A first look at Unreal Engine 5 • Hacker News Board

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#321

Post by barbecue_sauce » Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

ksec wrote: post #284

flipgimble wrote: post #145

Let me throw in an anecdote that may amuse some: I was working for a now defunct large game company when Epic and Tim Sweeny came in to demo Unreal Engine 3 very early before the PS3 and XBox360 were launched. This was about 2004. Their demo blew away executives in particular. They showed multicolored lights casting multicolored shadows on a single high detail character. One of the lights was behind a stained glass w…

Not in the industry, so pure speculation. Unreal Engine's old business model were exactly that, get you excited with demos and sign up ( paid ) for their engine. And it was the same with UE 3 and UE 4. But in 2015 all that changed. It was open sourced on Github, it has a very sustainable revenue model due to the explosion of Mobile Gaming, the Gaming industry as a whole is now bigger than Movies and Music industry co…

Possibly a typo, but EPYC is a processor brand. EPIC makes Unreal (and Fortnite).

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#322

Post by virtualritz » Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #37

jakearmitage wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to use C++, you have Blueprints, which can control not only shaders, but also game logic and levels.

If you're a programmer who wants to write code, you have to use C++

Nah, you can do a minimal binding and write most of it in something else. E.g. Rust. Considerable boilerplate work initially for sure but possible.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#323

Post by renewiltord » Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #192

simias wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of sounding a bit negative I personally find that graphics have plateaued since about the PS3. Sure, there are more polys, sure, there are higher res textures, sure, there are more complex and dynamic lights. But you don't really have the kind of gap we used to have between, say, the PS1 and PS2 for instance. Diminishing returns and all that. The problem is that, in my experience, this eye candy only matt…

That's funny you bring up the PS3, because my first reaction to the parent commenter and the OP video was how I remember thinking things couldn't get much better than the PS3 demos [0] – which now look comparatively primitive – but I've had that same feeling with PS4 and now PS5. But PS5 really does seem to be getting close to real-time interactive realism. But I agree with you that I expected games to be much "bette…

I lost my mind when I saw the announcement for Killzone https://youtu.be/PDfu1mYQXEg

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#324

Post by mortenjorck » Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

gautamcgoel wrote: post #244

What a magical demo! That made my day. I had largely written off console gaming as a never-ending sequence of brain-dead first person shooters. I'm glad to see real innovation in the graphics space - coupled with advances in AI and NLP, I think we could see a crop of incredibly realistic and meaningful games in the next few years. IMHO, a key innovation that still needs to occur is a shift away from flunky and unintu…

I kept expecting the demo to fall back into some kind of traditional combat scenario as the player character explored the environment, but I love that Epic decided to make the hypothetical game in this tech demo exclusively about exploration.

I would absolutely love to play a game like this, combining the sensibilities of indie walking-sims with the epic scale of triple-A productions.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#325

Post by stjo » Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

zarkov99 wrote: post #183

This is stunning, but scary. Even if my descendants survive plagues, nuclear war, climate change and malevolent AI's, they might not have a chance against the allure of these simulated worlds.

underrated comment

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#326

Post by Panoramix » Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

m12k wrote: post #292

gautamcgoel wrote: post #244

What a magical demo! That made my day. I had largely written off console gaming as a never-ending sequence of brain-dead first person shooters. I'm glad to see real innovation in the graphics space - coupled with advances in AI and NLP, I think we could see a crop of incredibly realistic and meaningful games in the next few years. IMHO, a key innovation that still needs to occur is a shift away from flunky and unintu…

To play devil's advocate - games with this kind of production value require a huge investment in asset production, which means they tend to be very conservative when it comes to gameplay, because they want to be damn sure it doesn't flop. So until the production of something like this comes way down in price, the games that look like this are likely to be clones of existing successful games, e.g. Uncharted, brain-dea…

This demo looks more like a somewhat interactive movie than a videogame.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#327

Post by VikingCoder » Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

yodon wrote: post #301

chupasaurus wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UE4 supports dynamic multiple maps. Fortnite maps are static ones, even though they could be done using that feature.

The hard part of the multiverse is the business model. Features like dynamic maps are just that, features. If you have a business model that works you can bring all the tech features to play. If you bring the tech to play without a business model you just crater spectacularly. This is why Fortnite is important. It may not be the feature list you thought the multiverse would launch with but in hindsight it will be the…

For me, if the content is compelling, I'm paying a monthly membership. I expect the multiverse to pay content creators based on how much time I linger in their content.

Did HTML / HTTP have a business model? Or were they a platform upon which other things were built?

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#328

Post by micheljansen » Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

Interesting how these demos used to be about how awesome everything looks. That still matters, of course, but previous gen engines already achieved cinematic photorealism. Now it’s all about ease of use and workflow. No more need to worry about poly counts, normal maps etc.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#329

Post by globular-toast » Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

majora2007 wrote: post #71

nabla9 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Triangles that are just one pixel in the screen, dynamic lightning and overall rendering this close to photorealism, it's the all the other aspects of the games that limit the experience. Physics engine, character movement, etc. could still be improved.

Did you watch the video? Because they also have improved the audio system, chaos engine and animations drastically.

The quality of the graphics make the lack of realism in the animations more jarring for me. When the character touches a surface it just doesn't look in the slightest. It's quite frustrating actually. My brain seems ready to see realistic contact but instead sees a body moving around unnaturally near a surface that its supposed to be in contact with.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#330

Post by danbolt » Wed, May 13, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

Jare wrote: post #174

danbolt wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered if that dinosaur was using the 2MB of memory in the final retail unit, or 4MB often seen in arcade boards using the the PS1's technology.

I recall seeing it live in a devkit but I can't for the life of me remember the devkit specs. Note that that demo catered very expertly to the strengths of the PS1 hardware, it should run jut fine in a retail unit.

Yeah, the sort of things pictured in the dinosaur demo don't always match what's seen in retail PS1 games. I'd love to see a dissection of it.