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ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
For game developers, this is the first release with initial support for Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X as first-class platforms, and throughout the year we will be updating the 4.25-Plus branch with optimizations, fixes, and certification requirements to support developers launching on the next generation of consoles. Features include platform-specific functionality, such as new audio advancements, initial support for online subsystems, and early support for TRC and XR certification requirements.

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The Fortnite team has been battle-testing Niagara VFX and Chaos physics, and these feature sets are now in use in currently shipping seasons of the game. Niagara is now production-ready, with a polished new UI and signficant performance and stability improvements. There are also a host of new features, including the ability to create complex, large-scale particle effects such as flocking and chains, and to have particles react to music or other audio sources—all in real time.

Meanwhile, we're continuing to progress the Chaos physics and destruction system, and we're happy to say that with this release, Chaos supports destruction, static mesh dynamics with collisions, cloth, hair, rigid-body skeletal control for items such as ponytails, and scene queries. There's still more to come in future releases.
Finally, with this release, real-time ray tracing is now also officially production-ready! From games, films, and broadcast to automotive and architectural visualization, ray tracing enables you to achieve new levels of believability in your real-time projects.

[/QUOTE]

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more at the source.

www.unrealengine.com

Unreal Engine 4.25 released!

New features include next-gen console support, updates to Niagara VFX and Chaos physics, a new high-quality media output pipeline, and much more.

edit: full release notes
docs.unrealengine.com

What's New

Information about new features in each release of Unreal Engine
 
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Commedieu

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
15,025
man. the house that fortnight built. god damn considering this is free software. The Hair sim beta stuff looks incredible..
 

plagiarize

Eating crackers
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
27,511
Cape Cod, MA
So that confirms in engine for that specific screen of Hellblade 2. Neat. The shadows from small objects on her face make me pretty confident they're using a ray tracing solution there, especially looking at the rings near her left shoulder showing different fall off. The one further away from her skin has a much softer shadow, and I'm not sure that screen space shadows emulate such things.
 

Daxa

Member
Jan 10, 2018
622
For anyone wanting to work with LiDAR data, there's now built-in support in Unreal Engine for importing, visualizing, editing, and interacting with point clouds. These real-world captures are great for visualizing locations, or for putting newly designed elements in context.

Does this mean people with the latest iPads and iPhones can export everything they capture with the LiDAR to UE? That would be pretty cool.
 
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ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
So that confirms in engine for that specific screen of Hellblade 2. Neat. The shadows from small objects on her face make me pretty confident they're using a ray tracing solution there, especially looking at the rings near her left shoulder showing different fall off. The one further away from her skin has a much softer shadow, and I'm not sure that screen space shadows emulate such things.
it's listed in the RT section in both the main article and the release notes. it's definitely in-engine with RT enabled. in-game? who knows
 

Black_Stride

Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
7,387
Does this mean people with the latest iPads and iPhones can export everything they capture with the LiDAR to UE? That would be pretty cool.

Yes.
Beta testers have been err testing it for a while.
In terms of making animations the new iPads and iPhones are actually incredible.
Indie games and demo face animations are going to climb very suddenly and almost without warning as more people start using iPhones and iPads to do captures and tune those....they are incredibly accurate....its just up to your rigger and animator to get everything truly production ready.

But the time going from nothing to an animated face that actually looks production ready has been cut down exponentially.
 

Commedieu

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
15,025
since we're here...

ANY UE4 devs around working w/Virtual production?

I have a 1080ti..

want to get into RTX (not just for gaming but for capturing animations) I see the 3000 series is coming soon... anyone having a good time with 2060/2080?

I want to keep my 1080ti for another box, but don't want to spend 1200 on a RTX2080ti just to be looking at the 3080ti later with envy.
 

Arex

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,496
Indonesia
Unreal or Unity in engine can produce some great stuff that we already know, whether it will run well in game though that's another matter :p
 
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ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
Yes.
Beta testers have been err testing it for a while.
In terms of making animations the new iPads and iPhones are actually incredible.
Indie games and demo face animations are going to climb very suddenly and almost without warning as more people start using iPhones and iPads to do captures and tune those....they are incredibly accurate....its just up to your rigger and animator to get everything truly production ready.

But the time going from nothing to an animated face that actually looks production ready has been cut down exponentially.
shit's crazy

*first one is Cinema4D/Arnold, second is UE4

 
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ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
this is the app used, I was mistaken with the first as it's Cinema4D (though there's a video of the animation in Unity)
apps.apple.com

‎Face Cap - Motion Capture

‎Facial motion capture is now a lot more easy. Record your performance and export the result to FBX or TXT. The FBX export contains mesh, blendshapes and animation data. The TXT export contains just animation data. Additional features: * Import your own custom avatars (From Blender or Maya)...
 

plagiarize

Eating crackers
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
27,511
Cape Cod, MA
it's listed in the RT section in both the main article and the release notes. it's definitely in-engine with RT enabled. in-game? who knows
I know it's listed as using RT features, but it doesn't go into which ones. I was speculating that RT is being used for shadows in that screen. Couldn't say what other RT features they might be using from just that screen.
 
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ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
I know it's listed as using RT features, but it doesn't go into which ones. I was speculating that RT is being used for shadows in that screen. Couldn't say what other RT features they might be using from just that screen.
I'm just gonna assume it's a beauty render and they're using everything. much like Epic's Fortnite animations
 

Soap

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,168
Really excited for this. I remember the transition from UE3 to 4 at the start of this generation was an ugly affair, but we shouldn't have those hiccups now.
 

plagiarize

Eating crackers
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
27,511
Cape Cod, MA
I'm just gonna assume it's a beauty render and they're using everything. much like Epic's Fortnite animations
I guess I'd expect them to pick a different shot if they wanted to highlight them all, but given that it's in a slide show, each screen is probably picked to highlight a different features. Whatever the matter, the shadows look extremely accurate in that shot. I'm eagerly awaiting faster roll out of RT thanks to UE4.25 and on and the new consoles supporting it. It's definitely going to be have a big impact on gaming visuals going forwards.
 

Deleted member 2620

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,491
There's so much cool new shit in Unreal I want to play with that I can't on my current project. I did toy around with RTX just a little, but I particularly want to play around with Niagara and I love that they're putting real time into in-editor modeling and animation.
 

Feep

Lead Designer, Iridium Studios
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
4,596
My team and I are poring over this list this morning. Some really nice additions!

Yay Epic!
 

AuthenticM

Son Altesse Sérénissime
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
30,015
So at what point will the engine be officially branded as "Unreal Engine 5"? During the next generation? The one after?

What advancements will the engine need before getting that branding?
 

Daxa

Member
Jan 10, 2018
622
So is hair simulation done by TressFX, or are they using something else?
 

DoradoWinston

Member
Apr 9, 2019
6,109
Possible stupid question, could the Switch get updated with this?
The switch itself doesnt need the update, devs would just have to use the newer version of the engine which you wont see for a while

That being said some of these features you wont see on switch for the fact that the switch is a small handheld device and not a full blown system like Xbox or PlayStation.