Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) is finally live and is now available for download.
Compared to UE4, UE5 will now allow developers to push the visual boundaries in video games, including access to several major new features, such as Lumen and Nanite. To recap, both Lumen and Nanite were introduced and demoed back in 2020, when Epic Games showed off the features during a PlayStation 5 (PS5) technical demo. Basically, Lumen enables developers to bend and modify light and their sources based on the environment, while Nanite provides creators with the ability to import “film quality” source art that contain an insane amount of geometric detail.
In addition, UE5 now enables team members working on a World Asset to do so simultaneously, through the use of a One File Per Actor (OFPA) system. Further, each member will be able to design and create different variations of the world – this includes day and night cycles, as well as broken or intact geometrical layers – through the use of the Data Layers feature. Moving on, UE5 also sports a new enhanced Editor UI, so things look modern and refreshing.
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Once again, you can download UE5 directly from the Epic Games launcher, so if you haven’t already downloaded it, you should. Naturally, there are some hardware requirements that will need to be met. For PC users, your system will need to be running Windows 10 64-bit, a quad-core CPU from either Intel or AMD, and 8GB RAM, at the minimum. For Mac users, your system should at least be running on macOS Big Sur, using a quad-core Intel CPU running at 2.5GHz or faster, and 8GB RAM. For Linux users, the requirements include Ubuntu 18.04, an Intel or AMD processor running at 2.5GHz or faster, and a whopping 32GB of memory.
As usual, UE5 is free to use and Epic Games will only take a 5% royalty should the video game title developed with the game engine earns more than US$1 million (~RM4.22 million) in sales.
(Source: Unreal Engine)
