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Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

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Re: Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

#41
post #33

On one hand it is great Unreal is being used in many places outside Gaming from VR, VFX, Movie production or anything to do with 3D / Photorealistic Graphics. On the other hand there are some recent backlash suggesting these direction and default in Unreal is making games look worst. [1] [2] And Nanite may not be the silver bullet we were looking for. [1] https://www.vg247.com/unreal-engine-5-has-been-a-disappointm..…

1's argument seems to mostly be that shader stuttering is bad in UE5, which doesn't have much to do with UE5... shader stuttering is really bad in lots of UE4-based games and non-Unreal games too, it's a plague that affects most modern high-spec games and driver stacks. If you think stuttering is bad in UE5 games try playing a WebGL or WebGPU based high fidelity game.

I'm not really sure what the alternative here is supposed to be anyway. Is it Unity? Godot isn't a realistic competitor yet for this level of fidelity, though it'll probably get there eventually.

Re: Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

#42
post #33

On one hand it is great Unreal is being used in many places outside Gaming from VR, VFX, Movie production or anything to do with 3D / Photorealistic Graphics. On the other hand there are some recent backlash suggesting these direction and default in Unreal is making games look worst. [1] [2] And Nanite may not be the silver bullet we were looking for. [1] https://www.vg247.com/unreal-engine-5-has-been-a-disappointm..…

1's argument seems to mostly be that shader stuttering is bad in UE5, which doesn't have much to do with UE5... shader stuttering is really bad in lots of UE4-based games and non-Unreal games too, it's a plague that affects most modern high-spec games and driver stacks. If you think stuttering is bad in UE5 games try playing a WebGL or WebGPU based high fidelity game. I'm not really sure what the alternative here is…

There's no alternative. Its just rage/click bait. The shader issue is cross engine and the solution is the same across engine...warm up the shaders before gameplay.

Re: Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

#43
post #33

On one hand it is great Unreal is being used in many places outside Gaming from VR, VFX, Movie production or anything to do with 3D / Photorealistic Graphics. On the other hand there are some recent backlash suggesting these direction and default in Unreal is making games look worst. [1] [2] And Nanite may not be the silver bullet we were looking for. [1] https://www.vg247.com/unreal-engine-5-has-been-a-disappointm..…

These remarks are hilarious. Nanite was never supposed to be a silver bullet but a way to enable high density mesh streaming and high fidelity shadows and lighting when used with Lumen. Both techniques work incredibly well. The only valid criticism is games getting too expensive (to make) and frame generation can work against gameplay. But both are really up to game designers to use appropriately, not engine provider…

The only real argument I see is "Lumen is bad." It would be pretty hard to work in an alternative GI but Nanite and the upscalers are optional.

Re: Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

#44

Why do people strive to create such realistic environments when they're a much more realistic world outside? Although I understand the purpose from a fantastical-escapist perspective, I wonder if this sort of increasingly realistic escapism actually is reflective of how we're making the real world far worse than it ever was before and we're preparing an alternative world to escape into due to our destructive tendenci…

This is like asking why they made film when cartoons exist. It's a means to achieve an artistic vision.

Re: Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

#45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1's argument seems to mostly be that shader stuttering is bad in UE5, which doesn't have much to do with UE5... shader stuttering is really bad in lots of UE4-based games and non-Unreal games too, it's a plague that affects most modern high-spec games and driver stacks. If you think stuttering is bad in UE5 games try playing a WebGL or WebGPU based high fidelity game. I'm not really sure what the alternative here is…

There's no alternative. Its just rage/click bait. The shader issue is cross engine and the solution is the same across engine...warm up the shaders before gameplay.

Valve has a fun solution for the Steam Deck, which is shipping pre-compiled shaders for your device across the wire that get installed along with the game. I'm curious to see whether that will become more widespread eventually.

Re: Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

#46
post #44

Why do people strive to create such realistic environments when they're a much more realistic world outside? Although I understand the purpose from a fantastical-escapist perspective, I wonder if this sort of increasingly realistic escapism actually is reflective of how we're making the real world far worse than it ever was before and we're preparing an alternative world to escape into due to our destructive tendenci…

This is like asking why they made film when cartoons exist. It's a means to achieve an artistic vision.

I understand that. And I fully support the artistic vision. However, many creations take on secondary functions within a complex system that goes beyond the intention of the inventor or even the people who USE the product.

For example, the INTENTION of antidepressants may have been at one time to treat severe depression, but as society (hypothetically) gets worse and more depressing, they may be used to help people cope with systemic problems and therefore ameliorate people's reaction to them.

Or phones: they initially were created to help people communicate but they are subverted (co-opted) by the system to make people more dependent on technology for the sake of technological growth.

Any number of products or ideas can start as one thing and become co-opted to serve a more insidious function beyond their initial purpose.

Re: Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

#47
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Son, you don’t need to see the desert or the ocean or the rainforest. You have a beautiful Midwest prairie right here at home.

Apropos of nothing, it seems weird to me that we observe a vocabulary distinction in identical phenomena based on where those phenomena are located. A prairie is called a steppe if it's in Asia. A steppe is called a prairie if it's in America. A hurricane is a typhoon, except it's striking the west coast of the Atlantic instead of the west coast of the Pacific. None of these make any difference to what the object is…

Your distinction around hurricane vs typhoon is off. Typhoon is the name in the pacific west of 180 degrees longitude (in the jurisdiction of the JMA), hurricane is the name in the pacific east of 180 degrees, or in the atlantic (jurisdiction of the NHC). In the south pacific and indian ocean, they are called cyclones instead, so there's really three names. The difference in naming is simply because the organization responsible for reporting on them is going to use the name most familiar to it's country of origin.

Also, prairie and steppe are subtly different, though if it weren't for historic reasons they might be named the same. A prairie is more moist and has more vegetation as a result, and can support more trees and general flora/fauna.

Re: Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

#48
post #5

Way too expensive to be useful for anything.

Do they have pricing information easily available? All I'm seeing is that it looks like it's free until you want to use their data, and there's no obvious indication of what that costs.

The pricing page shows different commercial plans at $149 or $499 per month: https://cesium.com/platform/cesium-ion/pricing/

Re: Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

#49
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Son, you don’t need to see the desert or the ocean or the rainforest. You have a beautiful Midwest prairie right here at home.

Apropos of nothing, it seems weird to me that we observe a vocabulary distinction in identical phenomena based on where those phenomena are located. A prairie is called a steppe if it's in Asia. A steppe is called a prairie if it's in America. A hurricane is a typhoon, except it's striking the west coast of the Atlantic instead of the west coast of the Pacific. None of these make any difference to what the object is…

Not that weird. The English language emerged from the needs of people from various linguistic backgrounds to describe things. It was not cleanly designed with top down clarity.

Re: Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine

#50

Why do people strive to create such realistic environments when they're a much more realistic world outside? Although I understand the purpose from a fantastical-escapist perspective, I wonder if this sort of increasingly realistic escapism actually is reflective of how we're making the real world far worse than it ever was before and we're preparing an alternative world to escape into due to our destructive tendenci…

You'd rather have me set it on fire and exploded in the virtual or in the real world?

They point of having virtual environments is to enable you to see things in them you'd rather not see in real life.

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