Does Nanite and Lumen Support Stylized Art Styles?

[Qeraga]

I’m someone who hasn’t used much of Unreal Engine yet, but the Unreal Engine 5 early access announcement got me interested. Before trying it out, I want to know one thing, do all these new techniques like Nanite and Lumen matter for games that aren’t trying to be photorealistic?

For example, if I was making a game with a low-poly art style, would Nanite still boost performance, or would Nanite have no effect at that level? Could Lumen be tweaked to work with a more soft cartoony art style like that of Overwatch or League of Legends, or is Lumen strictly designed for realism? If Nanite and Lumen do support this kind of semi-stylized art style, are there any good examples out there yet, or do any places I should look to learn how to?

Just where I am right now, I’m not particularly interested or capable of making photorealistic games, so I’m not sure how excited I should be about UE5’s new features considering if I tried doing so I would just end up relying too much on the existing libraries and only make some generic demos at best. So I will probably not try Early Access if there isn’t enough support for the various styles I’m interested in.

[midgunner66]

Geometry and global illumination are basic elements that can be found in any art style, regardless of if it’s photorealistic, cartoonish, digital, or hand-drawn. Nanite is a system that allows for highly detailed geometry, and Lumen is a system that allows for dynamic global illumination. They are not inherently tied to any one art form.

For example, a common misconception is that quixel megascans assets are only useful for photorealistic art styles, but that is not the case. Quixel megascans can also be used in a “stylized” way, as in this example from Creating digital worlds with Megascans and Unreal Engine:

Also, remember that Epic’s biggest game has a stylized art style, so they also care about art styles other than photorealism.