You have undoubtedly seen The Witcher 4 tech demo that was shown off.
An open world experience at 60 FPS on a base PS5 console. While we can’t wait to sink our silver swords into The Witcher 4, the tech underneath is really impressive. Unreal Engine 5.6 is filled with new features that help with those pesky optimization issues we always see and hear about. Let’s cover what is new and improved with Unreal 5.6.
The 60 FPS optimization was on full display. This is accomplished by using Hardware Ray Tracing, or HWRT for short, for Lumen Global Illumination. This somehow reduces CPU bottleneck issues, enabling more complex scenes to take place. It may be experimental, but Fast Geometry Streaming is a plugin that allows static geometry to load faster. Fast Geometry Streaming ensures a smoother frame rate in expansive environments.
While you gain optimization, you also gain detail with several of the other new features. Nanite-Powered Foliage renders plant life with density and lifelike detail. It potentially could have unlimited draw distance, according to the tech demo. With the world looking so real and full, adding in Dynamic World Interactivity really makes the world feel lived in. Bustling, realistic crowds feel real, and even bumping into a man carrying a basket made him drop apples. Humans and plants aren’t the only upgrades to up the detail. The new tech for Ciri’s horse’s animation comes from having muscle movement from under the skin. These three features made the tech demo one of the most detailed games I have ever seen.
MetaHumans Become More Lifelike With Ease
MetaHuman within Unreal Engine has always been impressive. Now, developers can create and customize MetaHuman characters within Unreal Engine itself with the In-Engine MetaHuman Creator. This includes a new parametric body system, designing whole outfits, and automatically adjusting to various body types. MetaHuman Animator now supports real-time facial animation using phones, webcams, smartphones, or audio sources. This really simplifies bringing a character to life like a big budget studio. Control Rig Physics introduces procedural physics to character rigs, allowing your characters more dynamic and realistic movements. No more need to use external tools for your MetaHumans because they have packed everything into Unreal Engine itself.
Workflow and Toolset See Improvement
The last part of the presentation showcased many workflow and tool set improvements. Sequence Enhancements allow for easier management of complex hierarchies of real-time Audio Scrubbers for more precise syncing of effects, dialogue, and animation. The content browser and UI have been improved to enhance the organization and viewing of assets.
Procedural Content Generation (PCG) system now supports inline constants in its Node Graph UX, multithreading for better performance, and the Biome Core v2 plugin for faster and more intuitive biome creation.
I know people still see a game in Unreal Engine 5 and groan, but I think the age of optimization is dawning. Devs have learned Unreal and the Console Architecture so well that at this point, we should see more tech demos like The Witcher 4 that completely blow us away. The new MetaHuman features keep making it easier for the little guy to motion capture and create detailed characters. It is hard not to be impressed with this 5.6 update.
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