UE Rendering | Chip Render Farm | Cheapest CPU & GPU Cloud Render Farm https://chiprender.com " Simple and fast cloud rendering solution " Mon, 25 Mar 2024 04:22:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://chiprender.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-Chip-Logo-Favicon-1-32x32.png UE Rendering | Chip Render Farm | Cheapest CPU & GPU Cloud Render Farm https://chiprender.com 32 32 Unreal Engine 4 vs 5: What are the Differences? https://chiprender.com/unreal-engine-4-vs-5/ Thu, 14 Mar 2024 06:00:11 +0000 https://chiprender.com/?p=30445 Choosing between Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5 is usually difficult. What are their four differences, and which one is ideal for your projects.

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If you are new to game production, you may be overwhelmed by the number of software available. Epic Games has recently released Unreal Engine 5.3, which provides more functionality than Unreal Engine 4 for game developers, virtual artists, and filmmakers. Therefore, the decision of choosing between Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5 is usually difficult. Today, Chip Render will find out four differences between Unreal Engine 4 vs 5 to see which one is ideal for your projects.

Understanding of Unreal Engine

1. What is Unreal Engine software?

Unreal Engine is a powerful game engine that is widely used for developing video games. The Unreal Engine is a AAA gaming engine that represents firms that create popular games across the globe. In 1988, Unreal Engine was released by Epic Games. Unreal Engine has made it feasible to create high-definition graphics since its beginnings.

2. What is Unreal Engine used for?

In fact, Unreal Engine has helped 3D artists to create many impressive games over the years. Furthermore, Unreal Engine 5 enables game developers to advance their creations to the next level. Since its introduction, it might bring advancements in numerous fields such as: 

  • Games
  • Film and Television
  • Architecture.
  • Automotive and Transportation.
  • Broadcast and live events.
  • Simulations, and more.

Four Differences between Unreal Engine 4 and 5

When comparing Unreal Engine 4 with Unreal Engine 5, there are numerous differences. Both have enormous potential, Unreal Engine 5 builds on Unreal Engine 4‘s creative capabilities and provides a completely new experience in creating more projects. 

1. Unreal Engine 4 vs 5: Performance

In fact, Unreal Engine is well-known for its high performance and ability to produce nice images in real time. Also, Its arrival has excited game developers and enthusiasts.

In 2014, Unreal Engine 4 was released and established new norms for real-time visuals and performance. The concept introduces a rendering pipeline, effective management, and several optimization strategies. Also, Unreal Engine 5 represents a big step forward in real-time graphics. Moreover, it improved lighting and shadow effects, and increased post-processing.

2. Unreal Engine 4 vs 5: Dynamic lighting

Lighting in Unreal Engine 4 is being widely used to create realistic lighting effects in games. Therefore, lighting tools and techniques such as dynamic global illumination, and light mass create beauty in landscapes and game environments. In addition, lighting requires careful consideration in creating attractive lighting spaces for gaming experiences.

It allows for precomputed lighting, where static lighting data can be incorporated into the light map. 

The introduction of Lumen, a global lighting system in Unreal Engine 5, enhances dynamic lighting capabilities. With Lumen, all lighting is automatically optimized and real-time.

Unreal Engine 4 vs 5: What are the Differences?

   Lumen in UE5 (Image source: Unreal Engine)

3. Unreal Engine 4 vs 5: User Interface and Experience

Unreal Engine 4 is a powerful gaming engine with an easy-to-use UI and user experience. The interface allows developers to navigate tools and versions. The user experience prioritizes usability and accessibility, enabling developers to focus on game design rather than gameplay and technological complexity. Because Unreal Engine 4 appeared in 2012, its old UI was starting to seem a little “retro”.

However, ten years later, with the release of Unreal Engine 5, the new editor is smarter and sleeker. For this reason, Unreal Engine 5 elevates UI and UX with cutting-edge technology and design. Even more, it modernizes the design which creates a more appealing working environment for developers.

Unreal Engine 4 vs 5: What are the Differences?

UE 5 Interface (Image Source: Unreal Engine Document)

4. Unreal Engine 4 vs 5: Modeling Tools

With Unreal Engine’s latest update, modeling, sculpting, and UV unwrap tools have now been added.

It is obvious that Unreal Engine 4 is a game shift for the industry. It offers developers sophisticated modeling tools. Next, the Blueprint visual scripting technology allows artists and designers to develop game logic without writing any code. What’s more, the static mesh editor in Unreal Engine 4 enables the effective design of 3D models. 

Unreal Engine 5 provides Nanite, a virtualized microphotography technique that enables artists to construct very detailed models. Nanite allows developers to add millions or billions of polygons to their scenes. The modeling tools are useful for working with different types of Actors such as a Static Mesh, a Dynamic Mesh, and Volume as well as. 

Unreal Engine 4 vs 5: What are the Differences?

Image Source: Unreal Engine

Final Thoughts

Should you use Unreal Engine 4 or 5? In fact, the choice between these game engines ultimately depends on your project’s specific requirements. 

Both Unreal Engine versions offer special advantages. Your choice will depend on your game’s scope, compatibility, and required features. It’s essential to consider your project’s needs to make a decision.

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10 Best Unreal Engine plugins in 2024 https://chiprender.com/unreal-engine-plugins/ Tue, 12 Dec 2023 07:34:49 +0000 https://chiprender.com/?p=3779 UE is already a powerful tool, but its capability can be expanded further by various plugins. Discover 10 Best Unreal Engine plugins in 2024.

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Discover 10 Best Unreal Engine plugins in 2024.

Unreal Engine is a cutting-edge real-time 3D creation engine that produces photorealistic images and immersive experiences. It is a popular graphics platform for anything from video games to the metaverse. Unreal Engine 5 is already an extremely capable tool, but its capability can be expanded much further by a variety of plugins.

Indeed, UE enables developers to create and install plugins to add additional features and functionality. In this post, Chip Render discovers the 10 best Unreal Engine plugins for your next projects in 2024.

What is a Unreal Engine plugin?

A plugin is an additional software component that extends Unreal Engine’s functionality. Plugins can introduce completely new features and adjust built-in functionality without directly modifying the Unreal Engine code. A plugin, for example, may add new menu items and toolbar commands to the Unreal editor, or it may provide totally new features and editor sub-modes.

Depending on what you need, you can enable or disable plugins independently for each project.

In Unreal Engine, there are two types of plugins:

  • Unreal Engine plugins.
  • Third-party plugins.

While Unreal Engine has plugins that provide a wide range of functionality, you may also download additional plugins via the Unreal Engine Marketplace. There are free and paid plugins available that you can purchase and install.

Best Unreal Engine plugins in 2024

Now, let’s take a look at 10 Unreal Engine plugins that will not only improve the quality of your creations but also make the whole thing easier.

1. KitBash3D Cargo

10 best unreal engine plugins 2024 kitbash3d cargo

Cargo is a free software download that gives you access to the full KitBash3D library – with over 10,000 individual 3D models and materials. Its powerful search and filter features enable you to easily find what you looking for. Cargo connects to Unreal Engine, so you can load any asset with a single click. It also offers a free Basic plan that includes a selection of free assets.

Thanks to a large library of 3D assets from various genres, powerful search and filtering, and 1-click import to Unreal Engine, KitBash3D Cargo is one of the best Unreal Engine plugins in 2024.

  • Price: $119/month or $780/year (Pro). Pay per seat (Teams).

2. Datasmith

10 best unreal engine plugins 2024 datasmith

Datasmith is one of the most popular Unreal Engine plugins. It is a collection of tools and plugins that get your design data into Unreal quickly and easily. In particular, Datasmith brings entire pre-constructed scenes and complex assets created in 3D software into Unreal Engine, no matter how large, dense, or heavy those scenes may be.

The plugin works with a variety of industry-standard design applications and file formats, including 3ds Max, ArchiCAD, Cinema 4D, Revit, Rhino, SketchUp, Solidworks, and others.

Moreover, Datasmith gives real-time updates, so you can see your changes immediately. Therefore, it is an excellent option for anyone who wishes to accelerate their workflow while avoiding the hassle of manually importing assets.

  • Price: Free

3. Speedtree

10 best unreal engine plugins 2024 speedtree

SpeedTree is a strong 3D vegetation modeling and rendering application. It helps you to create stunning and realistic environments for your games or films.

The SpeedTree plugin for Unreal Engine 5 brings all of the features of SpeedTree directly into the game engine, offering a highly versatile modeling app, lightmap-ready UVs, scalable wind effects, seamless LOD, and more. By using the plugin, you can easily create and modify trees, plants, and other foliage in real-time. That is why SpeedTree is a must-have tool for anyone looking to create beautiful and immersive game environments.

  • Price: $19/month (Indie). Nodelock: $299/6 months or $499/year; Floating: $499/6 months or $899/year (Pro).

4. Substance 3D

10 best unreal engine plugins 2024 substance 3d

Substance 3D is a collection of tools for generating and texturing 3D assets. The Substance 3D for Unreal Engine plugin allows you to directly use Substance materials in Unreal Engine 5 and 4.

It gives you access to over 1000 high-quality tweakable and export-ready 4K materials with presets from the Substance 3D Asset library. These customizable materials can easily be adapted to a wide range of projects.

This plugin also offers real-time material changes and texture updates. As a result, you may make modifications to your materials and immediately see the results.

In conclusion, Substance 3D is an excellent Unreal Engine plugin for those who want to create high-quality textures for their game assets.

  • Price: Free

5. Procedural Nature Pack

10 best unreal engine plugins 2024 procedural nature pack

The Procedural Nature Pack is a collection of assets that can help you create beautiful and realistic natural environments for your games. This plugin includes a variety of assets, including rivers, moss, trees, foliage, terrain, and rocks. With these assets, you can procedurally generate almost any nature scene you can think of and modify them in real-time.

The Procedural Nature Pack plugin for Unreal Engine is a great choice for those who want to create stunning natural environments without spending hours on asset creation.

  • Price: Free

6. VR Expansion Plugin

10 best unreal engine plugins 2024 vr expansion plugin

The VR Expansion Plugin is a great tool for creating immersive VR experiences in your games. It was designed to help in the facilitation of advanced Virtual Reality interactions and gameplay elements in Unreal Engine 5 and Unreal Engine 4.

The plugin offers a number of features that can help you create realistic and captivating VR experiences, including locomotion systems, haptic feedback, and input remapping. As a result, VR Expansion Plugin is a must-have for anyone looking to create VR games or add VR support to their existing games.

  • Price: Free

7. BlueprintUE

10 best unreal engine plugins 2024 blueprintUE

BlueprintUE is a tool for sharing blueprints for Unreal Engine – a game engine that uses visual scripting called blueprint. It provides a web-based interface where you can easily share your scripts with others and get feedback. In other words, it allows you to share and collaborate on Blueprint scripts for Unreal Engine 5.

Therefore, BlueprintUE is a great choice for those who want to collaborate with other game developers or get feedback on their scripts.

  • Price: Free

8. Oceanology

10 best unreal engine plugins 2024 oceanology

Oceanology is a plugin for creating an accurate and efficient description of the sea surface, based on both cutting-edge results in oceanography and advanced 3D computing techniques. With Oceanology, you can easily create stunning oceans in real time. It is not limited to the ocean surface but also the underwater.

In short, Oceanology is a perfect Unreal Engine plugin for creating immersive and realistic surface and underwater scenes for your video games.

  • Price: $159.99

9. WorldScape

10 best unreal engine plugins 2024 worldscape

WorldScape is one of the best Unreal Engine plugins for world creation. It enables you to make real planets and endless worlds for your single-player or multiplayer game, using the 64-bit precision ClipMap’s geometry technology.

The plugin’s instanced and multithreaded procedural foliage generation will bring life to your terrain with ease. You can also tailor your terrain by importing 8-bit or 16-bit height maps and applying them as decals. Moreover, the customizable noise-based biome system in C++, realistic lighting for planets, procedural surface materials, and custom gravity for planets provide an even more immersive gaming experience.

Therefore, WorldScape is perfect for those who want to achieve realistic takeoff and landing experiences in your game without the need for loading or transition screens.

  • Price: $349.99.

10. Atoms Unreal

10 best unreal engine plugins 2024 atoms unreal

Atoms Unreal is one of the best Unreal Engine plugins for crowd simulation. It is a crowd simulation system capable of instancing skeletal meshes on the GPU while keeping high performances.

The Atoms Unreal plugin also enables you to build crowds in your projects without compromising on the number of agents being displayed. Whether you are working in games, VFX, Archviz, VR, AR, or broadcasting, Atoms Unreal delivers a unique experience for crowd simulation.

To sum up, Atoms Unreal is a great real-time option for creating both simple and complex crowds in Unreal Engine.

  • Price: £75/year (Indie). £190/month, £490/quarter, or £1590/year (Studio).

Chip Blog logoSo, above are the best Unreal Engine plugins you should make use of for your next projects in 2024. Chip Render Farm is one of the few cloud rendering services that support Unreal Engine. With our powerful IaaS model and 1/2/4 x GPU RTX 3090 servers, you will be able to speed up your UE projects several times. Join Chip Render now and have your own Cloud Workstation from only $2.9.

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Is Unreal Engine free? What will be coming up for artists and developers in 2024? https://chiprender.com/is-unreal-engine-free-what-will-be-coming-up-in-2024/ Thu, 07 Dec 2023 06:38:19 +0000 https://chiprender.com/?p=3731 Unreal Engine is a complete suite of creation tools. Is Unreal Engine free? What will be coming up for artists and developers in 2024?

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Discover “Is Unreal Engine free? What will be coming up for artists and developers in 2024?”.

Unreal Engine is a complete suite of creation tools, which is best for game development. In addition to video games, UE has been gradually used in many industries. You can use Unreal Engine for visualizing architectural and automotive, creating film and television content, producing broadcast and live events, training and simulation, and other applications.

For such powerful real-time software, how much do you have to pay to use it? In this post, Chip Render will answer “Is Unreal Engine free?” and discuss “What will be coming up for artists and developers in 2024?”.

Is Unreal Engine free?

Yes, Unreal Engine is free.

Unreal Engine is a fantastic deal – it is free to download and comes fully equipped and ready for production right from the start. You get access to every feature and the complete source code.

Under the standard EULA, Unreal Engine is free for learning and for developing internal projects. Plus, it allows you to distribute numerous commercial projects without any charges to Epic Games. This includes custom projects for clients, linear content (such as films and TV shows), and any product that either earns no revenue or falls below the royalty threshold.

So, how much is the royalty threshold for Unreal Engine?

A 5% royalty comes into effect once your title crosses the $1 million mark in earnings. This means you will only pay royalties after your product’s lifetime gross revenue exceeds $1 million, giving you a royalty exemption for the first $1 million.

However, it is important to note that not every product is subject to this royalty. The 5% royalty applies specifically to off-the-shelf products that integrate Unreal Engine code, such as games.

As a result, for creating linear content, custom, and internal projects, and in many cases for game development, Unreal Engine is free.

Unreal Engine licensing options

Though UE is free, there are some options for licenses.

Is Unreal Engine free? Licensing options

Unreal Engine licensing options

Take a look at the table below.

Standard license Enterprise program Custom license
Pricing FREE

(5% royalty apply when exceeding $1 million)

$1500 per seat per year

(Flexible terms)

Negotiable terms
All Unreal Engine features ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Entire Quixel Megascans library ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
All learning materials ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
Support Community-based Premium Premium
Private training ✖️ ✔️ ✔️
Other ✖️ Additional procurement options Access to Epic’s private Perforce depot

Three licensing options come with all Unreal Engine features, learning materials, and an entire Quixel Megascans library. However, Enterprise and Custom license provides extra benefits such as premium support, and private training. You can even negotiate terms for lower royalties, no royalties, or a different basis for royalty negotiation.

Therefore, each license is better for a different target audience.

In summary, you should use:

Standard license (FREE)

If you are a creator and publisher who does not need premium support or custom terms. The licensing option is best for:

  • Small teams or projects.
  • Hobbyists.
  • Learning (students and educators).

Enterprise program

If you are a non-games professional looking for premium support, private training, and/or custom licensing terms. The licensing option is best for:

  • Enterprise organizations that need specific legal, business, procurement, and/or technical support.
  • Interactive off-the-shelf products that are not games and need royalty-free distribution.

Custom license

If you are a game development professional and studio looking for premium support, private training, and/or custom licensing terms. The licensing option is best for:

  • Game creators and publishers that need technical support from Epic.
  • Game projects with multi-million dollar sales expectations.

What will be coming up for artists and developers in 2024?

To recap, until now, Epic Games has not charged directly for using Unreal Engine. A 5% royalty is only applicable to projects exceeding $1 million in revenue and specifically using the engine’s code. That is, while game developers with high-selling titles pay royalties, those using Unreal Engine for Concept art, Archviz, VFX, and other purposes don’t incur any charges.

But that is going to change next year – in 2024.

Is Unreal Engine free? Unreal Fest 2023

Unreal Fest 2023, image by Unreal Engine

At Unreal Fest 2023, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney revealed a shift for Unreal Engine from its current free-tool status to a subscription-based model. He said Unreal Engine would adopt a subscription pricing model and become “a licensable piece of software like Maya or Photoshop”. Studios using the engine for non-gaming purposes such as animation, VFX, and visualization will face charges through a “seat-based enterprise software licensing model”.

This is bad news for non-game creatives, sparking concerns within the community, particularly independent filmmakers and non-professionals.

Later, Sweeney clarified that there would be minimum revenue thresholds for commercial projects that need to pay for a subscription. Importantly, students and educators will continue to use Unreal Engine free.

For game developers, there will be no change. The royalty model remains unchanged – a 5 percent royalty applies after revenue exceeds $1 million.

In summary, developers will not be affected. But if you are using Unreal Engine for non-game purposes like Virtual Production, Architecture, VFX, etc., you need to be ready for these upcoming changes.

The changes will be coming up sometime in 2024. Until then, we will have to wait.

Chip Blog logoChip Render Farm is one of the few cloud rendering services that support Unreal Engine. With our powerful IaaS model and 1/2/4 x GPU RTX 3090 servers, you will be able to speed up your UE projects several times. Join Chip Render now and have your own Cloud Workstation from only $2.9.

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What’s new in Unreal Engine 5.3? https://chiprender.com/whats-new-in-unreal-engine-5-3/ Wed, 06 Dec 2023 06:00:48 +0000 https://chiprender.com/?p=3708 Unreal Engine 5.3 brings enhancements to core UE5 toolset & various areas. Look at some of the highlights of what’s new in Unreal Engine 5.3.

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In September 2023, Epic Games released the latest version of Unreal Engine 5 – Unreal Engine 5.3.

Unreal Engine 5.3 introduces an abundance of new features that further extend Unreal Engine 5‘s capability and potential for game developers and creators across industries.

The 5.3 release includes enhancements to the core UE5 toolset as well as enhancements to various areas, including Rendering, Worldbuilding, Procedural Content Generation (PCG), Animation and Modeling tools, Virtual Production, Simulation, and others.

In this post, Chip Render will take a closer look at some of the highlights of what’s new in Unreal Engine 5.3.

Core toolsets - What's new in Unreal Engine 5.3?

First of all, let’s discover the enhancements to the core rendering, developer iteration, and virtual production toolsets.

Enhancements to the core rendering

Epic Games refines the core UE5 rendering tools, allowing developers to use them at higher quality in games running at 60 frames per second on next-generation platforms. The enhancements also provide higher-quality results and improved performance for creators of linear entertainment.

Nanite, in particular, has faster performance for masked materials such as plants and can represent a wider range of surfaces thanks to the new Explicit Tangents option. Lumen with Hardware Ray Tracing, on the other hand, provides further possibilities such as multiple reflection bounces, and delivers faster performance on consoles.

In addition, Virtual Shadow Maps (VSM – which is now production-ready), Temporal Super Resolution (TSR), Hair Grooms, Path Tracing, and Substrate are further important developments.

Cine Cam Rig Rail

Unreal Engine 5.3 also added a new Cine Cam Rig Rail Actor. Filmmakers can now replicate the workflow and outputs of traditional camera movement on tracks or dollies.

It has more improved controls than the previous Rig Rail, including the ability to choreograph camera settings (such as camera rotation, focal length, focus distance, and so on) at several control points along the path. It is compatible with both in-editor and VCam workflows.

What's new in Unreal Engine 5.3? Cine Cam Rig Rail

Cine Cam Rig Rail, image by Unreal Engine.

VCam enhancements

With VCam enhancements in Unreal Engine 5.3, you can now browse takes directly on the iPad for review or re-recording, which means faster iteration.

You can also stream multiple VCam outputs for different team members at the same time, allowing for collaborative VCam shoots. For instance, with camera controls for the camera operator but no camera controls for the director.

Moreover, you can record at a slower frame rate and replay at normal speed to capture fast-moving action more easily.

Multi-Process Cook

Last but not least, you now can use more CPU and memory resources when cooking content. In other words, when converting content from the internal UE format to a platform-specific format. As a result, Unreal Engine 5.3 significantly reduces the time required to obtain a cooked output from a build farm server or on a local workstation.

When you enable Multi-Process Cook, you initiate subprocesses that conduct parts of the creative task alongside the main process. Developers can choose the number of subprocesses to execute on a single system.

What's new in Unreal Engine 5.3? Multi-Process Cook

Multi-Process Cook, image by Unreal Engine.

Experimental features - What's new in Unreal Engine 5.3?

In addition to these updates to core toolsets, Unreal Engine 5.3 brings a variety of exciting new Experimental features. These Experimental features, however, require further development in future releases. Epic Games does not yet recommend using them in your creations.

Cinematic-quality volumetric rendering

Sparse Volume Textures (SVT) and Path Tracing of Heterogeneous Volumes are two new features that deliver new capabilities for volumetric effects such as smoke and fire.

Sparse Volume Textures allows you to store baked simulation data for volumetric effects. SVTs can be also simulated in Niagara or imported from OpenVDB (.vdb) files created in other 3D applications.

What's new in Unreal Engine 5.3? Volumetric rendering

OpenVDB asset courtesy of JangaFX, image via Unreal Engine.

In addition, Path Tracer now has a more complete volume rendering support (though still experimental). For cinematics, films, episodic television, and other forms of linear content, you can use the Path Tracer to render high-quality volumes, including global illumination, shallows, and scattering.

Games, virtual production, and other real-time use cases can also begin experimenting with SVTs for playback of volumetric elements. Nevertheless, although performance is limited at this time and heavily dependent on the content.

Orthographic rendering

Starting in Unreal Engine 5.3, orthographic rendering is supported as an experimental feature. It offers orthographic projections as a stylistic camera choice for games and visualization, which is particularly helpful for architectural visualization and manufacturing projects.

It is available in the Unreal Editor and at runtime with support for most UE5 features, including Lumen, Nanite, and Shadows.

What's new in Unreal Engine 5.3? Orthographic rendering

Orthographic render, image by Unreal Engine.

Skeletal Editor

Next, a new experimental Skeletal Editor gives you a number of tools for working with your skeletal meshes, including the option to paint skin weights.

Skeletal Editor allows you to do additional character workflows directly in the Unreal Editor, without switching to DCC apps, whether for rapid prototypes or final rigging. As a result, you can work in context and iterate faster.

What's new in Unreal Engine 5.3? Skeletal Editor

Skeletal Editor, image by Unreal Engine.

Chaos Panel Cloth Editor

Another experimental feature set includes a new Panel Cloth Editor and new skin weight transfer algorithms and added XPBD (extended position-based dynamics) limitations as a foundation for future cloth creation in the engine. This adds support for a non-destructive cloth simulation workflow where you can trade off speed for precision. Moreover, Chaos Panel Cloth Editor delivers better-looking simulations.

In addition, Cloth can now be simulated and cached in the engine using the ML (Machine Learning) Deformer.

SMPTE ST 2110 for ICVFX

Next is the new feature on the virtual production front. In preparation for the next generation of LED production stages, the developer team has added experimental support to nDisplay for SMPTE ST 2110, using NVIDIA hardware and Rivermax SDK. This establishes the framework for a variety of hardware configurations that enable new LED stage possibilities. This includes having a separate machine for each camera frustum, maximizing the possible rendering resolution, increasing frame rate, and allowing for more complicated scene geometry and lighting than before.

SMPTE ST 2110 support addresses difficulties such as wider angle lenses that require higher resolution and multi-camera shoots that strain current systems. It also indicates lower system latency due to signal chain simplification.

What's new in Unreal Engine 5.3? SMPTE ST 2110

SMPTE ST 2110, image by Unreal Engine.

Wrap up

Above are just some of the highlights of what’s new in Unreal Engine 5.3. That includes improvements to existing core UE5 features and some exciting new experimental feature sets. Thanks to the new features and enhancements in Unreal Engine 5.3, you will have more potential for more creative workflows directly in the Unreal Editor.

If you want to see the full feature list, check out Unreal Engine 5.3 Release Notes. The full list covers new features in:

  • Rendering
  • Worldbuilding
  • Procedural Content Generation (PCG)
  • Developer Iteration
  • Platform
  • Character and Animation
  • Virtual Production
  • Simulation
  • Audio
  • UI Systems
  • Modeling
  • Content Pipeline
  • Framework
  • Engine Content and Templates
  • Platform SDK Upgrades

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What is Unreal Engine? Everything you need to know https://chiprender.com/what-is-unreal-engine/ Tue, 05 Dec 2023 07:30:33 +0000 https://chiprender.com/?p=3696 It seems everyone now is obsessed with Unreal Engine. Discover what is Unreal Engine and Everything you need to know about it.

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Discover what is Unreal Engine and Everything you need to know about it.

It seems everyone now is obsessed with Unreal Engine (UE, for short). UE has always been a popular engine for years for mainstream games. But now, other than developers and AAA companies, many 3D creators are turning to the real-time application.

So, in this post, Chip Render goes into detail on what is Unreal Engine, and everything you need to know about this powerful real-time game engine.

What is Unreal Engine?

Unreal Engine, which is also known as UE, is a game engine developed by Epic Games, a video game and software development company. It was first showcased as a first-person shooter video game in 1998. Right now, it has been used in a variety of genres of games and has seen adoption by other industries, including the film and television industry.

Epic Games states that “Unreal Engine is the world’s most open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool for photoreal visuals and immersive experiences”.

With this tool, you can bring amazing real-time experiences to life, from first projects to the most demanding challenges. UE’s free and accessible resources and inspirational community empower everyone to realize their ambitions.

What is Unreal Engine used for?

Unreal Engine has been adopted across industries, such as:

  • Games.
  • Film and Television.
  • Architecture.
  • Automotive and Transportation.
  • Broadcast and live events.
  • Simulations, and more.

Creators across the industries above use UE to deliver cutting-edge content, interactive experiences, and immersive virtual worlds.

What are Unreal Engine features?

Unreal Engine provides all features – everything you need to start, grow, and stand out from your competitors. You can use it for any project, from design visualizations and cinematic experiences to high-quality games for PC, console, mobile, VR, and AR.

Let’s take a look at UE’s key features in each aspect.

1. Pipeline integration

  • Support for industry standards such as FBX, USD, and Alembic allows you to connect to any media production pipeline.
  • Python scripting in the Unreal Editor enables you to integrate Unreal Engine into your pipeline and automate your workflows.
  • Convert data seamlessly at high fidelity with Datasmith, from a whole host of DCC, CAD, and BIM formats. For example, 3ds Max, Revit, SketchUp Pro, Cinema 4D, Rhino, SolidWorks, Catia, and more.
  • Visual Dataprep: You can easily automate data preparation workflows with a simplified visual tool, even if you’re not a programmer.
  • ShotGrid integration allows your team to work together across separate content creation tools.
  • LiDAR point cloud support: Visualizes locations and gives accurate context to newly designed elements.

2. Worldbuilding

  • Unreal Editor: An integrated development environment for authoring content and developing game level. It is available across platforms: Linux, macOS, and Windows.
  • Modeling, UVs, and baking: A selection of extensive and robust creation and editing tools enables you to refine and iterate on assets, without a DCC package.
  • Landscape and terrain tools: Create massive-scale open-world environments and terrains.
  • Scalable foliage: Create different types of grass, flowers, small rocks, trees, bushes, and more.
  • World Partition: Makes the creation of open worlds faster and easier by automatically dividing the world into a grid and streaming only the necessary cells.

What is Unreal Engine - World Partition

World Partition in Fortnite. Image by Unreal Engine.

  • Procedural Content Generation Framework: Define rules and parameters to populate large scenes.
  • Asset optimization: Several tools to prepare and optimize a complex model for better real-time performance.
  • Sky, cloud, and environment lighting: Author and render realistic or stylized skies, clouds, and other atmospheric effects with full artistic freedom.
  • Water system: Create believable bodies of water within your landscapes.

3. Character and animation

  • Animation Blueprints: Create and control complex animation behaviors.
  • Machine Learning (ML) Deformer enables you to simulate film-quality deformations, such as flexing muscles, bulging veins, and sliding skin.
  • Character animation authoring: Quickly and easily create rigs and share them across multiple characters, and then pose and animate them with artist-friendly tools.
  • Live Link data streaming: The Live Link plugin enables you to connect a stream of real-time data from an external source to Unreal Engine.
  • Take Recorder: Quickly iterate on performance recordings, and easily review previous takes.
  • Character retargeting: Easily reuse existing animations, even across characters with different skeletons and proportions such as a human and a wolf.
  • Sequencer nonlinear editing and animation: A fully nonlinear, real-time cinematic editing and animation tool built for collaboration.
  • Runtime animation tools: Augment authored animation sequences at runtime to compensate for different gameplay scenarios.

4. Lighting, materials, and rendering

  • Nanite & Virtual Shadow Maps: Create games and experiences with massive amounts of geometric detail.
  • Virtual Texturing: Two methods to enable support for very large textures by dividing them into small tiles and only loading the visible tiles.
  • Lumen: A fully dynamic global illumination and reflection solution.

What is Unreal Engine - Lumen dynamic global illumination

Lumen dynamic global illumination. Image by Unreal Engine.

  • Photoreal ray tracing in real time: Achieve Hollywood-quality visuals out of the box with Unreal Engine’s physically based hybrid ray tracer.
  • Temporal Super Resolution (TSR) enables the engine to render at a much lower resolution but with similar output pixel fidelity to frames rendered at a higher resolution.
  • Flexible Material Editor: Enjoy unprecedented control over the look and feel of characters and objects.
  • Path Tracer: A DXR-accelerated, physically accurate progressive rendering mode.
  • Sophisticated lighting: Create realistic interior and exterior lighting effects while maintaining real-time performance, with a wide range of advanced lighting tools.
  • Post-process and screen-space effects: A range of film-quality post-processing effects to adjust the overall look and feel of your scene. Achieve screen-space realistic effects while minimizing cost.
  • Color-accurate final output: Many tools to ensure consistent color throughout the pipeline.
  • Movie Render Queue: Create high-quality media without post-processing, thanks to the ability to render movies and stills with accumulated anti-aliasing and motion blur.
  • Forward Shading Renderer provides a faster baseline, with faster rendering passes, which may lead to better performance on VR platforms and certain consoles such as the Nintendo Switch.
  • Advanced shading models: Produce more realistic results on a wide range of objects and surfaces.

5. Simulation and effects

  • Niagara particles and visual effects: Create film-quality levels of VFX polish in real time for effects such as fire, smoke, dust, and water.

What is Unreal Engine - Niagara visual effects

Niagara VFX. Image by Unreal Engine.

  • Clothing tools: Simulate clothing and other fabrics with the Chaos physics solver.
  • Chaos physics and destruction system: Fracture, shatter, and demolish massive-scale scenes at cinematic quality with unprecedented levels of artistic control.
  • Strand-based hair and fur: Simulate and render hundreds of thousands of photoreal hairs at up to real-time speeds from grooms created in DCC packages.

6. Gameplay and interactive authoring

  • Robust multiplayer support: Produce some of the industry’s most compelling multiplayer experiences.
  • Advanced artificial intelligence (AI): Give AI-controlled characters increased spatial awareness of the world around them and enable them to make smarter movements.
  • Variant Manager: Create and edit variants of your asset that include options for visibility, transforms, and material assignments, and activate or deactivate them in the Unreal Editor or at runtime.
  • Blueprint visual scripting system: Rapidly prototype and ship interactive content without touching a line of code.
  • Unreal Motion Graphics UI Designer (UMG): Create UI elements such as in-game/in-application HUDs, menus, or other interface-related graphics you wish to present to your users.
  • Gameplay frameworks: Create large systems with huge numbers of elements; complex input handling, runtime control remapping, and more.

7. Integrated media support

  • Professional video I/O support and playback: 4K UHD video and audio I/O at high bit depths and frame rates on a range of AJA Video Systems and Blackmagic cards.
  • Unreal Audio Engine: Enhance your project’s audio with a rich audio feature set.
  • MetaSounds: A high-performance system that offers complete control over audio DSP graph generation of sound sources.
  • Media Framework enables the playback of videos inside Unreal Engine.

8. Virtual production

  • In-Camera VFX Editor: Presents a streamlined UI/UX for performing common stage operations tasks.
  • Remote control protocols and web UI builder: Easily create custom UIs that enable users to make settings from any device that hosts a web browser.
  • Efficient multi-display rendering: Render real-time content at any resolution, and display it on multiple physical or projected screens. Render multiple instances of Unreal Engine running on a single workstation or across multiple GPUs.
  • Virtual Camera system: Cinematographers working in a virtual production environment can drive cameras in Unreal Engine using an iPad Pro.
  • Level Snapshots: Record the current state of a scene in a snapshot, and later restore it in its entirety, or selectively choose which elements to restore.
  • Virtual Scouting for filmmakers: use VR to explore the world, determine scene blocking, and compose shots to make better creative decisions.

9. Content

What is Unreal Engine - Marketplace

Unreal Engine Marketplace

  • Industry-specific templates: A variety of useful templates help you find the right starting point for your project and achieve your intended result in the shortest possible time.
  • Quixel Megascans: Every Unreal Engine license comes with free access to the entire Quixel Megascans library for use in Unreal Engine.
  • Sample projects: Explore, adapt, and learn from over 20 sample projects included with Unreal Engine, and speed for your own projects in less time.

10. Developer tools

  • Full access to C++ source code: study, customize, extend, and debug the entire Unreal Engine, and complete your project without obstruction.
  • Seamless Perforce integration: Many version control commands directly into the Content Browser.
  • Profiling and performance: Profile, analyze, and optimize your project for real-time performance by identifying and removing bottlenecks.
  • C++ API: Add new classes to extend Unreal Engine’s functionality.
  • Oodle and Bink: Fast, efficient compression and encoding tools.

11. Platform support

  • Multi-platform development.
  • Containers.
  • XR (AR, VR, and MR) support.
  • Pixel Streaming.

FAQ - What is Unreal Engine?

1. Is Unreal Engine free?

Yes, Unreal Engine is free.

You can use Unreal Engine for learning, developing your own projects, and even distributing commercial projects without paying any fees to Epic Games. That includes custom projects delivered to clients, linear content (such as films and television shows), and any product that earns no revenue or whose revenue falls below the royalty threshold – $1 million.

A 5% royalty only kicks in if and when your product earns over $1 million. In this case, the first $1 million remains royalty-exempt.

However, there are two other licensing options for your use of Unreal Engine.

  • Enterprise program: $1500 per seat per year.
  • Custom license: Negotiable.

2. What language does Unreal Engine use?

Unreal Engine uses C++ as the programming language for developing 3D games within the tool. It also provides a visual scripting system called Blueprints, which allows developers to create gameplay elements without writing code.

And when building your actual game code, you use a combination of both C++ and Blueprint.

3. Who owns Unreal Engine?

Unreal Engine is owned and developed by Epic Games, a leading interactive entertainment company and provider of 3D engine technology. Epic Games was founded in 1991 with Corporate Headquarters in Cary, North Carolina.

The original version of the game engine was developed by Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Epic Games.

4. What are Unreal Engine system requirements?

Find out the minimum and recommended Unreal Engine system requirements in this post.

Some of the new features will require higher-end hardware to get the best results.

  • To get the most out of Nanite, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Lumen, you should use an NVIDIA GTX 1080 or AMD VEGA 64 or higher graphics card.
  • For hardware ray tracing with Lumen, it is recommended to use an NVIDIA RTX 20 series or AMD RX 6000 series graphics card or higher.
  • You also should always upgrade to the latest drivers for your GPU.

5. What platforms does Unreal Engine support?

You can run the Unreal Editor on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Unreal Engine enables you to deploy projects to Windows PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, macOS, iOS, Android, ARKit, ARCore, OpenXR, SteamVR, Oculus, Linux, and SteamDeck.

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