Switching back to Unreal Engine | Nintendo Switch questions

Development Rendering
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For almost 2 or 3 years now, I’ve been using the Unity engine for some unknown reason (in fact I told myself it would be a lighter engine to run on consoles ?.. I don’t know…) and I think I’ve met a dead end for my current project involving procedural levels. It’s even more questionable of myself because I’ve been using the UDK / UE3 / UE4 from 2011, yet completed no projects since (I instead learned 3D modeling for photorealistic renders). You have no idea how good it feels to switch back to UE4 a little - not that I have something against Unity. It just feel like a brain massage and much more flexible for my needs. I just have to readapt a little and see what I can do with the newest features of the engine. Only today, I discovered the Light Propagation Volume feature of the **Unreal Engine 4, **which seem to solve greatly the issue about lighting interior scenes in a simple way. And I can’t believe it was there since 2014. Really.

So my plan is to release an FPS on PC / Switch - maybe Xbox One / PS4. Why Switch ? Because Nintendo.

I’m now questioning myself about what is optimal and working for the Switch in particular :

• Is Light Propagation Volume currently working on Switch ? If not, could it ? How much is it consuming ?
• Is Vulkan the best API option to choose ?

There’s not much I have to ask for now - but if some people are working on Switch projects with the Unreal Engine 4, I’d be very pleased to have testimonies and tips for my dream project.

Thanks for the read and upcoming answers.

  • Yuki
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  • Forget about using Light Propagation Volumes in production. The feature barely works and hasn’t really been updated in the past years, and it even breaks sometimes from version from version.
  • Don’t worry about selecting API, UE4 uses the proper one when you build for Switch.
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Thanks for your reply.

In fact I just saw the LPV solution of the engine is DX11 only, so it would not even work on Switch on the go.
I see here and there it is possible to have an OpenGL 4.3+ LPV system, but I know nothing about coding shaders and implementing them into game engines.

Like here : GitHub - djbozkosz/Light-Propagation-Volumes: Master's thesis implementing real-time global illumination method.

Lastly, I ask myself the question why a feature such as LPV is offered, even as experimental, if it’s not usable in production. Isn’t it like presenting false hopes ? I wish we could do something about it in the near future.

Currently, the results I get with the solution offered by UE are convicing and encourage me to work on my project, hoping we could convert the DX11 shader to OpenGL 4.3+ for better compatibility.