Davide Nativo
Premium
It might have slipped under your radar, but yes, Epic Games have released tech demo footage from the latest iteration of their Unreal Engine, and it looks awesome.
Set in an ancient cave/complex of ruins, it shows the protagonist exploring the area in search of a way to activate a multi-dimensional portal. Running ‘live’ (while the footage was being recorded) on a PlayStation 5 prototype, it proved that the future of gaming, and in our case simracing, looks very bright indeed.
The Demo served as a demonstration of numerous new features that the engine implements. While in general, all of them might provide some interesting possibilities for racing sims, surely some look particularly promising for the next generation of driving titles. Let us take a look at them in order.
Nanite
Nanite is the first of the new technologies showed. Thanks to Nanite, UE5 will be able to support polygons made of millions of triangles each, displaying 8K textures thanks to Virtual Streaming. What this means, is Film-standard visual quality available now for games, which can be run on domestic computers and not be restricted to dedicated workstations as it has been until now. Shadows too will be pixel precise, and Aliasing will most likely be a thing of the past. Every frame will be able to handle billions of triangles, all crunched up by the engine seamlessly at once. What does it mean for us, simracers? Well in one of the rooms showed in the Demo, there was a statue, made of 33 million triangles! Imported straight away from ZBrush, it had no baking of normal maps, no LODs. The next room had almost 500 hundred of the same statues all together, reaching 60 billion triangles from statues alone in the scene. One of the key aspect of UE5 in fact, is optimization. Epic Games wanted developers and content creators not have to worry anymore about polycount, draw calls and memory. Creating and importing a model had to be as simple as possible, that was the key factor in developing the new engine. Therefore this could translate, in our specific case, like for example a driving sim, powered by UE5, supporting mods, into modders being able to make their favourite cars without worrying too much about the number of polygons and LODs anymore. Photogrammetry will be much easier to work with too, which also means more detailed and precise models. The work of creators and developers as well of course, will be definitely easier and faster, while achieving far better results than it is possible now.
Lumen
Lumen is the second new technology showed in the Demo. Thanks to it, it will be possible to achieve fully dynamic, realistic lighting, with properly correct bouncing over surface materials and shadow projection. Every light source will directly trigger a reaction in the ambient around it, without any need of extra work. It can handle scenes ranging in dimension from millimetres to kilometres. For us simracers it could mean photorealistic lighting, 24h cycle, without a substantial hit on hardware.
Niagara
Niagara will work in correlation with the various parts of UE5 to handle particle communication. The swarm of bats flying in a scene of the Demo for example, are interacting with one another at all times, knowing where to go and keeping proper distance between them, startled by the player's entering in the scene. Particles and animated objects will in fact react to light, physics and sound based events, producing an active response. Animations can also be triggered dynamically now by interaction with the ambient surrounding the model and specific behaviour commands. This could be of particular interest in simracing for pit stop animations, crowd animations, animal behaviour, like flocks of birds, rain, tyre marbles, sparks, etc. It could make the track environment and the action during the race look and feel quite a bit more realistic and natural, adding to the overall immersion of the player.
Convolution Reverb
Convolution Reverb is an audio technology that will handle sounds reverb and echo, producing high-fidelity results. For driving sims, it would mean better Doppler Effect and realistic interaction with specific ambient situations like galleries, corridors (parts of the track surrounded by tall buildings closely facing each other) or real life scenes like circuits set in natural environments.
A small mention goes also to the already known Chaos physics engine, which was showed during the Demo in the water ripples reacting to the player walking over the little stream inside the cave, and on the character’s scarf.
The Unreal Engine 5 has also another ace up its sleeve, which is Retro Compatibility. It will be able to interface itself with UE4 projects, which can be then quickly upgraded. The UE5 dev tools will be available in early 2021, with the engine itself to be fully released in the second half of the year, and we hope that all of the goodies shown in this Demo will translate someday into some incredible projects and titles for us simracers to enjoy!
Original Source: unrealengine.com
What do you think? What are you most excited about of these new technologies? Are you sceptical? Are you a modder? What do you make of it? Let us know, in the comments below!
Set in an ancient cave/complex of ruins, it shows the protagonist exploring the area in search of a way to activate a multi-dimensional portal. Running ‘live’ (while the footage was being recorded) on a PlayStation 5 prototype, it proved that the future of gaming, and in our case simracing, looks very bright indeed.
The Demo served as a demonstration of numerous new features that the engine implements. While in general, all of them might provide some interesting possibilities for racing sims, surely some look particularly promising for the next generation of driving titles. Let us take a look at them in order.
Nanite
Nanite is the first of the new technologies showed. Thanks to Nanite, UE5 will be able to support polygons made of millions of triangles each, displaying 8K textures thanks to Virtual Streaming. What this means, is Film-standard visual quality available now for games, which can be run on domestic computers and not be restricted to dedicated workstations as it has been until now. Shadows too will be pixel precise, and Aliasing will most likely be a thing of the past. Every frame will be able to handle billions of triangles, all crunched up by the engine seamlessly at once. What does it mean for us, simracers? Well in one of the rooms showed in the Demo, there was a statue, made of 33 million triangles! Imported straight away from ZBrush, it had no baking of normal maps, no LODs. The next room had almost 500 hundred of the same statues all together, reaching 60 billion triangles from statues alone in the scene. One of the key aspect of UE5 in fact, is optimization. Epic Games wanted developers and content creators not have to worry anymore about polycount, draw calls and memory. Creating and importing a model had to be as simple as possible, that was the key factor in developing the new engine. Therefore this could translate, in our specific case, like for example a driving sim, powered by UE5, supporting mods, into modders being able to make their favourite cars without worrying too much about the number of polygons and LODs anymore. Photogrammetry will be much easier to work with too, which also means more detailed and precise models. The work of creators and developers as well of course, will be definitely easier and faster, while achieving far better results than it is possible now.
Lumen
Lumen is the second new technology showed in the Demo. Thanks to it, it will be possible to achieve fully dynamic, realistic lighting, with properly correct bouncing over surface materials and shadow projection. Every light source will directly trigger a reaction in the ambient around it, without any need of extra work. It can handle scenes ranging in dimension from millimetres to kilometres. For us simracers it could mean photorealistic lighting, 24h cycle, without a substantial hit on hardware.
Niagara
Niagara will work in correlation with the various parts of UE5 to handle particle communication. The swarm of bats flying in a scene of the Demo for example, are interacting with one another at all times, knowing where to go and keeping proper distance between them, startled by the player's entering in the scene. Particles and animated objects will in fact react to light, physics and sound based events, producing an active response. Animations can also be triggered dynamically now by interaction with the ambient surrounding the model and specific behaviour commands. This could be of particular interest in simracing for pit stop animations, crowd animations, animal behaviour, like flocks of birds, rain, tyre marbles, sparks, etc. It could make the track environment and the action during the race look and feel quite a bit more realistic and natural, adding to the overall immersion of the player.
Convolution Reverb
Convolution Reverb is an audio technology that will handle sounds reverb and echo, producing high-fidelity results. For driving sims, it would mean better Doppler Effect and realistic interaction with specific ambient situations like galleries, corridors (parts of the track surrounded by tall buildings closely facing each other) or real life scenes like circuits set in natural environments.
A small mention goes also to the already known Chaos physics engine, which was showed during the Demo in the water ripples reacting to the player walking over the little stream inside the cave, and on the character’s scarf.
The Unreal Engine 5 has also another ace up its sleeve, which is Retro Compatibility. It will be able to interface itself with UE4 projects, which can be then quickly upgraded. The UE5 dev tools will be available in early 2021, with the engine itself to be fully released in the second half of the year, and we hope that all of the goodies shown in this Demo will translate someday into some incredible projects and titles for us simracers to enjoy!
Original Source: unrealengine.com
What do you think? What are you most excited about of these new technologies? Are you sceptical? Are you a modder? What do you make of it? Let us know, in the comments below!
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