "Nanite; A Deep Dive" (PDF). realtimerendering.com.
  17. ^ McWhertor, Michael (May 13, 2020). "Here's Unreal Engine 5 running on the PlayStation 5". Polygon. Archived from the original on May 13, 2020. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
  18. ^ a b Battaglia, Alex (28 October 2023). "Brilliant visuals and growing pains: examining the first generation of Unreal Engine 5 games". Eurogamer.net.
  19. ^ "Virtual Shadow Maps". Unreal Engine Docs. Archived from the original on February 7, 2022. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  20. ^ Dimitrov, Rouslan. "Cascaded Shadow Maps" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on January 15, 2022. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
  21. ^ Sergeev, Arti (26 July 2022). "Working with Niagara Fluids to Create Water Simulations". 80.lv.
  22. ^ Kerr, Chris (February 10, 2021). "Epic Games' new MetaHuman Creator will let devs everywhere build high fidelity humans". Game Developer. Archived from the original on February 22, 2022. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  23. ^ Takahashi, Dean (March 30, 2021). "Epic Games teams up with Cesium to bring 3D geospatial data to Unreal". Venture Beat. Archived from the original on March 30, 2021. Retrieved March 30, 2021.
  24. ^ Kerr, Chris (March 9, 2021). "Epic Games acquires photogrammetry software developer Capturing Reality". Game Developer. Archived from the original on February 22, 2022. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  25. ^ Francis, Bryant (January 7, 2021). "Epic acquires RAD Game Tools". Game Developer. Archived from the original on January 7, 2021. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  26. ^ "Unreal Engine EULA". Unreal Engine. Archived from the original on January 5, 2024. Retrieved 2024-01-05.
  27. ^ Machkovech, Sam (May 13, 2020). "Unreal Engine is now royalty-free until a game makes a whopping $1 million". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on May 13, 2020. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
  28. ^ Francis, Bryant (October 6, 2023). "Epic Games to update Unreal Engine pricing for devs outside game industry". Game Developer. Archived from the original on October 5, 2023. Retrieved October 6, 2023.
  29. ^ Scullion, Chris (March 12, 2024). "Epic confirms its new Unreal Engine pricing, keeps its promise not to change it for game developers". Video Games Chronicle. Archived from the original on March 13, 2024. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
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