At this year’s Unreal Fest, Epic released Unreal Engine 5.6, the sixth major update since UE 5 launched in 2022. The last update was released eight months ago, so Epic is moving fast. Most updates have included a major new feature, such as Nanite tessellation, Substrate, MegaLights, Procedural Content Generation, etc. Version 5.6 doesn’t have a specific new feature as flashy as those, but it provides a significant performance update and streamlined workflows.
As is usual, the official release notes contain a lengthy list of updates. Among them are the expected performance improvements in Lumen Hardware Ray Tracing, GPU acceleration in PCG, Virtual Shadow Maps, etc. Improved renderer parallelization will help games run smoother, and Tech Artists will appreciate the new GPU Profiler to help optimize their games for this new parallelization. There are many more upgrades and fixes, but for this article, I wanted to dive deeper into a few key features.
Faster Open Worlds
During the keynote at Unreal Fest, one of the first things shown was the improvement to Unreal’s ability to handle open worlds. The key to this improvement is the new Fast Geometry Streaming Plugin, which is still experimental and not yet recommended for production. When working with large open worlds, the need to load in new content as a player moves across the map can strain hardware and cause a performance loss. This new plugin aims to make that process much more intelligent, lightweight, and hopefully invisible to the player.
This isn’t a replacement for World Partition, but instead works alongside and targets static geometry that does not impact gameplay. In a city map, this could be the buildings, street signs, park benches, etc. Meanwhile, vehicles, NPCs, interactable items, etc, would follow the World Partition rules. All of this can be done asynchronously, significantly improving performance and hopefully preventing lag spikes and stuttering seen in previous iterations.
Image
One feature shown in the keynote that is not part of 5.6 is Nanite foliage. There was a whole section discussing the new nanite system for foliage, which uses voxel approximation to render trees in the distance. This will be a massive change to how foliage in large open worlds is built and rendered. However, this is coming in version 5.7!
In-Camera VFX
Virtual production continues to be a big focus for Unreal Engine. Version 5.6 includes some new usability tools and two long-awaited features. First, nDisplay now supports NVIDIA’s DLSS upscaling. Previously, the built-in Temporal Super Resolution (TSR) was the only option for upscaling. These features allow the systems to render at a lower resolution and then upscale to the desired display resolution. Since one of the biggest factors determining render performance is the number of pixels that need to be rendered, DLSS will give additional performance. There can be a loss in image quality, so be sure to test your scenes on the volume to ensure you are getting the desired results. Note that of all the DLSS features, only upscaling is supported in nDisplay. Other features, such as frame generation, are not.
Looking for an Unreal Engine Workstation?
We build computers tailor-made for your workflow.
Don’t know where to start?
We can help!
Get in touch with our technical consultants today.
The second prominent feature is nDisplay primary node failover. When running on an LED volume with multiple nodes, one of the most significant risks is one of the systems crashing during a shoot, causing the whole cluster to terminate. With this feature, if the primary, or any other node, should crash, a backup node will be ready to take over automatically, allowing the shoot to continue. In 5.5, this was only available for secondary nodes, but the entire cluster would terminate if the primary node failed. Now, any node can fail safely as long as backups are in place.
Characters and Animation
The area that received the most attention in this update is Unreal’s animation tools. Sequencer got numerous updates, making it easier to organize their sequences, which can get very messy when there are numerous camera cuts, actors, etc. Other updates, such as better Tweens Tool and Curve Editor, bring Unreal closer to what animators are familiar with in DCCs such as Maya. This will reduce the need to go back and forth between Unreal and a DCC to make changes, speeding up artists’ workflow.
Another feature from the keynote was the new experimental plugin Sequencer Anim Mixer. This will allow for a seamless transition from gameplay to cinematics. Instead of a player approaching an area, then having a camera cut when the cinematic starts, this feature will allow for Sequencer to begin playback without changing the camera. Motion Matching will also be able to transition the character to the best animation to get them in the correct place on cue. The demo showed this working and will really help keep players immersed in a game.
Image
Another notable feature is that MetaHuman Creator can now run within Unreal Engine. Until now, the creator was only available as a web app, and the user had to download the final MetaHuman. Anyone who has worked with MetaHuman can attest to how large of a download this could be, especially if numerous characters were needed. Epic has improved the generation process enough that running it locally is finally possible. It can be somewhat resource-intensive, but not more so than running using MetaHumans in previous versions. I recommend a GPU with at least 12GB of VRAM to use the editor comfortably. Not only that, but compatible grooms and clothing can be used directly in the creator. This will be a huge benefit to studios where multiple people are in charge of different aspects of the character creation process.
MetaHuman also added support for real-time animation from a single camera source. While this was technically possible before, the results are far more detailed and can be used directly in the MetaHuman editor. This will further allow animators to bring their visions to life quickly.
Conclusion
Unreal Engine 5.6 may not have a headline grabbing feature like PCG or MegaLights, but it does, however, bring a lot of improvements, as well as a whole host of fixes and tweaks. This article barely scratches the surface of what is available in 5.6. Included features will allow developers to build worlds faster and have them perform better. Animators will have better tools for creating their animations without jumping back and forth with their DCC. ICVFX studios will finally be able to tap into DLSS for additional performance on their existing hardware.And so much more!
Unreal Engine 5.6 is available now in the Epic Launcher. As always, create a copy of your project when upgrading and test this new version before committing to the upgrade. There is always the possibility of an update changing even a minor feature that has a big impact on a project.
Unreal Engine Workstations
Puget Systems offers a range of powerful and reliable systems that are tailor-made for your unique workflow.
Labs Consultation Service
Our Labs team is available to provide in-depth hardware recommendations based on your workflow.
