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[CamHostage]

(*two clips added from Xbox's Youtube Page

Clipouts, good find! (I reposted the main one since it's a new GAF page...)

The demos are short, I wish it was longer and playable, that it pushed through more of The Coalition's technical skill rather than just test-running the engine, (also they should have placed their MetaHuman in Alpha Point, so we could see a character in an environment and have all the tech running together,) but for a GDC tech demo running on a on Xbox Series S/X, it's well worth a quick watch.

Actually exceeded my expectations in a few places (...at least, once I reset my expectations when that tweet came out and it was "just a bunch of rocks".) The obelisk is a great centerpiece, with awesome reflections and metal material properties (it looks shiny but ancient at the same time,) and the particle effects where the sparks cumulatively added up to glowing light before the big pulse was a nice showcase of the engine's abilities. And it's on Xbox Series X, which we know should be plenty capable of running complex UE5 scenes but haven't seen much UE5 running on it yet, so it's good to see this realtime reflections and lighting and 100+ million triangles on another platform many of us now have in our homes.

Hopefully somebody will glean some of the details from the full talk and add them to the thread, but this breakdown from last week had some of the specs.

A whole Xbox 360 character fits in the eyelashes of an Unreal Engine 5 character

The Gears 5 studio has been experimenting with Epic's latest engine, which is in early access now.

www.pcgamer.com

30FPS, 4K

Display resolution of 4K, it is upscaled (using the new UE TAA I believe? haven't been able to watch the whole thing yet,) not native. But it's performing over 30 ("46FPS on Xbox Series X", apparently,) so it's running above its target framerate.

A lot of projects that seriously uses Lumen seems destined to be 30 (Nanite has meanwhile upped framerates pretty handily.) So that's right in that ballpark of expectations and Epic Games' provided specs, which is a good thing for a console showing, since, yes, it's 30 and not native 4k if you just go by numbers, but the tremendous visual quality is right on the screen and Xbox Series X (and PS5 in last year's demo) show no problems handling it all.

 

[Haggard]

Display resolution of 4K, it is upscaled (using the new UE TAA I believe? haven't been able to watch the whole thing yet,) not native. But it's performing over 30 ("46FPS on Xbox Series X", apparently,) so it's running above its target framerate.

The devs in the vid clarified that the final target is 60, not 30.
edit: min 44+

 

[JackMcGunns]

Nice, expected less to be honest.

Eh... I was promised a technical overview, what happened?

But at least the character model is impressive

 

[sinnergy]

Looks very nice , really liked the technical depth of this all. Like the metahuman integration into the scene a lot.

 

[sinnergy]

Eh... I was promised a technical overview, what happened?

But at least the character model is impressive

It was all technical so I don’t really get your point at all, complete with frame time budgets ..

 

[Kupfer]

Eh... I was promised a technical overview, what happened?

What you are promised and what you can expect are two different things.

 

[Lukaku's First Touch]

Not impressed, I've seen more impressive stuff from some youtubers recently.

 

[JackMcGunns]

What you are promised and what you can expect are two different things.

No, the tweet said the full tech talk would be included, but that we would have to wait until Monday.

 

[elliot5]

No, the tweet said the full tech talk would be included, but that we would have to wait until Monday.

the tech talk is right here

 

[Snake29]

Eh... I was promised a technical overview, what happened?

But at least the character model is impressive

I do not find those character models from metahuman that impressive compared to what we've seen already for some years and in games like Uncharted or Detroit Become Human. I have a feeling that those metahuman characters all look a bit the same...

 

[onesvenus]

Monday is real

Really loved this. It's a really short demo but the rest of the video is great if you want more technical information. The pieces about Nanite limitations and how they overcame them, Lumen problems and metahumans are great.

Unsurprisingly, it's a quick internal project to define best practices for their future work. They basically turned what would normally be an entry to their internal Wiki into an hour long GDC talk which got hyped to hell for no good reason.
It's nice that they are sharing this with other studios, giving them a headstart in how to set things up. I cant imagine how disappointed some people are right now lol.

It was a GDC talk, I don't know what people were expecting

No, the tweet said the full tech talk would be included, but that we would have to wait until Monday.

But it is the full tech talk?

 

[Kupfer]

No, the tweet said the full tech talk would be included, but that we would have to wait until Monday.

But it was linked in post #379

 

[elliot5]

I do not find those character models from metahuman that impressive compared to what we've seen already for some years and in games like Uncharted or Detroit Become Human. I have a feeling that those metahuman characters all look a bit the same...

I think you're misremembering character models in those games. They definitely look good, don't get me wrong, but when he showed the difference between the cinematic model for a Gears 5 character and the metahuman..

You can see the eye and brow detail. The pore textures, the peach fuzz around the nose, etc. Much better.

 

[CamHostage]

Eh... I was promised a technical overview, what happened?

But at least the character model is impressive

I mean, yes... although, it was a MetaHuman. (Well, it was sort of a MetaHuman...)



MetaHuman Creator is a character design app. This is Epic Games' technology for creating and implementing detailed digital characters that look and are rigged to move realistically.

Not everybody can make a good MetaHuman like this, of course! (Most dabblers will just modify the preset avatars a bit, or try to make a celebrity/licensed character.) And the fine detail and costuming quality here is indicative of the skilled artists at this studio. Also, it is a test of a MetaHuman running on a console. So it's still worth checking out and seeing the tech in action, but I wish The Coalition was hot enough at UE5 already to have used that MetaHuman inside the demo on the Xbox, not just showing off the model in a separate dark space.

 

[JackMcGunns]

Really loved this. It's a really short demo but the rest of the video is great if you want more technical information. The pieces about Nanite limitations and how they overcame them, Lumen problems and metahumans are great.


It was a GDC talk, I don't know what people were expecting


But it is the full tech talk?

Never mind, the video that I clicked on was a short flyby.

 

[elliot5]

I mean, yes... but, it was a MetaHuman.



MetaHuman Creator is a character design app. This is Epic Games' technology for creating and implementing detailed digital characters that look and are rigged to move realistically. Anybody who uses Unreal can use MetaHumans.

Not everybody can make a good MetaHuman like this, of course (most dabblers will just modify the preset avatars a bit, or try to make a celebrity/licensed character,) and the fine detail and costuming quality is indicative of the skilled artists at this studio. Also, it is a test of a MetaHuman running on a console. So it's still worth checking out and seeing the tech in action, but I wish The Coalition was hot enough at UE5 already to have used that MetaHuman inside the demo on the Xbox, not just showing off the model in the editor.

The human was running on Xbox Series X at 30 fps 1080p. Watch the tech talk. He goes over it.

edit: oh if you mean in the alpha point environment, he also goes over that they're working on mashing the two together in a cinematic. It's a WIP.

 

[JackMcGunns]

the tech talk is right here

Thanks, that's what I was looking for.

 

[Snake29]

I think you're misremembering character models in those games. They definitely look good, don't get me wrong, but when he showed the difference between the cinematic model for a Gears 5 character and the metahuman..

You can see the eye and brow detail. The pore textures, the peach fuzz around the nose, etc. Much better.

You are comparing 2 of the same engines with each others, sure you see a difference in generations, but compared to other engines. Characters created with UE were never really better looking then other engines.

 

[CamHostage]

The human was running on Xbox Series X at 30 fps 1080p. Watch the tech talk. He goes over it.

edit: oh if you mean in the alpha point environment, he also goes over that they're working on mashing the two together in a cinematic. It's a WIP.

Yeah, I'm kind of trying to separate the different levels of "impressive" or not-impressive here to help understand the conversation points, because I think there are things that are compelling techwise here (it's UE5, it's on a console, it looks great, it performs no problem, it's a very good looking character model, it's a glimpse of where next-gen is going,) and other things that are meh as far as demos go (it's 'just rocks', it's not interactive, it uses a lot of UE5 basic features and doesn't really show a lot of The Coalition flexing its specific and usually powerful muscles...).

So when I point out that it's a MetaHuman, it's to say that Epic deserves a lot of the credit for these demos working as they do. Coalition added its designs but most external studios (even pros) are not yet to the point of being able to customize it to fit their high-level skills (or do something extraordinary with it that's maybe beyond standard practices.) This was generally an off-the-shelf demo. It says great things about UE5, and about Xbox Series running UE5, and then we can talk about the rest in a different breath.

(EDIT: After finally getting to watch the whole project breakdown, I'm actually retracting some of my statements, they customized it a lot more than I gave credit for ... That they customized it so hard and it was hard to notice compared to the home modders just testing out UE5 says something about how good the prefab UE stuff is and how much work it takes to do professional-level work for games these days, but I'll let others smarter than me elaborate on all that because I don't want to stick my foot too far in my mouth.)

 

[Evilms]

 

[Corndog]

Monday is real

That was a nothing burger demonstration.

 

[Evilms]

 

[nekrik]

Pretty meh demo. Not even close to Ps5 UE5 demo

 

[elliot5]

Pretty meh demo. Not even close to Ps5 UE5 demo

and it was never supposed to be

 

[Stuart360]

A bit meh to be honest, and it would of been nice to see somehting longer with a bit of actiion or soemthing.
I suppose what they are going for is realistic results achievable in a game, as oppose to the Epic UE5 demo that wont be met by a game this gen imo.

 

[nekrik]

Coliation about to teach Epic how to use Unreal properly

Yeah. This didn’t age well.

 

[CamHostage]

For those who got good info from the full talk and want to dig deeper into Unreal Engine and UE5, Epic has released all of its key GDC talks and presentations to the public.









I don't know yet if any of these have any juice to geek out over if you're not a techie, but if you're curious what tools developers will have in their hands to make your next games. take a glance at some of those.

 

[SSfox]

I mean it looks cool and all but i honestly don't care much about stuff like this, show me actual games that are actually playable in real time in that said engine, then we can talk.

 

[Jack Uzi]

Highlighting the important parts

She/her
He/Him
He-Man

Going through the tech talk now, the demo wasn’t that impressive but it’s not an upcoming game so it’s whatever.

 

[SLB1904]

Yeah. This didn’t age well.

Aged as expected tbh

 

[SLB1904]

Highlighting the important parts

She/her
He/Him
He-Man

Going through the tech talk now, the demo wasn’t that impressive but it’s not an upcoming game so it’s whatever.

I'm scared to watch this. I hope they don't massacre my boy.

 

[Insane Metal]

onesvenus I'm back here to say that I am pleased and impressed. The demo is very short but really promising, the materials and lighting looks nuts.

 

[nekrik]

Such huge studio like “ The Coalition” who are one of the best (if not the best) UE devs and this the best they could do? I’ve seen better work on UE5 from some YT users.

 

[Elbow Identity Shallow]

Certainly not bad in but they are both incredibly limited in what they actually show. That's fine in itself but a rendering of a single character and a single room certainly doesn't stand out as impressive or as anything particularly new or different.
Somewhat like dinosaur demo on the PS1, yeah it looks good but as somebody who plays games it's certainly nothing that is relevant to me.

 

[hevy007]

I mean, yes... although, it was a MetaHuman.



MetaHuman Creator is a character design app. This is Epic Games' technology for creating and implementing detailed digital characters that look and are rigged to move realistically. Anybody who uses Unreal can use MetaHumans.

Not everybody can make a good MetaHuman like this, of course! (Most dabblers will just modify the preset avatars a bit, or try to make a celebrity/licensed character.) And the fine detail and costuming quality here is indicative of the skilled artists at this studio. Also, it is a test of a MetaHuman running on a console. So it's still worth checking out and seeing the tech in action, but I wish The Coalition was hot enough at UE5 already to have used that MetaHuman inside the demo on the Xbox, not just showing off the model in a separate dark space.

They didn't use Metahumans per say, they used the eyes, and some materials but sculpted the face themselves...do people not watch theses things before they comment.

 

[CamHostage]

They didn't use Metahumans per say, they used the eyes, and some materials but sculpted the face themselves...do people not watch theses things before they comment.

So, apologies, I'm not done with watching and should have gone over that chunk before posting. Coalition did put custom work into its character model that I wrote off too harshly. However, it's more than just the eyes and "some materials".

 

[hevy007]

So, apologies, I'm not done with watching and should have gone over that chunk before posting. Coalition did put custom work into its character model that I wrote off too harshly. However, it's more than just the eyes and "some materials".

Ya eyes/ teeth/ materials like i said...the topology as you can use their topo to and leverage the facial morphs...that's it..literally those4 things. The rest of that has nothing to do with Metahumans.

workflow for leveraging metahumans morphs: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Ye1JYX

 

[CamHostage]

Ya eyes/ teeth/ materials like i said...the topology as you can use their topo to and leverage the facial morphs...that's it..literally those4 things. The rest of that has nothing to do with Metahumans.

workflow for leveraging metahumans morphs: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Ye1JYX

You're coming at me real hard and I'm willing to admit I spoke inaccurately, but I'm not following you here, so maybe you could help people like me and explain better where I'm wrong?

They're saying they used the shape of the MetaHumans and the skin materials of the MetaHumans and the eyes of the MetaHumans and the teeth of the MetaHumans... that's kind of a lot of the face that is the MetaHuman, is it not?

They didn't actually build it in the basic MetaHuman Creator (they exported the data to Maya and used other tools to craft the face plus add the costume,) so it's not like they just tweaked some sliders and chose a beard and called it a day. However, they did earnestly try to use as much of MetaHuman as they could (and evaluating the MetaHuman system was a stated goal of this project) before going to ground and going to work with pro tools.

 

[hevy007]

You're coming at me real hard and I'm willing to admit I spoke wrong, but I'm not following you here, maybe you could explain better where I'm wrong?

They're saying they used the shape of the MetaHumans and the skin materials of the MetaHumans and the eyes of the MetaHumans and the teeth of the MetaHumans... that's kind of a lot of the face that is the MetaHuman, is it not?

They didn't actually build it in the basic MetaHuman Creator (they exported the data to Maya and used other tools to craft the face plus add the costume,) so it's not like they just tweaked some sliders and chose a beard and called it a day. However, they did earnestly try to use as much of MetaHuman as they could (and evaluating the MetaHuman system was a stated goal of this project) before going to ground and going to work with pro tools.

They used the topology not the shape...the shape would be their model if you will...and you wrap the topology unto that model 90 percent of a characters head is their face. They sculpted the head in zbrush... Textures were done in substance, groom was done in Maya. That's why i said they didn't use Megahumans per say...they leveraged it...there's a difference. They used what they could from it..things that made sense like eyes and teeth..but the majority of the work (face, hair, textures) are their own, so 90 percent was done outside of the Metahumans pipeline. That's all i was correcting when you said they used Metahumans to build the character, didn't mean to come off harsh.

 

[BackBackPunch]

I mean, yes... although, it was a MetaHuman.



MetaHuman Creator is a character design app. This is Epic Games' technology for creating and implementing detailed digital characters that look and are rigged to move realistically. Anybody who uses Unreal can use MetaHumans.

Not everybody can make a good MetaHuman like this, of course! (Most dabblers will just modify the preset avatars a bit, or try to make a celebrity/licensed character.) And the fine detail and costuming quality here is indicative of the skilled artists at this studio. Also, it is a test of a MetaHuman running on a console. So it's still worth checking out and seeing the tech in action, but I wish The Coalition was hot enough at UE5 already to have used that MetaHuman inside the demo on the Xbox, not just showing off the model in a separate dark space.

Man, that would look so much better if the tongues were animated properly. Facial muscles look good, but the lack of proper tongue movement is really holding those back from nailing the realism when they're talking.

 

[PaintTinJr]

My take from watching their excellent talk was that UE5 tools are very behind on xbox, and may, or may not play to xbox hardware's strengths this gen compared to Unity on Series.

I also think Microsoft's stance with DirectX - blocking the traditional low level to-the-metal access that most consoles have had - is hurting the quality of their output, now and stopping their games looking as photo-realistic as they can be.

I was stunned by the comments regarding their difficulties letting go of per vertex colour with nanite, and showcasing the need for old school decals and the like, and their issue using kit-bashed megascans with nanite to do the flooring.
On the vertex colour issue. I could understand Nintendo being tight with textures to still be relying on cheaper coloured polys they don't fully-multitexture, but it came across as though the Coalition's entire technical blueprint for making games was a little stuck in the past - Xbox 360 gen - which seemed really odd for very talented people. I can only assume there is a very good reason for using vertex colours - maybe the cost of per vertex colour is there in directx rendering whether you want it or not, so maybe not using it, is a waste of performance.

 

[PaintTinJr]

One of the other things that stood out in the video for me, was the guy's comment regarding memory use, and how it wasn't really much of an indication, because it was just one corridor and he expected they'd have another adjoining room buffered in memory, as though REYES isn't on the cards for Xbox series.

 

[Shmunter]

One of the other things that stood out in the video for me, was the guy's comment regarding memory use, and how it wasn't really much of an indication, because it was just one corridor and he expected they'd have another adjoining room buffered in memory, as though REYES isn't on the cards for Xbox series.

That was always speculated to be the difference between Ue5 on the two consoles. Although personally expected the same approach just lower fidelity for obvious reasons.

 

[hevy007]

My take from watching their excellent talk was that UE5 tools are very behind on xbox, and may, or may not play to xbox hardware's strengths this gen compared to Unity on Series.

I also think Microsoft's stance with DirectX - blocking the traditional low level to-the-metal access that most consoles have had - is hurting the quality of their output, now and stopping their games looking as photo-realistic as they can be.

I was stunned by the comments regarding their difficulties letting go of per vertex colour with nanite, and showcasing the need for old school decals and the like, and their issue using kit-bashed megascans with nanite to do the flooring.
On the vertex colour issue. I could understand Nintendo being tight with textures to still be relying on cheaper coloured polys they don't fully-multitexture, but it came across as though the Coalition's entire technical blueprint for making games was a little stuck in the past - Xbox 360 gen - which seemed really odd for very talented people. I can only assume there is a very good reason for using vertex colours - maybe the cost of per vertex colour is there in directx rendering whether you want it or not, so maybe not using it, is a waste of performance.

Not vertex colors like that, vertex painting...which is essentially using masks to blend between different textures for variations a very powerful workflow.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Not vertex colors like that, vertex painting...which is essentially using masks to blend between different textures for variations a very powerful workflow.

Yeah, after I wrote that, I notice someone mentioning vertex painting in the other thread, so not quite what I thought then.

 

[catvonpee]

I love Xbox and everything. But it is sad to see such talent relegated to the same old stale franchise. Let them make their own game now with a MASSIVE 5xA's budget. I haven't enjed a Gears of War game since Cliffy B still worked at Epic and they were just teasing Fortnite.

Same goes for Halo. After this one let 343 do whatever they want and just keep adding stuff to the multiplayer.

 

[Black_Stride]

I love Xbox and everything. But it is sad to see such talent relegated to the same old stale franchise. Let them make their own game now with a MASSIVE 5xA's budget. I haven't enjed a Gears of War game since Cliffy B still worked at Epic and they were just teasing Fortnite.

Same goes for Halo. After this one let 343 do whatever they want and just keep adding stuff to the multiplayer.

Everything points to them working on a new IP.

 

[Zathalus]

I also think Microsoft's stance with DirectX - blocking the traditional low level to-the-metal access that most consoles have had - is hurting the quality of their output, now and stopping their games looking as photo-realistic as they can be..

What? This is simply not true, the customized version of Dx12 on the Xbox is as close to the metal as it comes.

Article

DX12 is very versatile - we have some Xbox specific enhancements that power developers can use. But we try to have consistency between Xbox and PC. Divergence isn't that good. But we work with developers when designing these chips so that their needs are met. Not heard many complains so far (as a silicon person!). We have a SMASH driver model. The games on the binaries implement the hardware layed out data that the GPU eats directly - it's not a HAL layer abstraction. MS also re-writes the driver and smashes it together, we replace that and the firmware in the GPU. It's significantly more efficient than the PC.

 

[PaintTinJr]

What? This is simply not true, the customized version of Dx12 on the Xbox is as close to the metal as it comes.

Article

In the context of the old school techniques a AAA first party studio is still using, and him saying they are waiting on Epic to improve the GPU situation in regards of both X and S UE5 performance, it sounds like the indirection of the DirectX solution is holding them back. Could you image the ICE team at Sony waiting for Epic to fix issues that stopped the RSX in the PS3 giving them everything it could?

I still maintain that a business strategy for Microsoft with DirectX is negatively impacting the workflow of people like the TC, and negatively impacting their ability to match the best visuals in the industry in the same time frames.

IMO, After +20years of observing Java's write once, run anywhere not really changing, we all probably know that native code is needed to make Java UI programs as responsive as native code on PCs. Even Microsoft's java version of Minecraft (on windows) isn't really Java because it only runs on windows. Without Xbox having the same low-level access that PlayStation and Nintendo have for their hardware, Xbox are always going to be playing catch up, and even discouraged from trying new advanced things because their abstracted API doesn't expose enough options to let them fully see optimisation options at the point of game design.

 

[Zathalus]

In the context of the old school techniques a AAA first party studio is still using, and him saying they are waiting on Epic to improve the GPU situation in regards of both X and S UE5 performance, it sounds like the indirection of the DirectX solution is holding them back. Could you image the ICE team at Sony waiting for Epic to fix issues that stopped the RSX in the PS3 giving them everything it could?

Well yes, it is very easy to imagine that, as Unreal 3 was not optimised for the PS3 properly without significant investment from both Sony and Epic. Game engine optimisation generally relies on the vendor of said engine to optimize. With UE5 being over a year from full release, it does not appear strange to me at all that Microsoft are still working closely with Epic to optimize the engine as much as possible for the Series consoles. I imagine Sony is doing the same.

I still maintain that a business strategy for Microsoft with DirectX is negatively impacting the workflow of people like the TC, and negatively impacting their ability to match the best visuals in the industry in the same time frames.

IMO, After +20years of observing Java's write once, run anywhere not really changing, we all probably know that native code is needed to make Java UI programs as responsive as native code on PCs. Even Microsoft's java version of Minecraft (on windows) isn't really Java because it only runs on windows. Without Xbox having the same low-level access that PlayStation and Nintendo have for their hardware, Xbox are always going to be playing catch up, and even discouraged from trying new advanced things because their abstracted API doesn't expose enough options to let them fully see optimisation options at the point of game design.

But Xbox does have the same low-level access that Playstation and Nintendo does. DX12 was literally built for that exact purpose and competes well with Vulkan, another low-level programming API in the PC space. DX12 on the Xbox goes even further, as described in the article I linked. It is not a HAL solution, and works with the GPU directly. Playstation had the advantage going into the PS4 generation with Gnm, which Xbox really didn't have an answer to, hence the entire creation of DX12 in the first place.

DX12 Ultimate is a more broad focused API, meant to work with PCs, but it is still a low-level programming API and the further customised solution on the Series consoles is basically as close to the metal as you can get.