Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 11, 2014. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The new version from Epic Games is already available to developers and subscribers, and has a few interesting innovations. For cloth or more elaborate landscapes, multiple layers of texture help with realism – UE 4.6 can now display a total of up to 128 instead of 13 layers – although only with Direct3D, and in the end it should run on a current console/gaming station.
Static objects – such as illuminated signs or screens with only one image – can now also serve as indirect lighting themselves, emit light, and illuminate the scene (including instancing). This lighting is prebaked, however, so other light sources cannot be dispensed with entirely.
The other major area of work is the "Mobile Environment", in which a mobile preview can already be started with a mouse click – although it still has to be activated in the "Experimental Features". UE uses OpenGL ES 2.0 for this. Further new features include: gamepad support for the UI elements in the editor, 20 large game-world sections, a 3D view for in-game menus such as the inventory, recording demos, and the option to hold Blueprint sessions with Steam. You can find all features and more images here: Unreal Engine 4.6 release notes
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