Well, there you have it. It’s something they want to do, but can’t currently be justified unless it aligns with internal needs. Sounds legit. On the community side, they are working on more highly requested stuff and the easier, less problematic things to handle. It’s on their radar though. Let’s not forget that we can still implement stuff, if we so please. Having access to the source code and all.
Epic might not be waving a huge flag that says “WE ARE WORKING ON THE BESTEST GI!!”, but I can’t shake the feeling that they are working towards it. Look at the work Ryan Brucks has been doing with ray marching, for example. Slowly but surely the engine is getting the legs it needs to provide awesomeness, in my opinion.
To quote a nerd, Inigo Quilez: “Writing a global illumination renderer takes one hour. Starting from scratch. Writing an efficient and general global illumination renderer, takes ten years.”
An efficient, robust, cross-platform GI solution isn’t something you whip up quickly. It isn’t something that is going to play well with an already established rendering pipeline necessarily, either. Look at how many people freaked out when the decision to switch over to the ACES filmic tonemapper was made. Guaranteed the same will happen when a GI solution is implemented. Previous projects won’t look the same, people are gonna freak, bla bla bla. That’s certain to be a factor in this situation as well: easing into it.
So time and resource constraints, legacy compatibility, and many other factors here. It’s not Epic dangling a carrot in front of us.