Why Unreal Engine 5.1 is a Huge Deal

Unreal Engine 5.1 launched and it finally brings the power of nanite to foliage.

Want to learn Unreal Engine 5 - checkout the UE5 Starter Course:

Unreal Masterclass:

Chapters
00:00 - Intro
00:13 - Nanite Explained
1:18 - Nanite Foliage!
3:15 - Large Forest
3:38 - Leaf Scattering
4:17 - Glass and Water Reflections
6:15 - Lumen Improvements
7:05 - Path Tracing
7:25 -Gpu lightmass
7:41 -Large Worlds
8:15 - Layer Bars

[zacharyhockett]

It's a testament to the skill of the engineers who built this that it's as simple as "check this box and everything looks way better"

[CotSwossel]

Not seeing that classic lod pop in when zooming away from trees was surreal. This looks like a fantastic step ahead in technology!

[TannerCh]

It's just insane how detailed this is. In fact, some would say it's...unreal.

[alexanderbanman]

This is incredible, these renders are starting to look indistinguishable from reality.

[Returnality]

The fact that this performs even better than LOD is seriously impressive given how much better it looks.

[richard-davies]

For a 0.1 update these changes are insane, nanite trees alone is a massive improvement. Really can't wait to see all these features being used in games.

[SpinDlsc]

My hope is that other devs are actually taking note of these features and figuring out how they can recreate them, or something similar, in their own game engines. Unreal Engine is amazing enough that many companies are switching to it rather than developing their own engines in-house, which is understandable. But the last thing we should want is for Unreal to start monopolizing that space. After all, you never know how their business model will change in years to come.

[Chitus]

I've been in web development for a few years now. Unreal Engine has inspired me to get into game development, this stuff is amazing.

[VerityFraser]

That bit where you can now see entire rooms reflected in glass is astonishing.

[cptairwolf]

This game engine is so far ahead of the competition that it's absolutely insane.

[jamesgoodman]

Just knowing about the new translucency setting and nanite on foliage has transformed a recent project…great knowledge!

[Zlittlepenguin]

Dang… these renders are getting closer and closer to just being a mirror image to the real world. The foliage looks 10x better and the reflection on the glass is so unbelievable.

[well.]

When this guy created a YouTube account, Youtube accepted his terms and conditions.

[nitroxylictv]

Its almost terrifying how realistic 5.1 renders can look. 10 years ago you could obviously tell the difference between a CGI render and an actual video capture, but now you can render photo realistic scenes in amazing detail. I cant wait to see the future of this and VR tech. I think it would be amazing to walk around a photo realistic CGI world in Unreal 5.1.

[MrReedmonkey]

I still remember playing the original game unreal and being blown away by reflective floor textures. This shit is beautiful and frightening, challenging my reality. Great vid

[lucikruxapache]

This is fascinating. Thank you for this video, even though I'm not super too deep into game development(I more just play support for a very small, obscure indie project, and it's just level design), it inspires me to go deeper into it eventually.

[sea_space]

Imagine showing this to someone 20 years ago. Incredible technology, absolutely mind-blowing levels of depth.

[ahmadtarek]

The fact that this somehow also makes performance better is blowing my mind.

[BrickCube]

Such a high-quality tutorial for free. Really appreciate it, man!

[thehighguarduk]

Fantastic informative video as always, thanks very much.