Inside Unreal | 5.2 Release Overview

WHAT
Unreal Engine 5.2 is now here and available, and with it comes the next round of incredible features and updates that puts even more creative freedom into the hands of developers! Come join us as we sit with some of the team and discuss the latest and greatest as well as tackle your questions around the update. If you’re interested in learning more about the update ahead of time, you can do so here!

WHEN
Thursday, May 11th @ 2:00 PM ET - Countdown

WHERE
Twitch
YouTube

WHO
Juan Canada - Director, Graphics Engineering
Tim Daoust - Lead Animation Programmer
Greg Richardson - Product Specialist
Tina Wisdom (She/Her) - Community Manager - @TheUnWiseTina

If you’re unable to make the show, all livestreams can be viewed afterwards on-demand .

17 Likes

The prerequisites for 5.2 will not install.
I hope they fix it, cause 5.1 is broke for my use, and I am stuck on 5.03

Hi Chris, I would like to help out.

Here are some of the points you should check:
. Are you installing UE5 on C: or an external drive.
If you are installing it on an external or secondary drive, you should still install the Unreal Luncher on C:
. How old is your computer ? Make sure your prerequisites match UE5.2 requirements.
. If all else fails, uninstall your previous version and run CCleaner on your registry.
. Have you verified your installations ?

I’m not part of Epic Games, I’m another user who’s had lots of troubleshooting experience : )

I got it to work
when you install the prereq I think you need to restart and install it a second time
It seems to disappear, but it does install
I ran it twice with a reboot and even though it disappeared for a couple minutes I did finally get a finished install msg.
So I have 5.2 fired up now.
thx!

Hi Tina!
Do you know this bug from Unreal Engine 5.2?

SUMMARY
When creating a new architectural project in Unreal Engine 5.2, I noticed that the shadows and reflections of actors disappear, which did not happen with previous versions of Unreal Engine.

SCRIPT TO REPRODUCE THE BUG
1 - Create project for ‘architecture’ in Unreal Engine 5.2;
2 - Do not change default configuration (Ray Tracing is enabled by default for architecture);
3 - Create a mirror on the ‘main’ level;
4 – In front of the mirror, place an actor with a base mesh and on top of the base mesh place a globe mesh with a point light inside (in the globe mesh apply emissive material - see video);
5 - Make the ‘directional light’ invisible leaving the environment without lighting (off);
6 - Place the character close to the actor;
7 - Now just move the character away from the actor until the shadows and reflections disappear and repeat this movement, as shown in the video.

RESULT
The result of the above steps will be to see the Unreal Engine 5.2 bug where shadows and reflections disappear when the character moves away from the sprite.

EXPECTATION
I have the expectation that this bug will be fixed soon due to the importance of Unreal Engine for the architecture industry, which is increasingly using Unreal Engine for interactive architectural projects with a high degree of realism in real time.
BUG DESCRIPTION
When creating a new architecture project in Unreal Engine 5.2, using the default graphics engine setting (without changing any settings), I noticed that shadows and reflections disappear when the character moves away from the actors. And, this bug is even more critical when using small actors, because the smaller the actor, the smaller the offset distance for shadows and reflections to disappear.
In the attached video we can see how this bug occurs. In this video I used a mirror and an actor with a base mesh and a point light inside the globe mesh (on the globe mesh apply emissive material - see video). Note that both shadows and reflections of emissive light disappear as you move away from the actor. This happens with any kind of lighting.
This bug seems to be related to ray tracing, as by disabling ray tracing shadows and reflections DO NOT disappear, but by disabling ray tracing we lose the realism that ray tracing provides in rendering shadows and reflections.
Note: this bug does not exist in previous versions (UE5.1, UE5.0, …), even using the default engine configuration. This bug only happens in the Unreal Engine 5.2 version, being a big problem for the architecture industry that uses many small actors in the scene (decoration objects, for example).