Back in 2020 Epic announced the successor to Unreal Engine 4, called Unreal Engine 5.Nearly 2 years after its announcement Epic Games has finally released its Next-Gen Game Engine. The news comes straight from the "State of Unreal" Virtual Event.
With the release of its Next-Gen Game engine, Epic Games aims to push the boundaries of video games, both visually and interactively.We currently have some impressive examples of Unreal Engine 5 potential like The Matrix Awakens.
Unreal Engine 5 packs some exciting features
The Next-Gen Engine comes with some exciting features like Lumen, Nanite, Virtual Shadow Maps, Temporal Super-Resolution and much more.
Lumen-
Lumen can achieve real-time and real-life indirect lighting with unbelievable accuracy. It provides Dynamic Global Illumination(GI) and sky shadowing on volumetric fog. It supports clear coat materials and a fully shadowed skylight.
Developers Statement-
Lumen is Unreal Engine 5’s revolutionary fully dynamic global illumination and reflections system that is designed for next-generation consoles. Lumen is the default global illumination and reflections system in Unreal Engine 5. It renders diffuse interreflection with infinite bounces and indirect specular reflections in large, detailed environments at scales ranging from millimetres to kilometres.
Lumen is Unreal Engine 5’s revolutionary fully dynamic global illumination and reflections system that is designed for next-generation consoles. Lumen is the default global illumination and reflections system in Unreal Engine 5. It renders diffuse interreflection with infinite bounces and indirect specular reflections in large, detailed environments at scales ranging from millimetres to kilometres.
Nanite-
Nanite is UE5's revolutionary virtualized geometry system which uses brand new rendering technology to render high object counts and pixel scale detail.
To illustrate Nanite's potential, a developer of Epic games studio Brian Karis released a complete documentation explaining how and why the tool was developed.t was developed. He has also mentioned what it is capable of, etc.
To illustrate Nanite's potential, a developer of Epic games studio Brian Karis released a complete documentation explaining how and why the tool was developed.t was developed. He has also mentioned what it is capable of, etc.
The studio has some cool offerings to explore the UE5 potential
The Lyra Starter Game
It is a free sample gameplay project available for devs and gamers to explore the world of UE5. It incorporates many key Engine features. Epic has promised to update the project alongside UE5 releases.
The City Sample
An UE5 project demonstrating how the large open world of The Matrix Awakens was built. Demonstrating how Epic games used technology to create the experience. There is a complete city with buildings, in-game vehicles, Metahuman characters, and many others.
Source - Epic Games
Author - Ayush Ray