TECH

PS5 wins demo with Unreal Engine 5

On Wednesday (13), Epic Games unveiled the first demo of the new Unreal Engine 5 graphics engine, which will leave the next generation games much more dynamic and full of details. To showcase the power of technology, the company released a demo called "Lumen in the Land of Nanite", which runs in real time on the PlayStation 5 (PS5).
Lumen in the Land of Nanite is a fully playable demo created in Unreal Engine 5. Two new tools are highlighted in the video: Lumens, a dynamic lighting technology; and Nanite, a virtualized geometry that allows artists to import high-quality arts and assets into the Unreal Engine.
The demo shows a woman exploring a cave and discovering a temple -- look at the striking details of the stones. At the end, the video shows an exciting stretch with the character flying in a gorge. Everything is running in real time on PlayStation 5.
"I think a lot of people [will ask],' look, is this a real demonstration?'. This demo was taken directly from a PlayStation 5 development kit, " said Kim Libreri, chief technology officer at Epic Games. "An HDMI cable went to the video card and played back in real time. No editing, no tricks, that's what came out of the console. Incidentally, he made it clear that the SSD drive that makes up the devkit of the PS5 is "far ahead" of the PCs of the current generation.
Tim Sweeney, CEO and founder of Epic Games, explains that Unreal Engine 5 aims to " do things that are not currently possible." This means offering new levels of photorealism and graphics, but also providing tools that increase the productivity and efficiency of developers. "Lumen [and Nanite] are not only visual quality jumps, but they also greatly simplify the technologies for the artists who build this content," Sweeney says.
The goal, according to Kim Kibreri, is to make the game worlds as immersive and realistic as in modern movies. But how this goal differs from previous generations is how interactive this realism is.
Although the games of the current generation are more detailed and realistic, they just as static. The Lumens and Nanite demo shows how changes in the environment can happen in real time, as Unreal Engine 5 is able to process these changes immediately.

When the rocks fall apart, it's not a pre-rendered scene, but rather a high-resolution feature running in real time based on the player's actions.
"If you notice, most of today's video games have quite static environments. Things don't change, there's not much cause and effect. Unreal Engine 5 allows everything to be dynamic."
According to Epic, the level of quality seen in this demo will be easy to replicate, especially for smaller developers who previously had no time or conditions to render games at that level. Assets of this magnitude will be available in the Unreal store for everyone to buy and use.

by Matt Kim