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Although Unreal Engine 4.27 may be tempting to view as a temporary upgrade until the revolutionary Unreal Engine 5, it is actually a significant update in and of itself. Over 40,000 words are contained in just the web release notes.
Instead of focusing on modifications for programmers, he chose 10 changes that are particularly important for artists. These changes range from well-known ones, like the new in-camera VFX tools, to lesser-known ones, including multi-GPU lightmap baking and the new camera calibration plugin. Let’s solve it together!
Unreal Engine 4.27 Support for OpenColorIO in LED volumes
The nDisplay technology, which projects CG worlds being produced in real-time in Unreal Engine onto an LED wall or dome so actors can be filmed against it, has undergone a number of improvements as a result.
Support for OpenColorIO (OCIO), the color-management standard outlined by the VFX Reference Platform and referred to regarded as a “gateway” to ACES color-managed pipelines for movie work, is one of the most significant enhancements.
The process of developing new nDisplay setups has also been streamlined thanks to the integration of a new 3D Config Editor and the consolidation of all crucial settings into a single nDisplay Root Actor.
When using a multi-GPU setup, one of the features added in beta gives users the choice to dedicate a GPU to the inner frustum of the display, allowing for the display of more complicated content there.
Additionally, experimental support for using nDisplay on Linux has been enabled, while some crucial capabilities, most notably hardware-accelerated ray tracing, are still not supported.
>>>Read more: Unreal Engine Sequencer – A real time editor for virtual 3D production
Level Snapshots for VFX work and design reviews in-camera (Beta)
The update also includes a brand-new Level Snapshot system that enables level configurations to be saved and restored without requiring source control or a project to undergo a permanent change.
The system enables in-camera VFX work by enabling per-shot or per-sequence adjustments to a CG world being rendered in Unreal Engine. It can, however, also be applied more broadly to develop alternative concepts for a project for creative reviews.
>>>Read more: Using Unreal Engine for strand-based Hair system – Fur and Feather
Unreal Engine 4.27 Attach hair grooms to Alembic caches
In Unreal Engine, artists that work with hair or fur can now attach hair grooms to Alembic caches. With the modification, it is no longer necessary to follow the “awkward workflow” of binding a groom to a Skeletal Mesh in order to link grooms to geometry caches imported from other DCC applications.
In addition, it is now possible to import grooms that have already undergone simulation and have per-frame hair data cached and play back the simulation in the editor, Sequencer, and Movie Render Queue.
>>>Read more: Real time Virtual Production using Unreal Engine
Lightmap baking across multiple GPUs with LOD support (Beta)
Updated in Unreal Engine 4.26, GPU Lightmass is a new framework for baking lightmaps on the GPU that now supports Level of Detail (LOD) models, colored translucent shadows, and additional lighting factors like attenuation and non-inverse-square falloff.
As of right present, Windows 10 and Nvidia GPUs connected through SLI or NVLink bridges are the only operating systems that support using multiple GPUs for baking lighting.
Batch renders custom image sequences from Sequencer
The cinematics editor for Unreal Engine, Sequencer, also gains a number of new features, the most significant of which is likely the Command Line Encoder for its Movie Render Queue. In addition to the predefined BMP, EXR, JPEG, and PNG formats, the encoder enables the bulk rendering of image sequences in custom formats using third-party software like FFmpeg.
A new Gameplay Cue track has also been added, allowing gameplay events to be directly triggered from Sequencer. The Sequencer timeline is now frame-accurately synchronized with in-game movie playback using Media Framework.
New debugging tools for Niagara particle effects
New tools for troubleshooting particle systems are added to Niagara, the in-game VFX framework for Unreal Engine, including a separate Debugger panel and HUD display. You can trace the paths of individual particles inside a system using the new Debug Drawing mode.
The Curve Editor in Niagara has also been upgraded to be consistent with the one in Sequencer, offering “more advanced editing tools to change keys and retiming” for particle systems.
Offline-quality rendering in the Path Tracer (Beta)
Version 4.27 of Unreal Engine includes a major improvement to Path Tracer, its physically realistic rendering option. The majority of light characteristics, including IES profiles, refraction, the transmission of light through glass surfaces, including approximate caustics, and orthographic cameras are now supported.
Additionally, rendering scenes with an “almost limitless” number of lights is now possible with the Path Tracer. In particular for architectural and product visualization, Epic Games claims that Path Tracer is now a competitive option for the faster hybrid Real-Time Ray Tracing mode.
Path Tracer now produces “final-pixel images equal to offline renders,” according to Epic.
New live compositing camera calibration tool (Beta)
Người dùng của hệ thống tổng hợp thời gian thực Composure cho Unreal Engine 4 hiện có quyền truy cập vào plugin Hiệu chỉnh Máy ảnh mới để khớp các đặc điểm ống kính của máy ảnh vật lý tạo ra video với máy ảnh ảo trong UE4.
Plugin này cũng có thể được sử dụng để làm biến dạng ống kính trong thế giới thực Unreal Engine CineCamera.
Unreal Engine 4.27 Export levels and animation sequences to USD
Pixar’s increasingly popular Universal Scene Description system for transferring production data between DCC tools has gained more support.
The ability to export an entire Unreal Engine level as a single USD file with any sublevels or assets automatically produced as separate USD files referenced by that primary file is one of the most significant additions. It is possible to bake down and export textured materials with the level.
Additionally, exporting animation sequences to “many USD file formats” is now possible. All bone and blendshape tracks, as well as the animation’s preview mesh and actual animation, are included in the export.
Additionally, the implementation now supports Nvidia’s MDL material schema, which the company prefers to MaterialX in Omniverse, its UE4-compatible, USD-based online collaboration platform.
Unreal Engine 4.27 Control virtual cameras from iOS devices with the new Live Link VCAM app
Unreal Engine 4.27 adds a variety of new controls for virtual cameras that are meant for scouting out spots on virtual sets and for creating camera movements. New iOS software called Live Link VCAM for managing virtual cameras from an iPad is among them.
It is said to as providing a “better-personalized user experience” than the pre-existing Unreal Remote app. Updates to the Remote Control Presets system, a new Remote Control C++ API, and a new drag-and-drop mechanism for creating interfaces for controlling UE4 projects from a tablet or laptop are all related enhancements.
Conclusion
Available for 64-bit Windows, macOS, and Linux is Unreal Engine 4.27. Both using the editor and rendering static material are free. Beyond the first $1 million in gross lifetime profits for a game, Epic retains 5% of that income for game producers.
It also includes significant new features for product and architectural visualization, design assessments, real-time visuals, virtual and augmented reality, face motion capture, etc.
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