Unreal Engine 4.7 Preview

[DotCam]

I don't know if my opinions matter but....

I think that is a terrible idea.

So even just jumping to a new stable version ( 4.5-> 4.6) there are tons of stuffs that I need to deal with so that I can bring up to speed my workflow.

So now I have to go through the same process 2-5 times ?!?

No. Just no.

Just give me my stable 4.7 when you believe it is ready to give to community.
Then we talk about bugs, issues and whatnots.



Sorry but I felt I had to say this. This is not a good idea.

This is totally optional you don't need to get this at all. It's meant to give Epic additional feedback from users reporting crashes, bugs etc before the full release, but it is entirely optional.

It's no different than the old preview releases were, they are not meant to be used in a production environment, only for those who are willing to "beta test" a new version of the engine before it gets released. It is a really good way of making sure releases are ready for the community as a whole, having been thoroughly tested in different situations & games to weed out any bugs that would require a patch later on.

[Rafa Angeline]

Exactly - I love the previews and it's a big chance to give an even more solid production release - since some devs can do tests before it's ready, so few companies do this like Unreal, this is one of the biggest points of using it - you can see the future, get in touch with devs, this connection between users and devs make it stronger!

And wow! What an amazing improvement in folliage - thank you guys!

I also got a Macbook Pro 2014 with Intel Iris Graphics yesterday, got Unreal on it and I have to say didn't expected use it in Epic settings so smoothly like it did! Fantastic work!

Kind Regards.

[jonimake]

So what exactly happened to the foliage tools? The cluster instance count settings are gone on my end now.

[sswires]

I don't know if my opinions matter but....

I think that is a terrible idea.

So even just jumping to a new stable version ( 4.5-> 4.6) there are tons of stuffs that I need to deal with so that I can bring up to speed my workflow.

So now I have to go through the same process 2-5 times ?!?

No. Just no.

Just give me my stable 4.7 when you believe it is ready to give to community.
Then we talk about bugs, issues and whatnots.



Sorry but I felt I had to say this. This is not a good idea.

You're right, this is not a good idea - it's a great idea. It allows Epic to get early feedback on changes to their engine and allows people who are interested to check out new features. If you don't want to play with cutting edge features or unstable builds, stick with 4.6. No one is forcing you to upgrade.

[Wanderer_eternal]

No UMG improvements I was expecting a feature about binding input nodes directly to UMG buttons and also more mobile improvement. Guess mobile gaming is still not their thing yet.

[Chance Ivey]

I don't know if my opinions matter but....

I think that is a terrible idea.

So even just jumping to a new stable version ( 4.5-> 4.6) there are tons of stuffs that I need to deal with so that I can bring up to speed my workflow.

So now I have to go through the same process 2-5 times ?!?

No. Just no.

Just give me my stable 4.7 when you believe it is ready to give to community.
Then we talk about bugs, issues and whatnots.



Sorry but I felt I had to say this. This is not a good idea.

Hey TAN_, the preview releases are not meant to be full releases or ready for prime time. Read more about the new process via our blog

[DotCam]

No UMG improvements I was expecting a feature about binding input nodes directly to UMG buttons and also more mobile improvement. Guess mobile gaming is still not their thing yet.

This is only the first of multiple preview releases, each preview will have more features added. It is likely the work being done has not progressed far enough to be included yet, but UMG is a high priority feature so I would not be surprised to see additional updates by the time 4.7 is actually released.

[Sitrec]

Christmas came unusually early this year! Great to be able to test stuff earlier.

[KVogler]

And Im already toying around for days with the 4.8 from the master branch

[gotgrassct]

Great new features! But i would LOVE you guys IF you was to put simple dynamic lighting to spotlights in mobile. Unity does it, so why can't u guys give us the option to switch to dynamic lighting for spotlights on mobile? i know you guys are working on it, i just want it to come sooner lol just for spotlights atleast. That would help me ALOT!

[Wanderer_eternal]

This is only the first of multiple preview releases, each preview will have more features added. It is likely the work being done has not progressed far enough to be included yet, but UMG is a high priority feature so I would not be surprised to see additional updates by the time 4.7 is actually released.

I hope then

[DanDaDaDanDan]

TAN_, your opinion matters :-)

The main motivation behind switching our process is making our main releases more stable. We want 4.7 to be as stable as say 4.6.1 or 4.6.2 (if we have one). As someone who values stability you will hopefully have a better experience with the 4.x.0 releases going forward.

Our plan is to have weekly updates of the in-flight build for early adopters. We won't drive the development team towards a release date per se, but rather work with the community on making sure crashes and regressions are fixed before the first official release. So we wouldn't release 4.7 before the known blockers in 4.7.preview.x are fixed.

This is not for everyone, but looking at our stats a significant enough percentage of people value the previews that having them more often allows us to work with people directly to improve the quality. In my ideal world we'd publish nightlies like Chrome and Firefox, but we aren't there yet from a release quality point of view and this process should be a good starting point / balance for people that would like early access and want to work with us on improving the product and participating in the development.

In short, for folks like yourself I would suggest holding out for the official release and hopefully you will see an increase in quality and stability due to our collaboration with community members that like to live on the bleeding edge.

I don't know if my opinions matter but....

I think that is a terrible idea.

So even just jumping to a new stable version ( 4.5-> 4.6) there are tons of stuffs that I need to deal with so that I can bring up to speed my workflow.

So now I have to go through the same process 2-5 times ?!?

No. Just no.

Just give me my stable 4.7 when you believe it is ready to give to community.
Then we talk about bugs, issues and whatnots.



Sorry but I felt I had to say this. This is not a good idea.

[fighter5347]

This runs ~2fps in 4.6 and ~35fps in 4.7 (HD6970 2GB).

Awesome! Finally some foliage improvements

[Demolition Man]

I would love to see blueprint components where you could adjust the component's rotation by a single degree instead of the current minimum of 5 degrees.

[Dark-Veil]

Just to give you guys an early heads up, we are planning to no longer officially support the Visual Studio 2012 compiler in Unreal Engine 4.7. So if you're using the 2012 version for some reason, please plan on switching over to Visual Studio 2013. Remember, you can use the free community version if you want to.

Also, early next year we'll be working on adding support for Visual Studio 2015 (which is currently in Preview testing.)

Even though we aren't officially supporting or testing Visual Studio 2012 on Windows anymore, you should still be able to get the engine and editor compiling on that platform fairly easily in 4.7 if you need to, but in versions beyond that it may become more difficult. We'll of course continue to support the 2012 compiler on Xbox One platform which requires that version of the compiler.

--Mike