Digital Foundry: State of Unreal 5, Cyberpunk RT & News
The Future of Unreal Engine 5
The episode provides a deep dive into the "State of Unreal" event at GDC 2023, highlighting advancements that aim to democratize high-end technology for developers of all sizes.
• Procedural World Building: A major shift from "kit-bashing" to procedural tools allows for more efficient open-world development, reducing the manual labor burden on artists.
• Nanite and Foliage: Improvements to Nanite now include foliage support, moving beyond earlier constraints and showcasing significantly enhanced rendering fidelity.
• MetaHumans: Impressive demonstrations of facial motion capture using a simple smartphone provide a glimpse into the future of accessible, high-fidelity character animation.
• UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite): Creating a "metaverse" platform that enables end-users to build, script, and share content directly within the game.
Ray Tracing and Future Graphics
The discussion shifts to path tracing technology announced at Nvidia's GTC, specifically for Cyberpunk 2077.
"This is going to be like almost like a sea change... the concept of a AAA title having path traced lighting."
• Path Tracing Challenges: While ambitious, the team emphasizes that this tech is intended as a template for future hardware, with current high-end cards like the RTX 4090 relying heavily on frame generation and DLSS to maintain performance.
• Scalability: The panel discusses the necessity of path tracing as a future-facing standard, despite potential performance hurdles on current hardware.
Tech Critiques and Industry Trends
• Elden Ring's RT Implementation: The team expresses disappointment with the Elden Ring ray tracing patch, citing it as an example of poor resource allocation that impacts performance without offering a significant visual transformation.
• The Digital Distribution Problem: A critical look at the delisting of legacy titles, described as a form of "cultural vandalism," as games become increasingly disposable in digital-only storefronts.
• Redfall's Always-Online Shift: Encouragement for the industry to follow Arkane’s positive move to potentially remove mandatory online connections for single-player experiences.
• Night Dive Acquisition: Optimism surrounding Atari's acquisition of Night Dive Studios, hoping it provides the backing needed to solve licensing issues and bring more retro classics to modern platforms.