UE4 “Zen Garden” using Metal API for iOS 8 revealed at WWDC

[anonymous_user_8c742bcf1 (anonymous_user_8c742bcf)]

@n00854180t;77710

Awesome work!

It’s kind of a shame this is limited to iOS though, rather than superior game platforms - would be nice to see a consistent way to do this between NVIDIA/AMD on PCs.

Tablet/phone gaming isn’t that interesting to me, personally.

It’s not to me either, but you’re missing the point. I think most of graphic cards today are capable of handling the zen garden easily and there’s no need for involvement of the CPU. Metal makes a big difference only on mobile, and while it’s good to have a similar tool on android as well, but I don’t see that happening any time soon considering vast range of CPUs used on these devices. So in the end, it makes sense to have it on iOS only, at least for a good while.

[hbiblia (Esmailin)]

Se podrá compilar para IOS desde windows sin requerir una Mac?

It will be compiled for IOS from windows without requiring a Mac?

[anonymous_user_b563ab12]

Hey epic! I love the look of this demo. I’m super impressed by the soft shadows you guys have going on, is it possible to tell us a little bit how this is achieved. I have tried several things with different degree of succes, but I’d love to know which technique you guys use Thanks in advance!

[RyanB]

Thanks!
The soft shadows were achieved by setting the LightsourceAngle to be greater than the default. That is under the directional light properties. You have to click the little down arrow to expand the properties to see the option. These type of soft shadows can only be achieved using a static lighting lightmass rebuild. You will probably want to use a production rebuild quality if you have a fuzzy light source (aka large light source angle) as it uses multiple passes to create the blur, and lower qualities use fewer passes.

[PaulMad]

Hey this is what we did to get the soft shadows.
Select the Directional light and set the Mobility to “Static” (this means no distance field shadows) then in the Lightmass rollout there is a value for “Light Source Angle”. Higher values mean softer shadows. A value between 4 and 8 works very well to get this overcast look.
The Directional light brightness should be low and most of the light is coming from the Skylight. The Skylight mobility needs to be set to “Static” on mobile but on PC it can be “Stationary”.
Also make sure the lightmap resolution on you Staticmeshes is high enough.

[anonymous_user_b563ab12]

Hey guys, thanks for the speedy reply, I got it all working now. Much appreciated!

[n00854180t]

@;78110

It’s not to me either, but you’re missing the point. I think most of graphic cards today are capable of handling the zen garden easily and there’s no need for involvement of the CPU. Metal makes a big difference only on mobile, and while it’s good to have a similar tool on android as well, but I don’t see that happening any time soon considering vast range of CPUs used on these devices. So in the end, it makes sense to have it on iOS only, at least for a good while.

Of course PCs can run that - but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement on the overhead of PC rendering APIs, which could net similar additional improvements to image quality above what is already on PC, or performance.

[anonymous_user_fb692cdc]

@;78110

It’s not to me either, but you’re missing the point. I think most of graphic cards today are capable of handling the zen garden easily and there’s no need for involvement of the CPU. Metal makes a big difference only on mobile, and while it’s good to have a similar tool on android as well, but I don’t see that happening any time soon considering vast range of CPUs used on these devices. So in the end, it makes sense to have it on iOS only, at least for a good while.

My understanding is that Metal is very similar to AMD’s Mantle, and that is a desktop shader language. The improvements would not likely be as noticeable as they are on mobile, but there definitely would still be a benefit to having Metal for the desktop, especially with Apple’s less-than-stellar record when it comes to desktop GPU drivers. Whether they’ll actually bring it to the Mac is anyone’s guess, but I assume not sooner than the next major OS X release.

[joshbadams]

Due to changes with Apple’s NDA/confidentiality stuff with IOS8, the API is public, and so we are able to check Metal support in to the engine before IOS8 is officially out.

It will be in the GitHub version only; we can’t put it into the precompiled binaries we ship for non-GitHub builds, because you can’t submit an executable compiled with the new Xcode to the App Store until Apple releases IOS 8/Xcode 6 officially (no longer beta, which will be several months away most likely).

However, with 4.3, the code will be there, and if you compile with the beta Xcode (which you need to be a registered developer to download), then it will automatically compile in Metal support (and you will have to make a change to have the cooker generate Metal shaders).

We are currently fixing it to work with some changes that happened in the main branch while we worked for a couple months in a special Metal branch, but I expect we will have it working again before 4.3 ships.

At the bottom of this page, you can see what Apple has shown publicly (everything, basically ;)):

https://developer.apple/ios8/

Glad you guys liked the demo! We had a great timing making it, and supporting the awesome API that is Metal!
Josh

[anonymous_user_eba350411 (anonymous_user_eba35041)]

@Adams;82405

It will be in the GitHub version only; we can’t put it into the precompiled binaries we ship for non-GitHub builds, because you can’t submit an executable compiled with the new Xcode to the App Store.

Hi Josh!

Just so I make sure I understand correctly, does this mean, in the long run, that users of the precompiled binaries will never be able to submit their applications to the Appstore unless they switch use the full source?

Thanks!

[joshbadams]

@seenooh;82465

Hi Josh!

Just so I make sure I understand correctly, does this mean, in the long run, that users of the precompiled binaries will never be able to submit their applications to the Appstore unless they switch use the full source?

Nope, we just need to wait until Apple ships IOS8 and its development tools officially. Right now, it’s all beta, so it can’t be used to submit to the App Store. Sorry for the confusion! (I edited the post to make it more clear)

Josh