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A first look at Unreal Engine 5

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Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#451

Post by audleman »

Priem19 wrote: post #400

While this is completely amazing, a caveat: graphics are way less important than we think it is. I still remember every nook and cranny from Tomb Raider 3's jungle level, and when I think about it I imagine being deep inside a real jungle. It didn't matter that everything looked jagged; my imagination could go wild. This is probably a flawed opinion, but sometimes I think the more realistic games become, the less wor…

In a post about a new piece of graphics technology might not be the best place to have this conversation, but I'm glad it popped up. I recently decided to start playing Dwarf Fortress, a game with such terrible graphics it literally takes an act of will to get past them. Seriously, people post a screenshot full of commas and equal signs and say "epic battle, lol!"

Yet, something anazubg happened once I dedicated myself to deciphering the ascii characters: my imagination sprung to life to fill in the gaps. From those bland a-z characters came vaulting ceilings with intricate wall designs. Epic twisting caves. The oddest looking characters.

I compare it to a game of RimWorld, where the graphics make a lot more sense, but turns out limits my need to imagine it being different.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#452

Post by anchpop »

waltpad wrote: post #373
rasz wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ray tracing is a scam to push more hardware we dont need. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNRp9Y33xWE Can you spot the difference worth >2-3x performance drop?

It seems to me that this game doesn't actually take in account all the seemingly existing light sources when computing the shadows: see for instance at around 7:45, there is an obvious light source in the bottom right region (actually a bunch of synchronized pulsating lights on some sort of cylinders) which clearly should affect the surfaces close to it, but it doesn't in either mode! In the next comparison, there's…

Current games that use raytracing often only use it for 1 light. For example, Metro Exodus only uses it for the sun. This means parts that take place underground look virtually identical with or without RT turned on. It's possible that they do the same thing in this game

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#453

Post by alkonaut »

johncoogan wrote: post #350

Does anyone have any theories as to how Nanite actually works? I've never heard of virtualized micropolygon geometry before and it sounds a bit buzzwordy. Do we think they are just loading the full model into GPU memory, or are they baking down various LODs and normal maps at compile time through some automatic process? Either way, it's a huge workflow improvement. It's just unclear what's actually happening...

“Micropolygon” I assume means Reyes rendering, I.e that the polygons are created on demand from underlying geometry. Instead of various LODs you tessellate when rendering, specifically for the view so each pixel has ~1 vertex. Walk closer to the statue and it gets more triangles in tesselation.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#454

Post by willis936 »

bkanber wrote: post #421
willis936 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Bu…

You don't need a high quality sound system or a good ear to tell the difference though. You just need a pair of headphones and to be a human with hearing. Evolution has been at work for eons. Every human born is a powerful audio processing machine. I can't give you a rigorous proof or hand you a double blind test to try for yourself, so you'll have to accept an impasse or start going down a rabbit hole consisting of studies on pre-baked ray-traced FIR filters of known geometries and the audibility of group delay.

I am convinced every human can hear the difference. Computation is cheap. There's no reason not to solve the problem.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#455

Post by slx26 »

sterlind wrote: post #413
crazygringo wrote: post #408

Wow. It seems like real-time lighting and detail are getting to the point where they're so indistinguishable from reality... ...that now it's the actual quality of the models themselves, and even more of character motion, that are going to have to be the next steps in better graphics. I'm stunned by the lighting and detail, absolutely stunned. But at the same time, especially when you get into the architectural rooms…

All sorts of rendering tricks had to be played before RTX. Now that we have real-time ray tracing, models are becoming more important than shaders (see e.g. Minecraft. It looks like a real world made of Legos - the blocks make it look artificial.) Maybe once real time photorealism is cracked, we'll move to a completely Newtonian global physics for some games, with some analogue of "atoms" the way RTX models "photons.…

not exactly what you are saying, but you might be interested in teardown https://youtu.be/Wc_QC25RM44

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#456

Post by kposehn »

disease wrote: post #312
waterhouse wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better or worse kludges than this one? http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/posts/roundy.html

Thanks for the flashbacks! I had blacked out any memories of the world before 'border-radius' before seeing that!

We shall not speak of those dark times!

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#457

Post by tanilama »

gfxgirl wrote: post #295
ksec wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FYI though, It's not open source. Open source has a meaning and Unreal doesn't fit that meaning. https://www.google.com/search?q=open+soruce+definition

It is open source in the sense the source code is available for you to see. But probably not on the usage part.

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#458

Post by rodneyzeng »

andy_ppp wrote: post #447
disease wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the flashbacks! I had blacked out any memories of the world before 'border-radius' before seeing that!

And now that it's easy people try to avoid using rounded corners...

Well, I just found people still love rounded corners in LaTeX templates of books nowadays...

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#459

Post by hombre_fatal »

esoterica wrote: post #430
hombre_fatal wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, you're right. 2005. Good times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHFqOat79Cg

Re: A first look at Unreal Engine 5

#460

Post by rodneyzeng »

waterhouse wrote: post #231
artsyca wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude I spent a large portion of my early career as a web developer making rounded corners on divs using all sorts of kludges

Better or worse kludges than this one? http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/posts/roundy.html

Check color box with rounded corner in LaTeX, people are still living with it nowadays...
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