Unreal Engine 5 early access now available

by Mark Tyson on 27 May 2021, 12:11

Tags: Epic Games

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaeqmw

Add to My Vault: x

The last time Unreal Engine 5 was in the HEXUS news was about a year ago when Epic Games released a video demo of UE5 content being run in real-time on a Sony PlayStation 5. Epic says that it created UE5 to "achieve photorealism on par with movie CG and real life," and instrumental to this goal are two key technologies within it - dubbed 'Nanite' and 'Lumen'. On Wednesday Epic announced that Early Access to Unreal Engine 5 had become available to developers. To mark the occasion it provided a recap on Nanite and Lumen technologies, as well as discussions on using UE5 for developing open worlds, in context animations, metasounds, plus a look at the new enhanced editor UI & workflow.

A presentation on UE5 hosted by Chance Ivey and Galen Davis of Epic Games is embedded above. The tech execs show you around the Valley of the Ancient sample project, as well as providing a first hands-on look at some of the new tools and workflows available in UE5. The video and blog both provide a recap on Nanite, a virtualized micropolygon geometry system, and Lumen, a fully dynamic global illumination solution.

Later, the blog and video go on to describe how users can use World Partition for auto-dividing game maps. Other tools highlighted include One File Per Actor for easy collaboration, and Data layers for creating variations on the same world (night & day, for example).

Details about using the new UE5 editor and UI then follows. In particular, Epic has seen fit to expand and enhance the animation toolset within the UE editor, so users don't have to keep switching to other apps. There is a general UI makeover here too, and the video shows collapsible tabs, drawers, and other stage-space saving UI elements to let creators focus on the content yet still have easy access to all the resources they want at hand.

If you want further details about UE5, beyond the scope of the blog or videos from Epic, now that the early access is available there is specific getting started and new feature documentation available too.

Both AMD and Nvidia have published blog posts about their involvement / collaboration in creating UE5.



HEXUS Forums :: 9 Comments

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!
Impressive looking, just too bad no one would use it to make a game i would consider playing, they will probably make the same garbage they are making nowadays.
Today games is on way to small ‘maps’ as well… and honestly with many of them games out there you feel cramped… oddly enough massive worlds was done very well with old and ancient games.
Coming to The Mandalorian soon!
Gentle Viking;1338941
Impressive looking, just too bad no one would use it to make a game i would consider playing, they will probably make the same garbage they are making nowadays.

Surprising where Unreal Engine ends up these days, since Epic decided to compete head-to-head with Unity for the hearts and minds of small-shop & one-man-band developers (one of the reasons I cut them more slack than most gaming companies).
KultiVator
Surprising where Unreal Engine ends up these days, since Epic decided to compete head-to-head with Unity for the hearts and minds of small-shop & one-man-band developers (one of the reasons I cut them more slack than most gaming companies).

They are just using tons of venture funding to push out the only competitor left,and then we will have a monopoly unless you are a AAA studio who has their own engine. Once there is no 3rd party competition,see the prices rise. Its the classic tactic Stagecoach used in the UK!