On the occasion of GDC 2023, the Unreal Engine 5 was treated to a keynote showing off its impressive capabilities.
From impressive technical demos to glaringly realistic MetaHuman facial animations and a very complete creation tool on Fortnitehere are the most important takeaways from the conference.
Technical showcase
The conference, called State of Unreal, allowed Epic Games to present version 5.2 of its promising engine. Among the important new features of this latest iteration are procedural generation tools. As their name suggests, these allow you to create decorative elements in a procedural way by taking inspiration from what surrounds them.
To better illustrate his point, Epic Games split a technical demo in a dense sunny forest (at the wheel of a Rivian pickup, because why not). The opportunity to flatter our retinas and to highlight the capacities of Lumen and Nanite, two other key elements of the Unreal Engine 5.
An early preview of Unreal Engine 5.2 is available for budding artists to see for themselves what this promising update has to offer. Lords of the Fallenexpected this year, also took the opportunity to make an appearance on stage, with a much more macabre technical demonstration, but just as beautiful and impressive.
Facial animations take on another face
Second major part of this keynote: the facial animations carried by MetaHuman, the impressive tool for creating faces from Epic Games. This one has also received an update called Animator with the aim of creating fully animated faces just with a phone’s camera. Animator should be deployed during the summer.
We were treated to a live demo of this new feature, which you can find in the video above. Epic Games also took the opportunity to bring one of its partners in the person of Ninja Theory, who came back to impress us and make us salivate with Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II.
Thus, the combination of MetaHuman and the Unreal Engine 5 promises to offer truly impressive facial animations in the video games of tomorrow. The fact that this is possible even with a phone camera would also open up new opportunities for studios with a more modest budget.
The power of creation over Fortnite
Epic Games obliges, a presentation on its part could not be done without slipping a little Fortnite in the grub. The State of Unreal was thus the scene of the presentation of the Unreal Editor 2.0 on the Battle Royale with the golden eggs of the American giant.
This editor will offer a range of tools for budding creators. An exhaustive presentation of the latter notably allowed us to see the game’s colorful characters evolve in much darker and more realistic environments.
Epic Games also took the opportunity to announce Creator Economy 2.0, a process aimed at remunerating creators on Fortnite up to 40% of the revenue generated by the publisher. Epic Games also considers itself a creator included in the lot (there are no small profits, as they say).
A mark to collect all the assets
Speaking of profits, Epic Games announced the merger of all online asset markets dedicated to the Unreal Engine. Quixel Bridge, ArtStation and Sketchfab will come together later this year under the Fab brand umbrella.
An alpha version of this new online market is already accessible on the Unreal Editor of Fortniteso that creators can have several toys at their disposal.
The visible part of the engine
Here are the most important elements to remember from the keynote devoted to Unreal Engine 5. You can also find the entire conference of just under two hours in the replay below.
The least we can say is that the contributions of the Unreal Engine 5 and the technologies revolving around it are very promising. And it is somewhat reassuring to see that games arriving soon already exploit them. Even if it will surely be necessary to show patience before seeing our machines fully exploiting the capacities of the engine in a fluid way.
Source : UnrealEngine
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