It took longer then i anticipated but it’s finally online, Divergence Episode 1 part 1!
As some may recognize from my previous threads, i will still continue to let it be known this is a project based in Unreal 5, but i will in no way advocate or otherwise “advertise for free” on Epic’s behalf. I’ll give that praise to Blender who as-of-yet haven’t thrown me under a bus.
For those not caught-up, despite the fact there was ZERO mention of it in the 5.4 patch notes, Epic chose to apparently remove all multi-gpu functionality from the engine, effectively reducing the performance of multi-gpu rendering rigs by 50%. Removing this functionality in itself is not a damning offense. It’s their product, they can do as they wish. But choosing to remove this in TOTAL SECRECY, resulting in anyone with a MGPU rig foolish enough to “upgrade” to 5.4 effectively HALVING their rendering times is unacceptable. Especially since many people, myself included, only chose to sink the many thousands of dollars investment in building a “specific rig for rendering in unreal 5” based entirely on the fact that Epic had just one year prior announced to everyone the benefits of multi-gpu rendering in its engine. Rigs that are now, effectively bricks.
For those of you making games, i salute you. You’re probably not all that effected. But for those of us rendering movies, films, animations of any kind? If you’re rendering just a 5 minute animation with path tracer be prepared to leave your PC going just gobbling up electricity for days. THIS is why it was worthwhile to invest a lot of money in a rendering rig, which is now utterly useless. The fact that Epic chose to do this “entirely cloak-and-dagger” and intentionally made NO mention of it in the path notes, only being eventually discovered by people like myself wondering “why their renders take twice as long in 5.4 then in 5.3.” We asked for MONTHS on various threads and never once got an actual official answer from Epic. Not one.
Douche-level behavior guys, truly scummy.
So yes, if they’re going to treat us like commodities to be used and discarded willy-nilly, going forward my show will “use the Unreal 5 tag, as well as metahuman” purely when it garners interest from others, but i will not in any way, shape, or form advocate on its behalf.