We are excited about this latest release reposed on the innovative features making the engine way more robust, efficient, and versatile for developers across all industries. This article will provide you with the known-for-now details about UE 5.1 and give our expert opinion. Join us in this discovery!
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As you know, Unreal Engine is one of the leading frameworks utilized for mobile games development. A vast majority of all the games in the world are developed using UE. Game developers and designers all over the globe benefit from this platform due to it being feature-rich and quite easy to use. In our blog, we’ve already outlined the key features of the Unreal Engine. In case you missed it, click here to read.
Unreal Engine 5.1 - what we know so far
Now let’s get down to business and find out what updates have been made to the Unreal Engine 5.1.
Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps upgrade
Necessary updates have been added to Lumen dynamic global illumination and reflections system, the Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry system, and Virtual Shadow Maps (VSM). This allows supporting games and experiences running at 60 fps on next-generation consoles and capable PCs. Now developers can take advantage of these features and develop stunning and highly competitive games as well as detailed simulations without latency.
Nanite now has a Programmable Rasterizer enabling material-driven animations and deformations via World Position Offset and opacity masks.
Higher developer efficiency
With a considerable number of new features, mobile games development teams can be much more productive.
Virtual assets allow separating the metadata from the object data so developers can sync only what they need from such source control systems as Perforce. This results in smaller workspaces and faster syncs for specialists who don’t require access to the full object data.
The Pipeline State Object (PSO) caching for DX12 has been implemented to facilitate the process of game preparation for shipping in DX12.
On-demand shader compilation leads to significant time savings as it compiles only the shaders necessary for rendering what is seen on screen while using the Unreal Editor.
Upgraded world building tools
The latest release provides improved workflows for creating massive open worlds.
World Partition now supports Large World Coordinates and therefore ensures developing worlds without the loss of precision.
Accelerated source control workflows with World Partition were introduced due to the numerous improvements made to UX around managing, filtering, searching, and viewing files and change lists.
Last but not least, the new HLOD (Hierarchical Level of Detail) support for water rendering and streaming was added.
Improved virtual production
Unreal Engine is utilized on over 425 film and TV productions and is integrated into more than 300 virtual production stages all over the world. The latest updates focused precisely on the virtual production workflows, tech, and design experts now can benefit from a dedicated In-Camera VFX Editor, improved Light Card system, upgraded Remote Control APIs, expanded color correction tools, initial Lumen support for nDisplay, and more.
Animation advancements
The usage of Unreal Engine for animation creation has grown significantly over the last few years. The new version demonstrates a logical reaction to this trend. The built-in toolsets for rigging, modeling, and animation creation were upgraded in the new release. Game animators consider this to be quite beneficial. Take a look at some of the key improvements:
The Machine Learning (ML) Deformer allows the creation of high-fidelity approximations of complex proprietary rigs—or any arbitrary deformation—by utilizing a custom Maya plugin to train a machine learning model, which in turn runs in real-time in Unreal Engine.
Updates were added to the Deformer Graph Editor so that graph creation and editing are done easily now.
Control Rig is expanding toward fully procedural rigging with the core framework improved to a significant extent. This makes the automation of rig creation for characters with different skeletal proportions and properties possible.
Sequencer was enhanced by adding support for constraints and exposing additional functionality through Blueprint and Python scripting.
In general, all the advancements allow for more complex animation creation and applying additional mesh editing tools.
Boosted audio system
Stunning video games require not only impressive visuals but high-quality sound. Producing professional sound effects is now much easier and takes less time.
Summing Up
Unreal Engine 5.1 leaves mobile games development specialists all over the world excited. The latest release provides a number of new advantages thus making the process of mobile games creation easier and quicker. We look forward to new updates and future releases!
HitBerry Games is a mobile app development studio with strong skills and prolonged experience in mobile games creation with Unreal Engine. As dedicated professionals, we keep up with the latest industry trends and insights and quickly deploy them.
Want to develop an excellent game? We create games by using top-notch technologies and applying agile methods! Rely on our expertise and experience and contact us now.