What is Unreal Engine, and What Makes it Popular Among CG Specialists?

(Unreal Engine 5’s phenomenal graphics)

Is it a game or a movie? Maybe even reality? The latest version of Unreal Engine is capable of things that just a few years ago would have seemed like a dream, even for Marvel’s CG artists or developers of top AAA projects in the gaming industry.

You’ve probably already heard about this engine. After all, many games have been released on its earlier versions, and many more will come out in the future. But we want to take a closer look at how exactly Unreal Engine manages to create such mind-blowing visuals. What technologies are being used, and what heights can be achieved using such a crafty instrument?

What is a Game Engine?

In simple terms, it’s a useful toolkit that is incredibly helpful for creating a game. For example, if your project needs hyper-realistic lighting, you would have to create your own engine for it. If you want buildings in your game to collapse after a targeted hit by a player, you’ll again need an engine.

Known industry giants usually develop these engines themselves because they have the resources. But smaller companies, not wanting to waste time and effort on reinventing the wheel, prefer ready-made engines. One of the oldest is Unreal Engine, created in 1996.

Latest News About Unreal Engine

Nowadays, the engine is basically free. This means that regular users can tinker with it as much as they want without paying a cent, but if you create a somewhat successful game with it, you are required to pay royalties to the developer, Epic Games. Fair enough, we think.

(The main message from the developers is also quite inspiring: "We make the Engine. You made it Unreal." Now that’s the spirit! Developers like Epic Games understand how hard it is to create something from scratch (especially if your budget isn’t a bottomless pit) and give many aspiring game devs a chance to make their own game. Something they might not otherwise be able to do.)

At the moment, the latest version of the engine is Unreal Engine 5, which was released in 2020, in real-time, on PlayStation 5.

(Unreal Engine Release on PlayStation 5)

The visuals, without a doubt, are phenomenal, but what exactly makes them so good? Let’s dive into how Epic Games changed the gaming industry with the release of the new version of their old engine.

What Does Unreal Engine 5 Offer to Its Users?

The main task for any developer is to ensure that their game can run even on a toaster. And not just run, but do so with as few freezes as possible.

One of the new technologies in Unreal Engine 5, Nanite, is a significant leap forward in how developers work with game models.

Previously, the principle was a little convoluted: the farther a model is from the player, the lower its details, and the closer it is, the higher its quality. This is convenient for most players since it allows newer games to run on devices that otherwise wouldn’t be able to handle them, but for developers, it’s just another complication. After all, they have to create several versions of each model. In low quality, high quality, and something in between.

Nanite, however, creates all models in the highest quality from the start but only loads the ones that are visible to the player on-screen. So, if you zoom in, you see the model in high resolution, but anything off-screen simply doesn’t get rendered.

(Nanite in Unreal Engine 5: Explainer video)

But even if we have high-polygon models, they’ll remain flat to the naked eye without proper lighting. For this, Unreal Engine 5 offers another impressive technology called Lumen.

Let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room. Realistic lighting technology already exists, and it’s called Ray Tracing. Popular titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and Insomniac’s Spider-Man showcase this feature beautifully. However, it’s incredibly taxing on your hardware and requires a lot of time to calculate light rays to make them reflect the way they would in real life.

‍(What is Ray Tracing and how does it work?)

Lumen is a similar technology but saves a lot of the computing power required for Ray Tracing by working only with objects in the camera’s line of sight. Moreover, in the new Unreal Engine 5, soft shadows and reflections are processed simultaneously, rather than as separate actions like before.

(Lumen in Unreal Engine 5: Explainer video)  

And, of course, such a multifunctional engine could not escape the attention of filmmakers and video creators, gradually replacing the green screen. With the help of real-time technologies, which were already known from Unreal Engine 4, you can set up a realistic background right on set in just a few minutes, saving countless hours in post-production. The engine also helps adjust focus, choose lighting, and select the lens — all in real-time!

(How to use Unreal Engine in Cinematography)

This concludes our article, but if Unreal Engine is not enough for you and you’re interested in creating, say, animated films, we invite you to read our other article about 3D modelling program Blender.

This article was prepared for you by Lava Media, specialists in creating and promoting advertising video content all over the world.

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