Unreal Fest 2025 is in full swing. Epic Video games is just not solely giving a glimpse of the graphical splendor of The Witcher 4, but in addition letting Unreal Engine 5.6 off the leash.
Unreal Fest 2025 kicked off in the present day in Orlando. Naturally, the builders at Epic Video games have been targeted on the brand new options of Unreal Engine and The Witcher 4, which had already been introduced forward of the festivities.
The Witcher 4: A technical demo in Unreal Engine 5.6
Absolutely the spotlight of the State of Unreal keynote was undoubtedly the demonstration of The Witcher 4
Not like earlier bulletins with pre-rendered trailers, CD Projekt Crimson and Epic Video games introduced scenes from the present state of growth of the sport.
Nevertheless, it ought to be famous that the pictures proven are a technical presentation within the context of Unreal Engine 5.6 and never precise gameplay, as CD Projekt Crimson explains within the accompanying announcement.
The tech demo took gamers to the beforehand unknown area of Kovir, the place protagonist Ciri travels by snow-covered mountain landscapes and dense forests along with her horse Kelpie.
Unreal Engine 5.6: Deal with efficiency and open-world growth
Alongside the Witcher demo, Epic Video games introduced the quick availability of Unreal Engine 5.6. In line with the announcement, the brand new model focuses on optimizing open-world video games and reaching constant 60 FPS efficiency on present console {hardware}.
Lumen optimizations
Some of the necessary enhancements issues the lumen system for international illumination:
In line with Epic Video games, the hardware-based ray tracing implementation has been basically redesigned to eradicate CPU bottlenecks.
The optimizations are meant to carry the {hardware} ray tracing variant of Lumen as much as the efficiency stage of the software-based resolution, liberating up corresponding CPU assets for different programs.
“Quick Geometry Streaming Plugin”
One other key function of Unreal Engine 5.6 is the (nonetheless experimental) “Quick Geometry Streaming Plugin.”
In line with the builders, this method permits giant quantities of static geometry to be loaded quicker and with extra constant body charges at runtime.
For open-world video games, Epic Video games guarantees smoother transitions between completely different areas with out annoying loading occasions or body price drops.
Renderer parallelization and extra
The Render {Hardware} Interface (RHI) has been extensively reworked to raised make the most of the multithreading capabilities of contemporary {hardware}. Beforehand, sure rendering operations have been restricted to the render thread, though present graphics APIs resembling DirectX 12, Vulkan, and Steel help parallel processing. These limitations have been eliminated in model 5.6, as Epic Video games explains within the launch notes
“MetaHuman Creator,” Epic’s software for creating photorealistic digital people, has additionally acquired recent updates. The system is now straight built-in into the Unreal Editor and affords new parametric physique programs and improved visible high quality.
MetaHuman is utilized in The Witcher 4 to render NPCs, giving even minor characters a excessive diploma of realism.
The brand new MetaHuman Animator, then again, allows real-time workflows for facial and physique animation.
One other side of the Witcher 4 demo was the dense vegetation within the forest areas. That is made potential by “Nanite Foliage,” a newly added extension to the Nanite virtualization system. The system is designed to render extraordinarily detailed timber and vegetation in giant numbers with none lack of efficiency.
Nanite Foliage additionally solves issues with dynamically shifting objects resembling swaying timber and improves integration with the Lumen lighting system. Nevertheless, the total model of this function is just not anticipated till Unreal Engine 5.7.
