Archive notice: This article was originally published on April 2, 2019. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
There’s a lot of news about the Unreal Engine at the moment: with the latest announcements, previews and presentations from GDC 2019, as well as the new 100 million dollar“MegaGrants” to support community projects, Epic Games is now officially launching the next version of the software. With this update, the company has placed a noticeable focus on speed, collaboration and responsiveness.
What’s new in Unreal Engine 4.22
Unreal Engine 4.22 now includes real-time ray tracing, new live coding, real-time compositing, multi-user editing (Live), OCIO colour profiles and much more. As the new release has become quite large, here is an overview of the highlights:
Realtime Ray Tracing (Early Access)
The real-time ray tracing features could previously only be tested in the 4.22 preview version and are now also integrated in the official release as an early access feature. The ray tracing functions are made up of a series of shaders and effects that can be used to create realistic lighting effects in real time. Take a look at the latest demo from GDC 2019.
Epic also provides an additional path tracer, which is primarily intended to generate reference images for real-time results. You will need the Windows 10 RS5 update (DirectX 12 and DirectX Raytracing DXR) for the real-time functions and an NVIDIA RTX graphics card with corresponding DXR support – with the latest drivers, of course. The current real-time features include Ray Traced…
- Soft shadows for all light types (directional, point, spot, rect etc)
- Reflections to simulate accurate ambient reflections on reflective surfaces
- Translucency represents glass and liquid materials with physically correct reflections, absorption and refraction on transparent surfaces.
- Ambient Occlusion to better blend objects into their surroundings
- Global Illumination with interactive lighting (real-time) for surfaces that are not directly illuminated by a specific light source.
- Image Based Lighting for HDRIs with Sky Light
- Static and Skeletal Meshes, basic BSP Support & Niagara Particles
- Clear Coat materials
- An overview of the currently implemented features in the documentation
As it is still an early access feature, it is not yet suitable for real productions according to Epic Games. For example, support for multi-GPU, splines, landscapes, instanced meshes, geometry LODs and other points are still missing.
For activation in the Unreal Engine 4.22 version: Detailed instructions on how to activate the required DirectX 12 can be found in the new documentation section on Real-Time Ray Tracing here.
C and Live Coding
Live by Molecular Matters is now licensed for all users to use in Unreal Engine projects and is integrated as a new Live Coding feature. Live Coding allows you to make C changes in the development environment, compile in seconds and turn it into a running editor or standalone game.
Epic Games has also optimised the UnrealBuildTool and UnrealHeaderTool to greatly accelerate C iteration times. According to Epic Games, up to three times faster times are possible.
Real-Time Multi User Editing (Early Access)
“Multi User Editing” is intended to improve collaboration between several members and, above all, make it more direct. The features include the current version of Unreal Engine 4.22:
- Status synchronisation of the editor via dedicated servers
- Live transfer of changes to levels and sequences
- Materials and other asset types are transferred as soon as they are saved
- Editing sessions can be saved locally on confirmation when exiting.
As shown in the example video, this allows developers and artists to connect multiple instances of Unreal Editor to work together in a shared editor session and create the same virtual world in real time.
Further features and innovations
And the update notes don’t stop there: In addition to the new features mentioned above, Epic Games has also improved the Niagara VFX system introduced last year: including a curl noise data interface, a new collision system, random number generator for the Niagara emitters and more. Other changes include…
- Composure Live Compositing with new features
- OCIO colour profiles are now supported
- GPU decoding for accelerated playback of H264 video streams
- Audio system improvements including new event queing & spectral analyser
- Hololens remote streaming support via the Windows Mixed reality plug-in
- Sequencer improvements with new Take Recorder and Layered Animation
- Animation Budgeting System (Early Access)
- Animation Sharing Plug-in
- Long file paths for Windows (version 1607 or later)
All further information & release notes can be found here.
Quixel: Behind Rebirth Demo
In the last few days, Quixel released an impressive short called “Rebirth”, a UE real-time project set in a futuristic landscape. The project was realised in collaboration with Quixel, Beauty & The Bit, SideFX and Ember Lab and served as a “proof of concept” to demonstrate the capabilities of Unreal Engine 4.21. Here’s a new behind the scene clip:
Further information on the UE 4.22 release: To the Unreal Engine website
