Archive translation. Specifications, services and availability reflect the original publication date in 2022. Verify current compatibility before production use.
In brief: Epic Games released the Preview build of Unreal Engine 5, moving the engine closer to a stable release for film, television and games.
Early Access and Preview: Early Access had concentrated on game development; Preview invited testing across other creative industries. Existing Unreal Engine 4 users would find much of the workflow familiar, although Lumen and Nanite still required work for non-game production.
Main development areas:
- Rendering: Nanite, Lumen, Virtual Shadow Maps and Path Tracer.
- World building: World Partition, One File Per Actor and Large World Coordinates.
- Animation: Control Rig, Distance Matching, Pose Warping, Animation Blueprint Templates, IK Rig and IK Retargeter.
- Audio: MetaSounds.
Nanite updates:
- Better editor streaming performance and memory use.
- A new error-based metric for fallback-mesh creation.
- Support for view modes and usage flags, including Shader Complexity.
- Per-instance selection and per-instance or per-actor custom data.
Lumen updates:
- Full hardware-ray-tracing support without distance fields or software tracing.
- Improved final-gather quality, particularly on foliage.
- Glossy reflections on translucent surfaces.
- A translucency final gather for improved global illumination.
Production warning: Epic Games advised against using the Preview build in production. The final release was expected to improve Nanite, Lumen, One File Per Actor, World Partition and MetaSounds, while adding animation tools and Large World Coordinates support.
Further information: The original announcement appeared on the Unreal Engine blog. Digital Production’s earlier Nanite deep dive and UE5 tutorial provide historical context.
The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience
