Unreal Engine 5 brings two key options which stand to radically enhance the realism of each 3D geometry and lighting. Whereas the options aren’t but totally optimized for VR, early developer experiments are displaying spectacular outcomes.
Unreal Engine 5 launched earlier this yr, however sadly its two new key options—Lumen for international illumination lighting and Nanite for micro-geometry—weren’t supported for VR out of the gate.
Nevertheless, Epic has been engaged on subsequent variations of of Unreal Engine 5, and although they aren’t prepared for a full launch but, preview builds of Unreal Engine 5.1 and 5.2 present that Lumen & Nanite have gained preliminary help for VR.
And whereas there’s nonetheless doubtless progress to be made to completely optimize the options for the extent of efficiency required by VR headsets, developer have begun experimenting with Lumen & Nanite in VR and the outcomes are already fairly placing.
One such instance comes from Twitter customers Hiroyan which dropped themselves right into a cave filled with richly detailed objects and a flashlight to mild up the area.
The Epic gods have executed it once more… Lumen and Nanite in #UnrealEngine #VirtualReality utilizing #UE5-main (5.2). That is by far probably the most element and realism I’ve ever seen in #VR. pic.twitter.com/KE9aYboJTE
— Hiroyan (@H1R0Y4N) October 9, 2022
Whereas many Lumen demos have targeted on displaying loopy glowing balls and extremely reflective surfaces (as a transparent instance of what Lumen really does), it’s really this rather more refined use of the applied sciences that—to me, anyway—appears probably the most convincing from a realism standpoint.
The factor that actually makes this scene stand out is the interaction between the extremely detailed geometry and the lighting. VR actually advantages from extra detailed geometry not solely as a result of the stereoscopic view makes it readily obvious when small geometric particulars are literally faked (utilizing tips like regular mapping), but in addition as a result of it’s a lot simpler and extra frequent to get actually shut to things once you’re taking part in in VR. Not solely are you able to decide stuff up and maintain it proper as much as your face, you possibly can lean your head infinitely near any floor.
Due to Nanite—which basically features like a steady LOD system that attracts element from the unique ‘grasp’ 3D mannequin—the tiny floor particulars on the rocks and wooden actually stand out, particularly as a result of they’re actual by way of stereoscopic depth.
And because of that, the Lumen lighting system correctly catches all of these small floor particulars and shines on them in a really convincing manner that additionally subtly lights up the remainder of the scene with out pushing reflections to unrealistic ranges merely for demonstration functions.
“It’s exhausting to convey via screenshots, nevertheless it’s actually wonderful once you’re in a position to get tremendous shut as much as objects they usually have micro element you possibly can see with your individual eyes,” writes Hiroyan.
Whereas it is going to be superior when this stage of element is feasible on a primary VR prepared PC, which may not occur for a while. Hiroyan says this demonstration was operating on Nvidia’s RTX 3090, one of many highest-end GPUs the corporate makes.
