Meerkat Demo Comparison UE4 vs UE5.1 [LIGHTING STUDY]

Hi, in this light study i have relighted the Meerkat demo done by epic games to see how i can reach a realistic rendering by using Lumen, TSR and Virtual Shadow maps.
Here you can find the video without in full screen

My contacts

Hope you like it!

[th-redattack]

Over exposed in ue5 is more realistic but you need to fix the contrast and lights

[QuotidianStupidity]

The colour and saturation in 4 is much more pleasing on the eye. Weird to not have corrected this for a comparison.

[wagon]

I found myself forgetting about comparing them to one another, but just watched unreal engine 4. Much more pleasing to the eye.

[BobHOofficial]

Love the left one. Better color and subsurface scattering

[danrocker]

0:41 I miss the eagle's shadow.
Changing the light direction makes it a different video.

[AuroraGameworks]

I would love to see this again with the exposure on the UE5 version turned down a bit. Great work!

[heikization]

Besides some detail lost with the brightness here and there, the 5 looks much more realistic, it's great.

[AnuragJhaCreations]

Unreal Engine 5.1 looks like a raw footage that we shoot while filming a movie.
Ofcourse there’s a lot of color grading/CC and effects added to a movie before the release print is ready. So even if UE5.1 is achieving that Raw footage look that is excellent progress cause if you have that raw footage you can grade it to the cinema level easily

[davideghirelli]

congrats, you managed to make the ue4 looks better XD

[snailone]

1:20 Is what you are looking for. I agree with the other commenters that the UE5.1 version is a bit too much overexposed, but keep that aside. At 1:20 you can see how the light works differently. Could you get that result in UE4 - without spending days in finetuning and going back and forth between your scene and real life pictures shot in a similar environment - I don't think so. It looks great and artistically adjusted in UE4. It looks like a sunset scene while the shadows are showing more noon time. If you want to go for that look, you will forever be happy with UE4 and also UE5.1, because the tools are all still the same. But If you want to get a realistic looking result by "only" dropping Ultra Dynamic Skies into your scene, you can currently only get that with UE5 and up. Not saying the UE5.1 version happend in one click, but probably significantly less man hours were spend compared to the UE4 version which was created by a whole team.

[eros]

!! IMPORTANT !!
Hi everyone, just want to describe that the video is meant to represent my lighting study and not a visual comparison between the 2 engines or versions of the video.
It's ok for you to say which one for your eyes is better or not, but make sure to get that is only me showing you the test i did by using unreal to create a "different" type of lighting.

Just to make sure the people are aware on the tech side, the original version was rendered using ue4 with Ray tracing light ( both reflection and GI ), brute force antialiasing and displacement. The tender of the original was taking more than 1 hour. My version was rendered in 5 min ( not better but a different approach) . So it means that is more accurate than lumen UE5 :).

Hopefully it will be clear and thanks for the feed everyone :)

P.S. I'm planning to do a technical behind the scenes to show up more how I've worked using ue5 in this scene

[vrai_]

too bright, maybe local exposure will help

[PerfectHandProductions]

That lighting is much more accurate in the new engine. Great comparison.

[kharpa]

Am I the only one who likes the left version more?

UE5 looks more realistic, yes. But light makes it so fade and monotonous. UE4 version has more contrast and colors (red rocks, opposite light blue shadows) and it's more pleasant to watch

[billyfraiser]

It's always so interesting watching comparison I saw a lot in UE4 that looked better than UE5. I'm NOT saying OVERALL UE4 looked better.... just that there was a lot that looked better.

[conasca]

Visually. UE4 was more appealing to my eyes. Technically, UE5 was more impressive. I’d pick the UE4 version.

[voc]

Unreal 5.1 version is more life like, but the video is too washed out, lower the lux, and also monitor calibration may help. I like the color and contrast on UE4 better. The fur on the meerkat is way better on UE 5.1. Good job of remaking in it.

[NikoxNobu]

The only thing holding it back at this point is que quality of the animation. The fact that i can pause the video at any time and it looks like an actual photograph is mindblowing

[SpottedHares]

Honestly the more relativistic 5 looks worse then 4. Sometimes realism is not the desired effect.

[OpenGameDev]

great now they can even simulate the cataract in older people