Hi,
I need some information about the future of the Unreal Engine 4. I am using the Engine for ArchViz. At the moment I have big doubts if this Engine gives me the graphic quality I need.
Will VXGI be implemented into the Engine in the next time? Is there an official support for Enlighten? I saw the demo but cannot find any information about the price and a possibility to buy it. I have big doubts that Enlighten will be too expensive for independent studios or freelancers.
We urgently need a better lighting technique for approximately photorealistic results. Unity 5 has realtime global illumination and an integration of Enlighten! The graphic quality of the Cry Engine 3 is also awesome in meantime. (-> Star Citizen, Son of Rome) If there is no development in this direction the Unreal Engine 4 will fall back behind the other Engines.
If you want to use a game engine for arch-viz and get as realistic looks as possible then UE4’s Lightmass is your best bet. Yes, it takes some time but nothing out there can beat it’s quality if quality is what you are after.
Unreal Engine 4 is similar to Maya if you are familiar with 3D design; it has much more power, and therefore more settings, features, and a much higher learning curve. The amount of control you have in UE4 is unrivaled. Unless you are developing for mobile, the only limits you’ll come across are set by you.
So first, delve into Lightmass. Learn it, experiment with it, because there’s a lot to it. Combine your new knowledge and power of it with UE4’s lights, reflection capabilities, material functions, etc., and you will surely achieve what you are wanting.
Check out Epic’s downloadable and editable demos if you have any doubts about what it’s capable of.
Hi,
I am working with the engine since 4 month and I get really good results with lightmass. UE4 has also a really good user interface. The blueprint system is also outstanding. Dont missunderstand me: I like the engine and its visual quality.
But if there are new technologies available I want to use them like VXGI and Enlighten. I hope there will be more information about this topics in the next time.
It depends on your priorities and requirements. Currently the options for realtime GI are of course not as good as in the CryEngine or Unity 5. The light propagation volumes aren’t really finished and don’t produce high quality results.
But especially for archviz you can use Lightmass if most of your lighting is static. Take your time and tweak the Lightmass settings. Then you can achieve better results then you ever could get with real time GI solutions.
So only bigger levels with a lot of dynamic moving objects are a problem for UE4, until now.
We still dont know how VXGI works in large, open world environments and even the tech demo they presented runs at around 40 FPS on a 980. So it still needs a lot of work i think.