In 2020, Epic Games publicly for the first time. Almost three years later, gamers are still waiting for the technology to go mainstream. Apart from And , there are no UE5 games you can play right now, and the first salvo probably won’t arrive until the end of the year at the earliest. None of this stopped Epic from showcasing the engine’s latest capabilities with a handful of new demos during its recent at GDC 2023.
Probably the most impressive seen Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 developer Ninja Theory presents Epic’s new . The tool promises to make realistic facial capture accessible to indie developers by allowing them to use an iPhone, instead of dedicated equipment, to capture facial performance. As you can see from the two demos shared by Epic, the tool quickly and accurately turns a close-up video of an actor into something a studio can use in-game. Epic said the animator would be launched this summer.
Separately, Epic showcased some of the improvements made to Unreal Engine 5.2 with a demo that featured, among all, a digital recreation of electric truck. The EV has proven to be the perfect showcase for UE 5’s new Substrate shading system. The technology allows artists to create different shading patterns and layer them however they see fit. In the demo, Epic gave the R1T an opal body to show how Substrate can allow different layers of materials to interact with each other without creating lighting artifacts. The demo was also a showcase for Epic’s new set of procedural content generation tools. They allow artists to create large, highly detailed levels from a small set of handcrafted elements.
If all goes according to plan, it won’t be long before the first slate of Unreal Engine 5 games arrives. Provided it is not delayed again, should be released this year. lords of the dead And , two other UE5 projects, do not yet have a release date but have been in development for a few years now.
