Unreal Engine 5 is now available from Epic Games; find out more here!
Epic Games has made the next-generation Unreal Engine 5 tool fully available to all creators after introducing it in 2020. The news was made during the company’s latest State of Unreal virtual event, and it declared that the Unreal Engine 5 is now “production-ready.” So, without further ado, let’s get into the specifics.
The Unreal Engine 5 engine is now available for Download
Epic Games has announced that Unreal Engine 5.0, which was previously accessible in Early Access and Preview, is now available via the Epic Games launcher. When it comes to the primary features of Unreal Engine 5, the tool has two: Nanite and Lumen.
Lumen is a revolutionary dynamic lighting system that allows developers to provide indirect lighting to virtual settings that adjust to changes in geometry and direct illumination in real-time. Developers will be able to easily design and adjust lighting effects inside the Unreal Editor without having to construct lightmap UVs, wait for lightmaps to integrate, or put reflection captures. During the creation process, the developers will be able to examine the final illumination that their users will see when the game is launched on a target platform.
Nanite, on the other hand, is a novel “virtualized micro polygon geometry system” that allows game and virtual environment makers to include minute geometric elements. Developers will be able to substantially cut the time it takes to create complex virtual surroundings by combining the technology with Virtual Shadow Maps (VSMs).
To render at a considerably lower resolution, developers can use Temporal Super Resolution (TSR) technology, which is a built-in, platform-independent, high-quality upsampling method. The render, on the other hand, will be on par with pixel fidelity to frames at higher resolutions.
More Information!
Aside from this, Unreal Engine 5 has various new open-world toolkits, such as a new Environment Partition system that automatically splits a virtual world into grids for easy control. The One File Per Actor (OPFA) method allows for the construction of numerous versions of the same environment and allows multiple developers to work on the same part of a virtual map at the same time without interfering with the modifications of others.
In addition, the application has a variety of built-in characters and animation capabilities to assist creators in creating the greatest games for consoles and PCs. An improved editor UI, in-editor modelling, UV editing, baking, and other features are also supported. To read more about the other features of UE 5, see Epic’s official blog article.
In terms of games built on Epic’s Unreal Engine 5, CD Projekt Red just announced a new Witcher title that would employ UE 5. In addition, Epic has published two example projects: the Lyra Starter Game and the City Sample from The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience. These are now available for free download on Epic’s official website and will serve as a starting point for developers to construct immersive gameplay experiences and virtual worlds.
So, if you’re a developer, today is a big day since you’ll be able to download and use UE 5 for your forthcoming projects. To utilise the utility, go to Epic’s official website and download the Epic Games launcher.
Image courtesy of Epic Games
