To say that Woo Studios has been waiting patiently for the drop of Unreal Engine 5 would be an outright lie. We've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off, with itchy mouse fingers ready to dive in to what could conceivably change everything we do for the better. We have not been disappointed. A fresh clean UI, Lumen, Nanite, Chaos, and Quixel, integration alone makes this a major upgrade that cuts our workflow in half with much higher quality output and lower overhead.
" UE5 represents a generational leap in both workflows and visual fidelity, extending the engine’s support for DirectX Raytracing, NVIDIA DLSS, and NVIDIA Reflex, and adding new features such as Nanite and Lumen that make it faster and easier for games to implement photorealistic visuals, large open worlds and advanced animation and physics." - NVIDIA
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/unreal-engine-5-early-access-available-now-with-directx-raytracing-nvidia-dlss-and-nvidia-reflex-support/
Here's our first half hour of test driving:
We have used Quixel for a while now, but having so many high quality materials and meshes right at your fingertips and integrated in such an intuitive way makes for quick work of new worlds. Did I mention LODs get taken care of automagically? Of course it's still on the dev to get it right, but what a marked improvement.
We think the new UI looks, feels, and works great. The volumetric decals add an amazing sense of depth to the puddles now and everything just looks sharper to me.