Unreal Engine 5.3: 5 key options for CG artists

 
Epic Video games has launched the primary public preview of Unreal Engine 5.3, the brand new model of the sport engine.

It’s one other vital replace, giving VFX artists the choice to import smoke and hearth simulations created in different DCC functions in OpenVDB format and render them inside Unreal Engine.

Animators get a brand new Skeletal Editor and a revamped Fabric Editor, visualisation professionals get correct assist for orthographic rendering, and digital manufacturing artists get an anamorphic lens solver.

Under, you possibly can learn our choose of the 5 most important new options in Unreal Engine 5.3 for CG artists, versus programmers, together with a short abstract of the opposite key modifications.

 
1. VFX: import smoke, hearth and clouds in OpenVDB format (Experimental)
One of many greatest modifications in Unreal Engine 5.3 is the choice to import simulations from DCC functions like Houdini in OpenVDB format and render them in Unreal Engine.

In contrast to current third-party plugins for importing OpenVDB recordsdata, which convert the imported knowledge to NanoVDB, Unreal Engine converts the info into Sparse Volume Textures (SVTs).

Like UE4’s Volume Textures, SVTs will be listed with 3D UV co-ordinates, however use “a lot much less” reminiscence.

SVTs are supported within the Deferred Renderer as Heterogeneous Volumes for smoke and hearth, or as Volumetric Cloud or Volumetric Fog.

“Extra full assist” is accessible when rendering volumes with the Path Tracer, which might simulate scattering, self-shadowing and GI.

 
2. Animation: new Skeletal Editor for skinning characters inside Unreal Engine (Experimental)
One other main new function in Unreal Engine 5.3 is the Skeletal Editor, meant for rigging characters or enhancing pores and skin weights immediately inside Unreal Editor, moderately than having to take action in DCC functions.

Customers can convert Static Meshes to Skeletal Meshes, add or edit bones, and paint pores and skin weights, with assist for normal weight-painting choices like Flood, Calm down and Normalize.

Animators additionally get updates to the Curve Editor and Smart Bake system, and workflow enhancements for animation retargeting.

 
3. VFX: new Fabric Editor to streamline material simulation (Experimental)
Unreal Engine 5.3 additionally features a new Cloth Editor, with assist for XPBD (Prolonged Place Based mostly Dynamics) constraints in addition to the prevailing PBD constraints.

Simulation metrics are now not baked into the draped pose, so simulation high quality must be improved even when utilizing PBD constraints.

The brand new editor makes use of a non-destructive workflow, changing masks with reusable weight maps, and helps cloth-flesh interactions and Stage Set Quantity (LSV) collisions.

In line with Epic, it lays the inspiration for each real-time material enhancing, and a “extra VFX-oriented” strategy based mostly round simulation caching, enabling customers to commerce simulation time in opposition to accuracy.

 
4. Visualisation: correct assist for orthographic rendering (Experimental)
Architectural professionals and visualisation artists get correct assist for orthographic rendering.

Unreal Engine has had an Orthographic mode for cameras for a while, however Epic describes it as having been “impractical to make use of” as a result of variety of rendering options not supported.

In Unreal Engine 5.3, it helps “most trendy options”, together with dynamic GI system Lumen, Nanite virtualised geometry, shadows, and Temporal Tremendous Decision (TSR) render upscaling.

 
5. Digital manufacturing: new anamorphic lens solver (Experimental)
Artists utilizing Unreal Engine for previs or digital manufacturing work get a variety of new options, together with a brand new Anamorphic Lens Mannequin and Anamorphic Lens Solver.

The modifications ought to make it doable to render the CG components of a shot in actual time with distortion matching that of live-action footage shot utilizing anamorphic lenses.

Different key modifications embrace preliminary assist for Unreal Engine’s virtual camera system on macOS, and CineCameraRigRail, for establishing rail digicam photographs inside Unreal Engine.

 
Different modifications: additional updates to Nanite, Lumen and the modelling and simulation toolsets
Different modifications listed on Epic Video games’ online roadmap embrace updates to Nanite, Lumen, the in-engine modelling and UV instruments, and to the opposite simulation toolsets.

Nanite will get assist for explicit per-vertex tangents, which ought to enhance outcomes with low-poly fashions, and may now be enabled in Landscape Actors to spice up runtime efficiency for giant panorama belongings.

Lumen now supports more than one bounce when rendering reflections utilizing {hardware} ray tracing, and Lumen Reflections can be utilized with out Lumen GI, to enhance the visible high quality of ranges with static lighting.

The in-engine modelling toolset will get a reworked UI and new vertex paint tools, whereas the UV editor can now visualise texture distortion by way of heatmaps, as proven within the picture above.

Niagara, Unreal Engine’s particle results system, will get assist for remodeling fluid simulations after they’re cached, making it doable to duplicate and offset caches to create extra complicated results.

The hair grooming toolset now helps streaming of groom and groom binding assets, and there may be preliminary assist for hair strands within the deformer graph.

The brand new Procedural Content material Era toolset launched in Unreal Engine 5.2 will get assist for hierarchical workflows, making it doable to make use of a number of grid sizes when producing sport worlds.

Pipeline integration and platform modifications
As well as, assist for the USD and MaterialX requirements is being prolonged additional, with the choice to edit USD materials directly in the viewport and to import USD files with MaterialX shading networks.

Different key pipeline integration modifications embrace the usage of the OpenColorIO (OCIO) commonplace for inner texture conversions, and beta support for the Unreal Editor on Apple’s new M2 processors.

We’ll replace this story as soon as the ultimate launch notes for Unreal Engine 5.3 can be found: if Epic follows its common schedule, it must be in a few months’ time.

System necessities and availability
Unreal Engine 5.3 is accessible now as a public preview for 64-bit Home windows, macOS and Linux. The present secure launch is Unreal Engine 5.2.

Use of the editor is free, as is rendering non-interactive content material. For video games developed with the engine, Epic takes 5% of the gross royalties after the primary $1 million generated by a title.

 
Read Epic Games’ forum post announcing the Unreal Engine 5.3 preview

Read an overview of the features in Unreal Engine 5.3 in the public roadmap

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