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Unreal Engine 5

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Unreal Engine 5
Original author(s)Tim Sweeney
Developer(s)Epic Games
Initial releaseApril 5, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-04-05)[1]
Stable release
5.5 / November 12, 2024; 13 days ago (2024-11-12)
Written inC++
Operating systemWindows, Linux, macOS
LicenseSource-available commercial software with royalty model for commercial use[2]
Websiteunrealengine.com

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. Unreal Engine 5 includes multiple upgrades and new features, including Nanite, a system that automatically adjusts the level of detail of meshes, and Lumen, a dynamic global illumination and reflections system that leverages software as well as hardware accelerated ray tracing. The source code for Unreal Engine 5 is available on GitHub.[3]

History

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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 that could run Unreal Engine 4, including the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.[4] It was released in early access on May 26, 2021,[5] and formally launched for developers on April 5, 2022.[1]

Epic Games worked closely with Sony to optimize Unreal Engine 5 for the PlayStation 5.[6] To demonstrate the ease of use of the engine, both companies collaborated on a demo called "Lumen in the Land of Nanite" for the PlayStation 5 which featured a photorealistic cave setting that could be explored by players. The demo was showcased during the May 2020 reveal of the engine, and leveraged Nanite, Lumen, and assets from the Quixel library.[7][8] Epic also affirmed that the Xbox Series X/S would fully support Unreal Engine 5.[9]

Epic developed The Matrix Awakens, a promotional game demo for the 2021 movie The Matrix Resurrections, to showcase Unreal Engine 5 and other technology (such as MetaHuman Creator).[10] Epic has used its game Fortnite as a testbed for Unreal Engine 5.[7][11][12] The game was updated to use Unreal Engine 5 in December 2021.[13] Fortnite's Battle Royale mode received visual improvements when it was upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.1 with the launch of Chapter 4 on December 4, 2022.[14]

In March 2024, Epic Games launched Project Titan, a collaborative game jam to create a free open world sample project for Unreal Engine.[15]

Features

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Nanite

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A major feature of Unreal Engine 5 is Nanite, a virtualized geometry system that allows developers to use photogrammetry and other high-detail meshes in their games without significant performance impact.[16] Traditionally, artists had to create multiple models for different levels of detail (LoDs) and generate normal maps for finer details. Nanite automatically manages LoDs by scaling models dynamically based on draw distance, screen resolution, and performance requirements.[17][18] It utilizes a hierarchical structure, allowing different parts of a single mesh to render at varying levels of detail.[19] Nanite is compatible with many 3D model formats, including ZBrush sculpts and CAD models, enabling developers to directly import film-quality assets without manual optimization.[20] According to a talk given by Epic Games' Brian Karis at SIGGRAPH 2021, one of the significant innovations in Nanite is its ability to stitch edges between different LoDs seamlessly, ensuring that no cracks appear at boundaries. In its initial release, Nanite was only compatible with static meshes.[19]

With the potential for tens of billions of polygons on-screen at 4K resolution, Unreal Engine 5 is designed to take advantage of the high-speed solid-state storage in next-generation hardware.[17][18] Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney emphasized that this storage speed allows developers to "bring in [a game's] geometry and display it despite it not all fitting in memory," eliminating traditional loading screens and enabling seamless transitions between varying levels of detail as objects move closer to the player.[18]

Lumen

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Lumen is a fully dynamic ray traced global illumination and reflections system that can react in real-time to scene and lighting changes.[16][21] It eliminates the need for precomputed lightmaps for a given scene and enables automatic adjustments to light, reflections, and shadows.[17] Lumen supports both software and hardware ray tracing. The software ray tracing option, which uses Mesh Distance Fields, is optimized for a broad range of devices and enables fast ray intersections at the cost of lower fidelity.[22] Hardware ray tracing offers higher accuracy and supports additional geometry types, including skinned meshes. Lumen also incorporates a Surface Cache system that reduces the computational overhead required to evaluate lighting. When Lumen is disabled, the engine defaults to Signed Distance Field Ambient Occlusion for a lower-fidelity lighting solution.[22]

Other 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".[23] Virtual Shadow Maps differs from the common shadow map implementation in its extremely high resolution, more detailed shadows, and the absence of shadow cascade and pop-in issues present in commonly used shadow mapping techniques.[24]

UE5 uses Niagara for fluid and particle dynamics and its own Chaos physics engine in place of PhysX.[7][25]

Added in UE5.2, the engine introduced a new material creation system named Substrate, offering more versatile and modular authoring of materials.[26][27]

Additional features planned for Unreal Engine 5 come from Epic's acquisitions and partnerships. 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.[7] 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.[28] 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.[29] 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,[30] and the various middleware tools offered by Epic Games Tools.[31]

Licensing

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Unreal Engine 5 retains the royalty model started with Unreal Engine 4, with developers returning 5% of gross revenues to Epic Games, although this fee is waived for sales made through the Epic Games Store (EGS).[32] 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.[33] In October 2024, Epic lowered royalties to 3.5% on sales of games outside EGS if they list the game on EGS as well.[34]

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.[35][36]

See also

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References

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  2. ^ "Unreal Engine End User License Agreement". Unreal Engine. Archived from the original on August 26, 2018. Retrieved August 26, 2018.
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  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ 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.
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  22. ^ a b Battaglia, Alex (October 28, 2023). "Brilliant visuals and growing pains: examining the first generation of Unreal Engine 5 games". Eurogamer. Retrieved October 18, 2024.
  23. ^ "Virtual Shadow Maps". Unreal Engine Docs. Archived from the original on February 7, 2022. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
  24. ^ Dimitrov, Rouslan. "Cascaded Shadow Maps" (PDF). Nvidia Developer. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 15, 2022. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
  25. ^ Sergeev, Arti (July 26, 2022). "Working with Niagara Fluids to Create Water Simulations". 80.lv.
  26. ^ "Unreal Engine 5.2 is now available!". Unreal Engine. May 11, 2023.
  27. ^ McKenzie, Theodore (May 12, 2023). "Unreal Engine 5.2 Goes Live". 80.lv.
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  29. ^ 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.
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  31. ^ Francis, Bryant (January 7, 2021). "Epic acquires RAD Game Tools". Game Developer. Archived from the original on January 7, 2021. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
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  33. ^ 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.
  34. ^ Peters, Jay (October 1, 2024). "Epic is trying to sweeten the deal to use Unreal Engine and the Epic Games Store". The Verge.
  35. ^ 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.
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