SPEAKER: The latest release of Unreal Engine
builds upon the groundbreaking feature set released in UE five
to add a new level of robustness, efficiency,
and accessibility with the needs of different sectors in mind.
Here are just some of the highlights of Unreal Engine 5.1.
First up, we've laid the groundwork for Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual
Shadow maps to support games and experiences running
at 60 FSP on Next Gen consoles and capable PCs.
So fast-paced games and simulations can run without latency.
Nanite has been updated with a programmable rasterizer
to allow for material driven animations
and deformations via World Position Offset, as well as opacity masks.
Here, we're using it to animate leaves blowing
in the wind on Nanite-based foliage.
In this release, we've continued to enhance tools
for building massive open worlds.
New hierarchical level of detail support for water rendering
and streaming means you can create large water
bodies with better performance and a smaller memory footprint.
And here, we're using World Partition with the newly supported large world
coordinates, enabling us to create a massive open world without loss
of precision.
World Partition also features better source control workflows, just one
of the new features for improved developer efficiency, which
also include virtual assets for faster and more efficient
data syncing, pipeline state object caching for DX 12,
and on-demand shader compilation.
Unreal Engine 5.1 sees significant improvements
in performance and usability for in-camera VFX workflows
that apply equally to the broadcast and live events space.
Stage operators get a new, dedicated in-camera VFX editor
tailored to their specific tasks, such as light card placement
and editing on end display walls.
It also provides access to new color correction tools.
The virtual camera system is now more responsive and reliable
and features an updated UI with a modern, camera-focused design.
And adding an EXR or movie file to a level or sequencer
is now just a matter of drag and drop from the content browser.
Character animators have plenty to look forward to in this release.
The machine learning deformer lets you generate high fidelity
approximations of deformation rigs from Maya
that execute in real time in UE.
On another front, Control Rig continues
to expand toward fully procedural rigging.
Now you can create a single Control Rig asset
and use it for characters with different skeletal proportions
and properties.
Improvements to a sequencer include support for constraints,
letting you quickly and easily create and animate relationships
between any control rig or actor.
For example, making a camera always follow
a character or keeping a character's hands on a steering wheel.
Enhancements to the modeling tool set include
new functions for geometry scripting, UE editor improvements
to handle more complex assets, and a new pattern
tool that lets you tile one or more selected meshes along a line, grid,
or circle oriented on a movable 3D plane.
Last but not least, meta sounds now offers additional node types,
support for various multichannel output formats,
and enhanced usability.
We've also introduced soundscape, a plug-in for procedural ambient sound
generation.
These are just some of the highlights of what's new in Unreal Engine 5.1.
You can find out more on our What's New page, where
you'll also find a link to download the release if you're a new user.
Otherwise, it's available right from your Epic Games launcher.
Enjoy.