The Next Generation of Games – Unreal Engine 5
Unreal Engine 5, the next version of Unreal Engine, is finally here 🥳
The engine will enable the creation of more realistic and detailed worlds through features such as Nanite, Lumen, MetaSounds, and an improved user experience for players and developers. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most significant features in the new version.
Nanite
Nanite is a virtual micro-polygon system that allows developers to create games with huge amounts of polygons and precision down to the smallest details in each object. This was considered almost impossible until now due to the loading of details on the game and computer. The Nanite CPU automatically loads only the details that the player can see, thus saving on loading unnecessary parts of the game.
Lumen
Lumen is a dynamic lighting system that allows you to change the locations of items within Unreal and see the change in lighting in real time. The lighting is affected by small changes such as the position of the sun during different hours of the day, the lighting of a flashlight, or the movement of the player in the world. The significant advantage of the system is that it saves time for developers who, until now, had to wait every time to build the lights on the map.
Chaos Physics
Chaos Physics is an improved physics system designed to enable smoother and more fluid movement, vehicles, figures, destruction of objects, and more, along with complex simulations such as movements of clothes and hair. The system can integrate with other systems such as Niagara and Audio Mixer, which can activate effects or play sounds during the simulation.
MetaSounds
MetaSounds is a unique system for the new version of Unreal designed for producing sounds and sound by DSP graph and graphical programming of the audio. With each sound playback, the developer can receive data about the way it was played and the frequencies from which it was assembled, and change them visually like in a blueprint of code.
World Partition
World Partition is a system designed to load and run large worlds without burdening the game. The world is split into cells that load according to the player’s proximity to them. In the project settings, you can change the size of the partition on which the world will load with high quality, thus parts of the world will load at different times, such as day or night. An example of the operation of the system can be seen in the demo presented by Unreal.
Virtual Shadow
The virtual shadow system displays high-quality shadows during gameplay and automatically without affecting its performance by calculating the distance of the player from each object. This way, the system can display shadows of distant objects as well as those of close objects.
With these new features, Unreal Engine 5 revolutionizes the gaming world, providing developers with new tools to create more immersive, realistic, and complex worlds. The future of gaming is here, and it’s Unreal! Stay tuned for more updates and in-depth reviews of Unreal Engine 5’s amazing features.
Along with these features and several other expected additions that will come with the new engine, our mentors will be happy to teach you about Unreal Engine 5.