UE5 final version will be released until 2022? What’s on your wishlist?

General Feedback & Requests
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Hi, a long time ago, it was said that UE5 final version will be released in 2021, now there is information that UE5 (final version or 5.0.1) will take longer, releasing until 2022, is it true?

The problem is that UE5 is only in an early access stage, not production ready, and neither Chaos or Apex are guaranteed for UE5 final version; Chaos is still really bad with FPS, honestly useless, but Apex even though FPS is way better and easier to use it does causes drops over time, this uncertainty makes that projects requiring destruction to be delayed, also because it was said, that converting UE4 projects to UE5 was not going to be possible… so, regardless the final destruction system and not being production ready yet, this delay affects any project wanting to use or convert to UE5, because we cannot start with UE4.26 or UE5 early version, and another big issue is that not any market place plugin and asset is going to update to UE5, until the final version is released.

Some recommendations (wishlist):

  • Please enable Nanite for painted foliage, two sided materials - geometries (Foliage is a bigger issue than rocks and statues… same reason why there was no foliage in the UE5 trailer and preview map…).
  • Allow Nanite for VR (not sure if it works with mobile yet).
  • Improve widgets to use giff animations.
  • Improve widgets for easy gamepad navigation.
  • Allow custom Input gamepad button “names”, for Xbox controllers, etc (this will also allow us to easy localize languages for them)
  • Enable gravity to any direction (or material based) with IA navigation, not just up-down.
  • Niagara is still highly demanding, maybe we could create high quality effects in Niagara and just convert them into flipbooks in Niagara, instead of importing flipbook textures, that would make the engine 100% free from FPS drops, and poor quality effects for mobile and VR.
  • Import Z axis option, for Maya designers, always having trouble with the correct Up axis.
  • Multi Paint Layers for regular meshes, instead of vertex painting (why keep using vertex, when we could just paint the UVs as we do in Substance Painter)
  • Please improve the Groom hair-feather system for better optimization, LODs (maybe the amount of hairs can be reduced from distance or stop dynamics after a max distance), better hair color control and materials.
  • Please improve the sequencer, so we can stop a sequence at any time (In-game) and make actors to stay in that position but, also be able to rewind (reset) that paused cinematic so the player can start it from cero again and again after it was paused in the end, currently it returns to 0 without pause, and if you pause it, you cant rewind it (reset), there is no “Play from 0 or an specific time”.
  • New opacity option, to vanish actors from the scene gradually 100% to 0%, right now we only have on/off visibility options in the sequencer and blueprints, there is no easy way to gradually hide actors for a period of time.
  • Play a movie clip from the sequencer, full screen, HD, without using planes in the scene, just a play button option to visualize videos in the sequencer or to add VFX and music in UE an perfectly sync them with the pre-rendered movie; right now using image planes causes other effects in the scene, fog or lights to damage the video quality and colors and also… rendering a movie from the sequencer, including an image plane creates playback errors, rewinding… and lag on an avi clip or image sequences.
  • Improve sequencer rendering, not enough video output formats, not even H.264, uncompressed avi files end up huge (a 2 minute sequence renders to almost 300GB), image sequences can come out with lag and there is not an efficient way to record gameplay from UE, we have to rely on external software to either codify videos and then try to match timing with screen recordings.
  • Actor blueprints with their own sequencers (same way we already have it for widgets), so we can trigger local animations for BP characters, ¿why such intense programing and math calculations for simple things? a sequencer inside the actor blueprint can make it work in a few seconds, this would be helpful for making games more dynamic, easier but also to reduce long development times.
  • Be able to add several exponential height fogs and only affecting a radius, it would be very useful for Cinematics; instead of editing the same one from blueprints, and not be able to preview changes unless In-Game.
  • Tessellation close to camera is a must, it is very helpful for landscapes (and large landscapes… are really expensive)
  • More than 3 lighting channels please!
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UE4 project will be convertible to UE5, this is the official info. You can safely start with 4.26, then migrate to 4.27 once it gets released and then migrate to UE5 release next year.

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On their official faq they mention that the planned release date is early 2022: Frequently Asked Questions - Unreal Engine

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Yes of course, I would never spread lies… I’m not like that, I love Epic and UE, I´m only concerned about the final release, project delays, and here is the real source of this information from May 26 2021, based on an interview with Chance Ivey and Galen Davis of Epic Games:

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I just hope its optimized.

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For what it’s worth, the trackers on the Unreal sites seem to all be to figure out how you use the site, how the site performs for you, and general demographics information such as “where are you using this” and such, all of which are legitimate needs for the engine developers and for those running the Unreal web sites. It’s not like they’re laden down with pre-roll video ads or malware cursor pack downloads …

If you don’t want them to have this information (which absolutely helps them do a better job supporting us all) then feel free to cut those off, but then you also give up the expectation that the site will actually, you know, work well for you… That trade-off is of course different for every person.

Main point: Just because it’s called a “tracker” doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be used to your own detriment. In fact, people who run websites, need to know who uses the website, and how it works for them, to be able to run those sites better.

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That may be your assessment. Having operated web sites, including heavily ad oriented ones, for the better part of the last 15 years, and seen this “tracking” from the inside, I find it to be much more pedestrian and much less sinister.

If all of the West suddenly votes populist-totalitarian and empowers the secret police to come for your web records when you search for the wrong kind of literature, then I shall have been proven wrong, but … let’s say, I’d be willing to take pretty long odds on that actually happening :slight_smile:

Anyway, my assessment of the EPIC website is by comparing their list of beacons in my tracker-tracker to what a reasonable web developer would use. And, generally, I prefer to let web developers get the information they need to operate the site better.

However, I much disklike loud advertising that’s trying to tell me that I’m inferior and only buying a new shiny product will make my soul whole. That ■■■■’s corrosive! And also, a real threat to our well-being as humans! But also, not something you find on the Unreal developer sites.

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What you mean, Is that we should avoid starting our projects with UE5 early version 2? we won’t be able to convert those projects to UE5 final version?

We should start our UE5 projects on UE4.26, right now we won’t be able to use Nanite, Lumen, MegaAssemblie or any new feature… But when UE5 is released we will be able to upgrade only from UE4.26-27 and use all UE5 features, but if we use UE5 right now, since it is an early version, we won’t be able to convert without bugs.

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I haven’t said that. UE5.0ea projects are going to be convertible to UE5, this is the official info.

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You did not read the documentation. :expressionless:

This makes no sense. It should literally be the other way around.

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Just to summarize there are 2 paths:

  • UE26 → UE5EA → UE5
  • UE26 → UE27 → UE5

The only thing that you can’t do is upgrade from UE27 to UE5EA, those are not going to be compatible at all.

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AFAIK there is no mention about 4.28 anywhere.

What I said is taken from their own documentation: Unreal Engine 5.0 Documentation | Unreal Engine 5.0 Documentation

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why would assume then that it has the same rule as 4.27, it will will not be compatible with early access version but you can safely assume that you will be able to update to ue5 final release

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So, we should not use UE4.27 and up, we should stay with UE4.26.2, at least if we want to upgrade our projects to UE5 when released in 2022 and avoid compatibility issues, that’s basically it?

I do think UE4.28 is coming, and even UE4.29 if UE5 is delayed again, I don’t think anybody was expecting a UE4.27 version last year.

Actually I wish I could start with UE5EA right now… but not any marketplace product, asset or plugin has been updated to UE5, I have asked several developers and they all tell me that they are only updating their assets when UE5 is officially released, not EA, and at this point I can only guess April 2022, I still think this is not good news; what would happen if we start a UE4.26 project with Market Place products and since no developer is updating anything at this moment, when trying to upgrade to UE5 (2022) we can’t, because of a plugin issue, materials not working, the Grooming system is reworked, or you paint a landscape for months and the new UE5 system is completely different… people are already having issues when trying to convert UE4 projects to UE5EA, even more if they use market place assets, just search it in the forums.

Polycount has never been an issue with LOD´s, and even if UE5 can hold 1 TB assets, you are never going to release a game with more than 80GB… unless you are really nuts, so the nanite tech is great, not the next revolutionary thing, most computers don’t even have more than 1TB in free disk space, Oculus 2 is 50GB, and you are releasing a 3TB game filled with mega assemblies and non optimized assets; I don’t think LODs are ever going to be replaced, Nanite it is a great feature and I love it for detailed assets and cinematics… I think this feature has more future for the film industry, not games; anyway foliage is far more important than rocks.

I think a great destruction and dynamics system would be the next thing for games, honestly… and even more for the film industry, like real water simulations, destruction without FPS drops, but nothing is guaranteed right now, I just wish chaos had been better, FPS is terrible right now, but I still believe, and hope that the final version has no previously announced features and I know it will, for now, the one thing I feel is fantastic about UE5 is lumen, I think lumen is beautiful, dynamic and hyper realistic.

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You can safely use UE4.27 and then update to UE5 next year, you just can’t update to Early Access version if you choose to start with UE4.27.

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Nanite isn’t really that much more expensive (memory wise) than standard quality assets. LOD and current poly count is not OK, is actually terrible, Nanite is the bigger revolution for a lot of reasons and should also support destruction. Also consider that this is just the start, I think we will have a lot of changes on how we think about geometry. On the other hand, I am much more skeptical about Lumen, don’t get me wrong, RayTracing is the future, it’s just Lumen implementation that doesn’t fully convince me, I’m not sure is the future of RT tech.

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I´m not talking about Nanite by Nanite sake… but the fact of importing huge assets, like massive useless statues with million of polygons to UE, it makes bigger project sizes, and people is focused now on… “wow! Nanite allows me to be able to do this, import huge assets with millions of polygons, coool”… but honestly… you shouldn´t upload large assets just because you can,

your projects should actually be created consumer wise, and consumer wise 100 GB games are a bad idea already, but making 1 TB games is the worst idea, just the UE5 default project is 100GB… and it is not even a game, just a level, imagine making that into a full game with 50 to 100 levels, it would be impossible for an average client to even install it. so Nanite is great, not really a revolution, lumen is, and it is fantastic, static lights have always been a problem in the past, now lumen is beautiful.

Dynamics, destruction and simulation, that’s the revolution games need, right now not even close.

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You are assuming a lot here, it’s a new tool and people are messing arround with it, doesn’t looks like a problem to me. If you don’t need assets with millions of polygons, just don’t do it. Nanite has better culling, better overdraw, better materials management and can handles way more instances that was previously possible, so it’s not just about the number of polygons. By the way Lumen is only possible because of Nanite, take that away and Lumen goes with it. Did you watch any of the videos Epic made on the new features? Because it doesn’t looks like it.

On the matter of size, yes you have more polygons, but you don’t need other stuff, like 4k normal maps that also consume memory. The compression system of Nanite already does a good job and is bound to improve, at this time having a million of polygon is not that expensive memory wise. Also considering that the project size is bigger that the release for the customer, one reason is because you not only need the Nanite version, but also the original raw data whitch is even bigger. In the Valley of the Ancient, Epic also said that most of the space is occupied by textures and it is a demo, unoptimized is many ways, just check the video for the explanation. The final released package is 20 GB not 100. Your 1 TB size for a normal game is completely made up.

When I said I wasn’t fully sold on the Lumen feature I meant on the technical side, the outcome is clearly something we all want and yes, it is a revolution, but the way they achieved it, I don’t know, it seems to have a lot of exceptions and limitations and goes in a different direction than the HW manufactures. I’m just a little bit more cautious to belive that this solution is generalized enough to scale into the future. I’m waiting to see what happens when they get a decent HW acceleration support and I wanna see how they handle high quality reflections.

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Because nobody understands what Nanite actually does or why it’s important, here’s a quick summary of it using snippets from the Nanite Documentation:

In most cases Nanite scales extremely well with screen resolution. It does so based on two key techniques: fine-grained level of detail and occlusion culling [which people completely ignore]. Typically this means, regardless of the geometric complexity of the source data in the scene, the number of triangles Nanite attempts to actually draw to the screen is fairly constant and proportional to the number of pixels. Nanite follows the design principle that there is no use in drawing far more triangles than there are pixels.

Put simply, Nanite tries to draw only as much triangles as there are pixels. In addition to that:

Level of Detail (LOD) is automatically handled and no longer requires manual setup for individual mesh’s LODs

and:

Data is streamed in on demand so that only visible detail needs to reside in memory.

Because of that (this is why it’s important):

Frame budgets are no longer constrained by polycounts, draw calls, and mesh memory usage

Put simply, game performance is no longer tied to the complexity of the scene.

It’s important to understand that polycounts don’t apply only to individual models, but also to the whole scene itself, and a scene comprised of only game-ready models can still reach millions of triangles easily.

The presentations for both Nanite & Lumen are avaialble here and go through how each system works in detail.

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If you are a serious developer you will keep your polycount low… if not, all your projects will be too large, Fortnite is already around 50 GB… imagine they same game without proper optimization… I’m not installing a 500 GB game… Never; but lets say my PC can handle files soo large, regular people with a 1TB laptop won’t, how successful is your project going to be?

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