Unreal Engine 5 Early Access Now Available

Posted by jvh | Jun 21, 2021 | Developing, Developing, Industry Insights, XR Trends | 0

Unreal Engine 5 Early Access Now Available

Epic Games recently released an early access preview to Unreal Engine 5. It touts new graphical features such as its Nanite mesh system allowing developers to import high poly production models without worrying about performance. Another new feature is Lumen, allowing for a more dynamic and realistic lighting approach.

Updated templates for developers to use as a starting off point for building their creations were also released. One of the templates included in this preview was an updated VR configuration. It includes all the basic systems for VR such as locomotion in the virtual environment, object interaction with models, and support for the latest OpenXR specification. This allows compatibility with various HMD ecosystems and a more plug and play experience.

While some of the features such as the Nanite mesh system are not available yet in VR during this early access preview, they should be fully working soon. Epic Games said they plan to fully release the entire featureset of the engine early next year but those interested in testing out the new engine can do so now.

Access to these toolsets is useful for businesses looking to get into XR experiences. It lowers the barrier of entry and allows businesses to connect with and deliver to consumers in a novel way. As XR-capable equipment is more widely available, now is a good time to jump right in.

About The Author

jvh

Joseph Van Harken -- is an award-winning journalist, producer and showrunner who operates and innovates on the edge of the supply and demand of storytelling. From war zones to war rooms, Joseph is adept at creating, sharing and consuming stories of consequence across television, digital media, and eLearning publishing platforms. He started his career as a print reporter and photojournalist for The Mackinac Island Town Crier, a small weekly rag in a timeless Michigan tourist town. His affinity for moving pictures soon pulled him toward television and he moved to work at the ABC affiliate in El Paso, TX where he developed an online backend CMS and partnered with Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com to establish KVIA as one of the first news stations porting news content to the web. Joseph then moved to New York City during the Dot Com boom where he was a founding member of World Now, a local TV internet platform. From there he joined CNN.com and CNN as a one-man-band, multimedia political beat reporter. Joseph then broke off and became an independent, international multimedia reporter and producer and covering stories all over the globe from Afghanistan, Indonesia, India, Costa Rica, Okinawa, New Orleans and New York creating television and web content for National Geographic, Travel Channel, MTV News, History, A&E, SyFy, Animal Planet, Discovery Health, and Vogue Magazine. During a multi-year stint with MTV, he shot/produced for TRUE LIFE, DIARY, MADE, DP’d the pilot for 8th & OCEAN, developed, Co-EP'd and DP’d THE PAPER, created, developed, EP'd and DP’d MY LIFE AS LIZ season 1 & 2 and recently Co-EP’d the History Channel series DARK HORSE NATION produced by Warrior Poets. Realizing that storytelling is essentially a form of teaching, he launched th3rd coast Entertainment & Training to satiate the eLearning industry's dire need for quality, engaging content. Joseph holds a BA in Communications from the University of Michigan and an MS from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he was named the Society of Professional Journalists Student of the Year and won the John M Patterson Documentary Television award.

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