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Epic bets on Unreal Engine 5 transforming next-gen game development - here's what developers think

We recently got our first glimpse of what video games could look like on PS5 thanks to a tech demo for Unreal Engine 5.

www.vg247.com

Long article, lot to sift through

Epic Games VP of engineering Nick Penwarden explains:

Epic Games says much of this is possible due to the unique architecture of the PS5, which is why the engine was shown off running on Sony’s machine.

“The PlayStation 5 provides a huge leap in both computing and graphics performance, but its storage architecture is also truly special,” Penwarden says. “The ability to stream in content at extreme speeds enables developers to create denser and more detailed environments, changing how we think about streaming content. It’s so impactful that we’ve rewritten our core I/O subsystems for Unreal Engine with the PlayStation 5 in mind.”

The big question is whether this new level of detail will be viable over the course of a 30-40 hour game. A traditional asset creation pipeline results in reduced file sizes thanks to robust optimisation, but we could see games balloon if those steps are skipped.

“Those megascans assets are huge, and if we were only to use the non crunched down versions, I can’t even fathom how much hard drive space that would take up,” Abdullah tells me. “Though hopefully there is a solution to that too which we will see in time.”

“Are 30 hour games of that visual fidelity really possible?” Graff asks. “To that I would say no, at least not really. The main bottleneck and problem I see at the moment is memory. Storing all these ultra-high-poly models is likely not possible in a game that shouldn’t take up hundreds of GB of space. But of course all the techniques mentioned are still valid and developers are often able to perfect them to a degree where it’s impossible to see the difference between low and high poly model. So I’d say they’ll still play a role in next-generation game development, just not as important as they do now, and games that look like the tech demo could very well be possible, just not without all the little tricks and cheats game developers always come up with.”

 

[Paracelsus]

I'd rather use UE5 to have games that look like Pixar movies.
Like, playable Up, or Spiderman 2 that has CGI comic book graphics.

 

[scalman]

first games never look amazing then they will go much forward and last games will look amazing thats how it allways worked .
another thing exclusive devs allready making PS5 games as we speak and i bet they not using unreal 5 for that.

 

[ExpandKong]

Whoah whoah whoah whoah hold the fuck up are you telling me a gaming company put out a tech demo that might not be representative of a final product

for marketing purposes?

 

[spawn]

So it is possible as long as consoles have more storage so maybe 2 or 3 years from now

 

[GHG]

And just like that D Degree breathes a huge sigh of relief.

But seriously storage and download speeds will start becoming a bigger issue and consideration rather than the hardware sooner rather than later.

I remember reading the UE5 demo took up a huge amount of storage?

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Stadia redeemed?

Spoiler

nahh, it's still shit

 

[Ovek]

Even using something like the Megascans plug-in I can only imagine the years upon years and team size to build the content.

So no and not even because of a hardware limitation but rather I doubt that publishers would be willing to fund such a escapade.

 

[Bryank75]

I'd rather use UE5 to have games that look like Pixar movies.
Like, playable Up, or Spiderman 2 that has CGI comic book graphics.

Yeah and I think Ratchet & Clank and Spider-man 2 will be great showpieces for that.

I think using all the techniques strategically in games.. (like imagine TLOU2) where the game is already pretty impressive to just push the visuals in a few areas to really make things pop will be the difference.

Spider-man can now have real reflections in windows, faster swinging, more npc's that are unique looking, more detail and different scenery on each street corner. Maybe it will even hit 60fps....

R&C is easy to see how it could look Pixar-like, sice the last game was already approaching those levels.

 

[009EspadaSageJay]

I cant imagine how big a game like that would be I would say 100s of GB big.

 

[vpance]

To be fair the guy that was answering the question is a VFX artist working on movies and TV, so I don't think he's the perfect person to ask.

As for asset size, that's what compression is for. Those gigantic megascans they talk about are uncompressed.

 

[Joey.]

Understandable, for now at least.

I'm surprised this up-coming Gen hasn't caught up to probable storage necessities. ~1TB of space doesn't sound too big anymore. That will fill up real quick.

Have to solve that first.

 

[geordiemp]

Epic bets on Unreal Engine 5 transforming next-gen game development - here's what developers think

We recently got our first glimpse of what video games could look like on PS5 thanks to a tech demo for Unreal Engine 5.

www.vg247.com

Long article, lot to sift through

Epic Games VP of engineering Nick Penwarden explains:

Did anyone read to the end...?

and games that look like the tech demo could very well be possible, just not without all the little tricks and cheats game developers always come up with.”

Do posters realise that cliff face in UE5 demo was made with 6 rocks. Its possible to repurpose assets and save lots of space.

Yes we will get high quality assests next gen, dont worry....

Some devs have already given the solution and how its done, there is a video doing the rounds, look it up yourself, time for supper.

 

[JOEVIAL]

Visuals are determined by the skill of the artist/designer and the amount of time/money the publisher wants to invest. Pure and simple.

In other words, games will only look as good as the budget/time allows. I only say this because people seem to have this expectation that all next-gen games look as good or better then the UE5 demo. This is simply not feasible and it won't happen. After all, the demo was a showcase of what the engine is capable of... not what it will actually produce in a finished game.

 

[geordiemp]

Visuals are determined by the skill of the artist/designer and the amount of time/money the publisher wants to invest. Pure and simple.

In other words, games will only look as good as the budget/time allows. I only say this because people seem to have this expectation that all next-gen games look as good or better then the UE5 demo. This is simply not feasible and it won't happen. After all, the demo was a showcase of what the engine is capable of... not what it will actually produce in a finished game.

You realise that Sony worked with epic on this for 5 years. Days gone was one of the few open world games on UE4 and sony helped write the UE4 I/O changes for that game, and that work continued onto the UE5 project.

Decima engine has been improving streaming, you could see it in death stranding..... what do you think Sony first party will do on Ps5...... It does not take much guessing does it.

 

[LostDonkey]

It's a long article, any uohrsdes?

 

[SleepDoctor]

"Storing all these ultra-high-poly models is likely not possible in a game that shouldn’t take up hundreds of GB of space."

no surprise. And with games like cod already taking over 200gb, a tb hd ain't shit.

So basically just more marketing hype. All that "rewriting" the demo talk was for nothing.

 

[Gravemind]

Visuals are determined by the skill of the artist/designer and the amount of time/money the publisher wants to invest. Pure and simple.

In other words, games will only look as good as the budget/time allows. I only say this because people seem to have this expectation that all next-gen games look as good or better then the UE5 demo. This is simply not feasible and it won't happen. After all, the demo was a showcase of what the engine is capable of... not what it will actually produce in a finished game.

Agreed.

It also took a team of highly talented devs, who are experts with the engine, to craft a relatively small (compared to environments seen in actual games) environment seen in the demo . I dont think it's been revealed how long the demo was in development for, but I imagine it was quite a while.

We have to remember that everything in that demo was expertly crafted, every square foot of the environment was likely worked over with a fine tooth comb to make it as beautiful as possible.

Are studios using UE5 going to have the time and resources to painstakingly craft an entire game world with that level of attention and detail in every part of the world? I'm not sure.

If a studio is able to produce an entire game world with that ridiculous level of detail, I would be damn impressed.

 

[Night.Ninja]

let people dream

 

[bitbydeath]

Visuals are determined by the skill of the artist/designer and the amount of time/money the publisher wants to invest. Pure and simple.

In other words, games will only look as good as the budget/time allows. I only say this because people seem to have this expectation that all next-gen games look as good or better then the UE5 demo. This is simply not feasible and it won't happen. After all, the demo was a showcase of what the engine is capable of... not what it will actually produce in a finished game.

Streaming assets directly from zBrush is faster and less costly than the current method.

 

[trapanesenyc]

Why not, if that game came out to day I truly believe it wouldn't even be the best looking game out this current gen. TLOU2 arguably looks better than it even if the techniques used to make it aren't as advanced. When Naughty Dog or Rockstar throw 100 million at a next gen game it will look noticeably better.

 

[JOEVIAL]

Streaming assets directly from zBrush is faster and less costly than the current method.

Yes but those assets have to be made by talented artists and developers. My post has nothing to do with platforms.

I was just stating the fact that the visuals are only as good as the artist. The graphics engine is only a conduit for creativity and skill. If there is no spark from the artist... it doesn't matter what engine they use, and the visuals will suffer because of it.

 

[Ovek]

Visuals are determined by the skill of the artist/designer and the amount of time/money the publisher wants to invest. Pure and simple.

In other words, games will only look as good as the budget/time allows. I only say this because people seem to have this expectation that all next-gen games look as good or better then the UE5 demo. This is simply not feasible and it won't happen. After all, the demo was a showcase of what the engine is capable of... not what it will actually produce in a finished game.

This guy gets it.

 

[Optimistic Gamer]

Would be fascinating to hear from someone in asset generation if this impacts their actual work at all. Unreal is a pretty commonly used engine after all.

Spoiler

Also, "one dev" just doesn't have the same ring as "hellpoint dev"

 

[MoreJRPG]

Of course not, and anyone who thought otherwise is drinking the kool-aid. It’s a tech demo that they probably spent years building for 15 minutes of gameplay to showcase the absolute best of the engine. The amount of detail in it is astonishing and the reward isn’t worth the effort to design a game of that length to that detail.

 

[Neff]

I don't expect PS5/XSX graphics to look significantly better than they do now, to be honest

 

[Coolwhhip]

Sure why not, that's the point of game engines.

 

[Nankatsu]

 

[Handy Fake]

Harsh but fair.

 

[DigitalScrap]

So it is possible as long as consoles have more storage so maybe 2 or 3 years from now

Yeah, I can see it now - we will all have SSD RAID arrays connected to our consoles.

 

[magnumpy]

next generation is canceled everything starts over from zero

 

[Thugnificient]

I bet Uncharted 5 or TLOU3 or whatever ND has next could look as good or close to that demo. One thing I know for sure is their characters would look better.

Same for other AAA studios like Crytek, Ubisoft or Sony Santa Monica.

 

[CurtBizzy]

“Are 30 hour games of that visual fidelity really possible?” Graff asks. “To that I would say no, at least not really. The main bottleneck and problem I see at the moment is memory. Storing all these ultra-high-poly models is likely not possible in a game that shouldn’t take up hundreds of GB of space.

Sony Secret Sauce ?

Sony Innovation Studios | Sony Pictures

Sony Innovation Studios -- fueling new entertainment experiences through the power of creativity and technology.

sites.sonypictures.com

 

[bitbydeath]

Yes but those assets have to be made by talented artists and developers. My post has nothing to do with platforms.

I was just stating the fact that the visuals are only as good as the artist. The graphics engine is only a conduit for creativity and skill. If there is no spark from the artist... it doesn't matter what engine they use, and the visuals will suffer because of it.

Gotcha, we’ve always had that line in the sand with AAA vs AA titles.

 

[Lethal01]

Visuals are determined by the skill of the artist/designer and the amount of time/money the publisher wants to invest. Pure and simple.

In other words, games will only look as good as the budget/time allows. I only say this because people seem to have this expectation that all next-gen games look as good or better then the UE5 demo. This is simply not feasible and it won't happen. After all, the demo was a showcase of what the engine is capable of... not what it will actually produce in a finished game.

Not all, just the big AAA ones.

 

[Jamesb0ndjr]

Correct me if I am wrong, but artists, especially character artists, make high detailed models of everything already. They then go through the work of making lower LOD models that can be displayed at differing distances in order to eliminate unnecessary detail and to reduce GPU usage.

UE5 speeds production up, since artists can just drop in the high detailed model without making lower LOD versions.

If anything this gives artists more time and should allow more assets to be highly detailed. The current state of affairs has the high detailed models already being created, but generally not used. Next Gen we can simply use the high detailed models since the renderer automatically only renders the detail you can see.

This of course means files will likely be larger, but nothing that can't be fixed by compression algorithms Microsoft and Sony are cooking up.

But I could be wrong....

 

[Entroyp]

Storage space is the bottleneck now.

 

[phil_t98]

I cant imagine how big a game like that would be I would say 100s of GB big.

Rumour has it the demo was between 100-200gb just for a two and half min clip

 

[Ogbert]

I don't expect PS5/XSX graphics to look significantly better than they do now, to be honest

They won't really. Hopefully the frame rate improves.

People have been taken in by the Unreal demo because they want to be taken in.

It's all part of the fun.

 

[Ogbert]

I bet Uncharted 5 or TLOU3 or whatever ND has next could look as good or close to that demo.

Sure. Because Naughty Dog will spend five years with an unlimited budget getting hundreds of artists and developers to essentially handcraft the game.

It will also still run at 30fps.

 

[Denton]

It is one thing making a 1440p/30fps linear demo with no AI and no simulation in it, and another to make 200 hour open world game with hundreds, if not thousands, AI entities and full blown detailed game mechanics with thousands of animations..

I am frankly perfectly happy with how some open world games look on good hardware, and would be content with that graphical level simply running in 60fps at 4K (even if it is upscaled via something like DLSS2):

Spoiler: open world game screens (no spoilers)

 

[bitbydeath]

Rumour has it the demo was between 100-200gb just for a two and half min clip

Most likely wrong since an 8K Skyrim patch is 5.5GB and this demo used far less textures.

 

[Thugnificient]

Sure. Because Naughty Dog will spend five years with an unlimited budget getting hundreds of artists and developers to essentially handcraft the game.

It will also still run at 30fps.

Exactly. Top-tier AAA devs will be able to get something relatively close to these graphics and yes at 30fps as has been customary since forever.

 

[Teh Chosen Juan]

Did anyone read to the end...?



Do posters realise that cliff face in UE5 demo was made with 6 rocks. Its possible to repurpose assets and save lots of space.

Yes we will get high quality assests next gen, dont worry....

Some devs have already given the solution and how its done, there is a video doing the rounds, look it up yourself, time for supper.

Exactamundo buddy. did you see this? Dreams is a great tool that can show gamers/non-game developers how they make games. Using 6 rocks for example to save space. I agree with you. The devs will definitely be able to do some pretty cool shit with these new systems.

 

[LazyParrot]

There's a reason the player character model used in the demo was not only significantly less detailed than the environment, but also disappeared when they switched to that fancy triangle view at the beginning. This technology doesn't work with traditionally retopologized, rigged and animated game models, but those are precisely the kind of models you need to make any game that isn't just a literal walking simulator.

The demo looked so great precisely because with the exception of the player model and a few scraps of cloth moving in the wind, there were no traditionally designed game assets in it at all. You can do that in a tech demo, but not in a real game.

 

[Rat Rage]

I'd be happy if they give me a 5 hour game full of QTE's with that kind of graphics for 70 bucks.

 

[Life]

All these discussions about graphics and processing power - when creativity and gameplay will most likely fall behind, perhaps even further than the current gen did.
Are we gonna see the same linear games that insult player intelligence - but prettier? It's really hard to be excited about that.

Many games that last 30+ hours have tons of menial content, fetch quest, running/driving past the same locations etc etc - and we're concerned we can't reach the same with better graphics? Give me a break.

 

[-YFC-]

Well, I kinda expected this. Such high quality assets, optimizations and whatnot are just too much for a big long game. It would take too much time and money.
But I'd like to see a linear game, 8 hour long, using this level of graphical fidelity. This is actually a great chance for Epic. They have a shitload of money, why not make a singleplayer game that looks insane? It would be a perfect opportunity to show off the engine. A sequel for unreal 2 would be perfect for this purpose.

 

[Degree]

Rumour has it the demo was between 100-200gb just for a two and half min clip

Sounds reasonable. Those assets are huge.
I think not only 30+ Hours games is something we won’t see with these kinds of graphics. Even way shorter games will be impossible. Just look at this short clips, which is so huge.
Not happening.

but not surprising. It was just a TECH DEMO. We get it every gen. Just marketing. Not a real game. Never.

 

[Kumomeme]

30 hours of game with enhanced order 1886 level of visual is already amazing for me