Im Rahmen des Summer Game Fest durchschritt Epic Games das Tor in die Zukunft und präsentierte den Zuschauern mit der Unreal Engine 5 die nächste Generation der hauseigenen Spiel-Engine. Die Möglichkeiten der Engine wurden direkt mit einer technischen Demonstration vorgeführt. Dabei lief die Tech-Demo namens „Lumen in the Land of Nanite“ laut Epic Games in Echtzeit auf einer PlayStation 5.

Die Engine wurde während eines 50-minütigen Livestreams mit Geoff Keighley näher vorgestellt und besprochen. Epic Games' Technischer Direktor Kim Libreri sprach davon, dass es sich bei dem Gezeigten um eine vollkommen spielbare Demo handelt. Hierzu wurde schlicht ein Aufnahmegerät an das PlayStation-5-Entwickler-Kit geschlossen, und so das Signal des HDMI-Anschlusses aufgenommen. Es handelte sich dabei um eine Live-Demo, die immer wieder erneut gespielt werden kann, wobei sich die Spielerfahrung jedes Mal etwas von der vorherigen unterscheiden wird.

Unreal Engine 5 wird Anfang 2021 in einer Vorabversion verfügbar sein. Die vollständige Veröffentlichung ist für das Ende 2021 angedacht und soll neben Konsolen der nächsten sowie der aktuellen Generation auch PC, Mac, iOS und Android unterschützen.

Im nachfolgenden Video könnt ihr einen Blick auf die Tech-Demo werfen. Darunter findet ihr weitere umfassende Details zu einigen der neuen Technologien der Engine.

Introducing “Lumen in the Land of Nanite”, a real-time demo running live on PlayStation 5:

This demo previews two of the new core technologies that will debut in Unreal Engine 5:

Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry frees artists to create as much geometric detail as the eye can see. Nanite virtualized geometry means that film-quality source art comprising hundreds of millions or billions of polygons can be imported directly into Unreal Engine—anything from ZBrush sculpts to photogrammetry scans to CAD data—and it just works. Nanite geometry is streamed and scaled in real time so there are no more polygon count budgets, polygon memory budgets, or draw count budgets; there is no need to bake details to normal maps or manually author LODs; and there is no loss in quality.

Lumen is a fully dynamic global illumination solution that immediately reacts to scene and light changes. The system renders diffuse interreflection with infinite bounces and indirect specular reflections in huge, detailed environments, at scales ranging from kilometers to millimeters. Artists and designers can create more dynamic scenes using Lumen, for example, changing the sun angle for time of day, turning on a flashlight, or blowing a hole in the ceiling, and indirect lighting will adapt accordingly. Lumen erases the need to wait for lightmap bakes to finish and to author light map UVs—a huge time savings when an artist can move a light inside the Unreal Editor and lighting looks the same as when the game is run on console.

Numerous teams and technologies have come together to enable this leap in quality. To build large scenes with Nanite geometry technology, the team made heavy use of the Quixel Megascans library, which provides film-quality objects up to hundreds of millions of polygons. To support vastly larger and more detailed scenes than previous generations, PlayStation 5 provides a dramatic increase in storage bandwidth.

The demo also showcases existing engine systems such as Chaos physics and destruction, Niagara VFX, convolution reverb, and ambisonics rendering.

Unreal Engine 4 & 5 timeline

Unreal Engine 4.25 already supports next-generation console platforms from Sony and Microsoft, and Epic is working closely with console manufacturers and dozens of game developers and publishers using Unreal Engine 4 to build next-gen games.

Unreal Engine 5 will be available in preview in early 2021, and in full release late in 2021, supporting next-generation consoles, current-generation consoles, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android.

We’re designing for forward compatibility, so you can get started with next-gen development now in UE4 and move your projects to UE5 when ready.

We will release Fortnite, built with UE4, on next-gen consoles at launch and, in keeping with our commitment to prove out industry-leading features through internal production, migrate the game to UE5 in mid-2021.

Unreal Engine royalties waived on first $1 million in game revenue

Starting today, you can download and use Unreal Engine to build games for free as you always have, except now royalties are waived on your first $1 million in gross revenue. The new Unreal Engine license terms, which are retroactive to January 1, 2020, give game developers an unprecedented advantage over other engine license models. For more information, visit the FAQ.

Epic Online Services have launched!

Friends, matchmaking, lobbies, achievements, leaderboards, and accounts: we built these services for Fortnite, we launched them across seven major platforms - PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. Now we’re opening up Epic Online Services to all developers FOR FREE in a simple multiplatform SDK!

Mix and match these services together with your own account services, platform accounts, or Epic Games accounts, which reach the world’s largest cross-platform social graph with over 350 million players and their 2.2 billion friend connections across half a billion devices.

Die nachfolgende Videopräsentation führt noch einmal die technischen Höhepunkte der Unreal Engine 5 auf.