Unreal Engine 4.26 Preview

[UElaci]

The issue with projects that use GPU Lightmass crashing has been resolved already in the source. I built 4.26 from Github, three days ago, and GPU Lightmass works again.

That's great news. I need to learn this magic too(how to build from GitHub) but I'm working on experimental projects with preview builds so it's ok.

[porpho]

Hello Epic developers.

I just wanted to let you know how much we all appreciate you giving us access to the preview of Unreal 4.26 and how much we look forward to using it in our projects.

We understand that giving access to Beta software to a large group of users is a very tricky situation for any software and it's particularly delicate for something as complex as Unreal and we are very, very grateful that we can look at the new features and familiarize with them beforehand.

We understand that Beta/preview software is not to be used in production and that it can corrupt existing projects. That is the norm with every beta software and we will use these previews only on copies of projects that can be lost without affecting our schedule and work.

These are exciting times for visual creatives around the world. I'm still in disbelief that we have free access to something like Unreal. I really feel that this is the golden age for visual artists.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making Unreal and for letting us play with it.

--
Paolo Ciccone
Charleston, SC

[Chosker]

Hello! Can't find the Fracture mode in Preview 7, all plugins are turned on. What should I do?

4.26 (binary launcher version) is now back at using PhysX while Chaos has been delayed until early next year. Therefore the Fracture mode is gone for now

[theProfessor]

Check this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSx9URWHCb0 Used 4.26 p5. Does it look like it has been cached?

[decksounds13]

Hello Epic developers.

I just wanted to let you know how much we all appreciate you giving us access to the preview of Unreal 4.26 and how much we look forward to using it in our projects.

We understand that giving access to Beta software to a large group of users is a very tricky situation for any software and it's particularly delicate for something as complex as Unreal and we are very, very grateful that we can look at the new features and familiarize with them beforehand.

We understand that Beta/preview software is not to be used in production and that it can corrupt existing projects. That is the norm with every beta software and we will use these previews only on copies of projects that can be lost without affecting our schedule and work.

These are exciting times for visual creatives around the world. I'm still in disbelief that we have free access to something like Unreal. I really feel that this is the golden age for visual artists.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making Unreal and for letting us play with it.

--
Paolo Ciccone
Charleston, SC

I concur, it's probably one of the most incredibly complex softwares out there. It's a privilege to use.

[BernhardRieder]

Same here:
INSTANT CRASHINGS... can't even launch an empty new project from scratch with PREVIEW 7.
Un-installed, re-installed, verified. Nothing that would change the crashes.
Some bad code must have been integrated into PREVIEW 7.

Thanks for all your hard work on updating and fixing!
appreciate it and keep rocking!
cheers

[decksounds13]

The variant manager doesn't seem to be opening in preview 7.

[NilsonLima]

Just a reminder to all which are testing the preview 7 and are having crashes, there are things to consider when reporting bugs which is state GPU driver version and OS version when Windows, because it will impact how UE4 will behavior and usually the latest engine is tested with latest release of all the related tech including kits for Android, iOS, VR and AR, so mentioned those software stack versions also help identifying bugs or having the environment to replicate them.

[decksounds13]

This is weird... raytraced shadows seems to disappear on some painted foliage actors when the camera gets close but not on all. Here is an example, the same model viewed from different distances. Notice the instance on the far-right retains it's shadow up close while the others' shadows disappear. Very strange... I should note, there are no LOD's on this model either. Raytraced two-sided shadows are on. Painting more foliage seems to change which instances have shadows and which don't.

EDIT: NM, this cvar took care of it :r.RayTracing.Geometry.InstancedStaticMeshes.Culling

[TFA aaronfhd]

Geting TCP_wrapper Error on Linux builds.

Hoping to see more linux support

[BernhardRieder]

Is it not possible to release your updates automatically with the Epic Game Launcher instead of GitHub Downloads?
Would make it much easier. Especially if it's just in PREVIEW Mode.

And, it would be also great, if in the Epic Launcher you would have the options to roll-back to older Preview Versions.

[Aviate7]

Does anyone else get issues with using the material only custom brush and lakes?. When trying to edit the lake all I get is either the noise overtaking my flattening/edit layer or the lake overflowing as if the noise was still there. My storage is also draining from 11gb to a few MB before UE4 crashes completely.

[Aviate7]

[DevsWeirdThings]

I continued attempting to find a way around the lack of Emissive and Opacity Mask support for Hair strand rendering but no dice.

Even with an extremely simple material, hair strand rendering completely ignores Emissive and Opacity mask inputs as shown in the below image.

Since these are two extremely commonly used material inputs in many different use cases, I have to assume this is a bug and I submitted a report for it. If any of you wonderful wizards around here or an engine developer can give some insight on if there is a work around or if this will be fixed, I'd be extremely grateful. Without hair strands supporting these two material inputs, I wont be able to use them in my current project so I would like to know what's up with their omission.

I figure since Hair strands are intended to be production ready in this version, that this is the best time to bring this limitation/bug up to the engine team.

[mfletcher89]

Cannot use GPU Lightmass plugin with Preview 7. Crashes on launch. Is there no way to revert to preview 6? I really needed to experiment with this.
Also, the Github tree for UE4 seems.... gone?
https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealE...26.0-preview-6

This link doesn't work for me at all.