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A first look at Unreal Engine 5

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421–430 of 695 posts

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, convolution reverb. We've had it for a long time in DSP. Basically what you do is pop a balloon (create an "impulse" -- you can also clap your hands or use an electric arc) and record the echo. This gives you what's called the "impulse response" of the space. Reverb is really just thousands of echoes, and echoes are just the original sound delayed back to you. So what you can do is use the impulse response in a F…

This is one area where hardware accelerated ray-tracing has me excited. I like the idea of walking sound sources to the observer. Unlike light, you need to account for the speed of sound through mediums, which adds an extra layer of cool imo. You also don't need to update at the audio sample rate, since most objects will not be moving very fast (unless you want trans sonic simulations, which would be exotic and cool)…

I suppose it's a matter of acceptable approximations and cost. If only 2% of players have a high quality surround sound system, and only half of those have a good ear, then you really only have 1% of users who can tell the difference between raytraced audio and the heuristic "hacks" that sound engineers have spent decades developing. So I don't know if audio raytracing will become mainstream in games anytime soon. But I also suppose that if one engine does it, others will follow suit.

Same thing with this Unreal 5 demo. Most users would not be able to tell the difference between rendering 16B vs 8B triangles per frame.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#422
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this demo I thought it "didn't feel that way" more due to the camera positioning and character than anything else, though. The environment seemed quite indistinguishable from pre-rendered CGI.

It's definitely impressive but kind of obviously not pre-rendered still. There is quite some aliasing in smaller details of the more complex objects and the edges of shadows aren't soft. The water effects looked quite bad still.

Also, the character model's hands+feet commonly clipped the walls slightly, and sometimes had that odd sliding motion in which the overall limb seems approximately stationary with respect to the surface they're touching, but the actual edge does not, it slides about a little.

I mean... that lighting was really, really good, and I think this is the first triangle-based demo where the surfaces really don't look oddly angular almost anywhere (maybe with exception of the stalactites). But it's a far cry from the hand-tuned look of something prerendered.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#423

It mostly looks amazing but also very uncanny valley. The development process improvements sound most promising. I was amazed until the the character started climbing the rocks. Seems like no one at Epic has ever climbed a rock in their life.. it sent the whole demo back to PS1 land. It doesn't even look like a super hero rock climbing, just looks totally wrong. Almost no part of the body ever looks angled correctly…

The environment looks great, the anime-eyes character with porcelain skin definitely looks UV. The climbing motion is uhhh a little floaty? In any real rock climbing video, you can see that the effort is much more labored.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#424

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.

On the other hand, I think this probably is the least-scary answer to the mystery of the great filter.

If there are other civilizations out there, I think we’re more likely to be visited by super-intelligent AI than we are to meet their creators. Think of a small sentient spaceship going the speed of light with a million IQ hive of replicators on board. They wouldn’t have to bother about life preservation or oxygen or any of that noise. Their creator species would stay in their galaxy until their AI finds another ideal planet to colonize, or they could be dead and their legacy lives on in the AI. The existence of extraordinarily compelling virtual worlds wouldn’t have much of an impact in my opinion.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#425
post #75

I really, really, really want an Unreal Tournament 2021. It's a shame they haven't pushed that series as a showcase for the engine anymore.

Still playing UT99. The original Unreal Tournament is just something done right.

UT2004 was brilliant too.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#426

so PC gamers, with 8K textures and UE5, what would you like to see aside from pushed framerates?

Active worlds. I've played open world games like the Witcher 3, or Assassin's Creed Odissey; and damn they're impressive games. Assassin's creed in particular was really amazing, you could wander through ancient Greece and just enjoy the sights, visit the cities. With the kind of things demoed here it will be even more amazing. But the games feel somehow lifeless, as if you're the only one really living in there. Sur…

yeah, all the economy stuff in games is because you are the only one amassing wealth, stealing and looting from everyone and everything. it is pretty ridiculous.

even that skyrim patch that lets you invest and makes shop owners have more money was still only influenced by you and you alone

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#427
post #37

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++

That's not entirelly true, there are for instance Python bindings, and I think some work exists on bindings for other languages. I just think they don't always have a lot of support until a case exists where it ends up being really valuable. Film studios in the case of Python.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/PythonAPI/introduction.h...

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#428
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or by just using Flash. I never did it myself. I know there are plenty of reasons to dislike flash. And I know plenty of people absolutely hated sites created solely using Flash. But I have to admit I enjoyed the creativity I saw on many Flash sites. There a generic sameness to much of the modern web. I know Flash sites were useless for SEO, and probably for accessibility too. So I don't think things are necessarily…

Wasn't the problem with "Flash sites" that it was way way worse than any regular website... as a website? Kinda like SPAs today. You had to reinvent stuff the browser already did perfectly. But as long as you made Flash APPS to be run embedded on websites, it was pretty awesome. Animation, video, etc. No competition, hands down just great tech... until HTML5 caught up.

I was going to say something similar. A lot of the drawbacks from flash sites also apply to current SPAs. I know you can get usable and SEO friendly SPAs, but it's so much work compared to plain HTML files or templating in the backend.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#429
Multiple comments here agree that the water is not the engine’s strong suit, but the thing that bothers me the most these days is not the water, but the wetness (or lack thereof). Why can’t nobody do wetness well? In most games you’ll play, you can dive deep into the water and when you go out your model will stay completely dry. If Naughty Dog managed to do it well on a PS3, so can the game engine as a feature on the PS5.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The video that reignited Xbox360 vs PS3 forum battles around the internet.

That was the Killzone 2 trailer, not the Killzone: Shadow Fall trailer the parent posted.
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