Popular game developer, Epic Games has launched Unreal Engine 5.1 with some major improvements. As per the company, “The new update to the Unreal Engine 5 lets you dive deep into the major performance and functionality improvements coming for features like Lumen, Nanite, World Partition, Virtual Shadow Maps, and more.”
The new update has also introduced Virtual Shadow Maps to support games and content running at 60 FPS on PC and consoles. Additionally, it will also allow fast-paced games to run without any latency issues.
Unreal Engine 5.1 is here! Explore the latest updates to Lumen and Nanite, enhanced world building tools, and improvements to virtual production workflows.
Download today: https://t.co/9Rgd3A9GGW
— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) November 15, 2022
Unreal Engine 5.1: All details
Image: Epic Games
According to the official release, Nanite has also added a Programmable Rasterizer for material-driven animations and deformations via World Position Offset, as well as opacity masks. This feature will let artists use Nanite to program specific objects’ behavior, for example, Nanite-based foliage with leaves blowing in the wind.
In terms of camera, the new update has introduced a new dedicated In-Camera VFX (ICVFX) Editor that supports a range of virtual production workflows. This largely eliminates the need for stage operators to hunt through the Outliner for specific objects and controls. As per the company, Unreal Engine 5.1 has also added UI, UX, and performance improvements for the Remote Control APIs, enabling users to construct powerful custom browser-based remote controls more quickly and easily.
As mentioned earlier, World Partition now supports large world coordinates that allows the creation of huge open worlds without losing precision. With support for the new HLOD (Hierarchical Level of Detail) for water rendering and streaming, creators can create giant water bodies in open worlds with enhanced performance and minimum memory usage. In addition to this, Unreal Engine 5.1 also introduces new features for film and TV production and animation content.