What are the Biggest New Features?
MegaLights:
Light up your scenes with an advanced lighting system supporting over 1,000 dynamic light sources. This technology introduces real-time shadow casting and volumetric fog, simplifying lighting setups in complex environments.
Unlike Lumen, which focuses on global illumination for higher-quality visuals, MegaLights is optimized for performance. It can handle numerous light sources even on lower-end PCs, making it ideal for resource-constrained settings.
Animation Blueprints:
Animation Blueprints in Unreal Engine offer a versatile visual scripting system for controlling animations. With this feature, developers can manage animation blending, script interactive behaviors, and create procedural animations with ease.
New Skeletal System:
Experience enhanced character modeling and animation with an upgraded skeletal system. This system brings improvements to the Skeletal Editor, making it production-ready for creating and controlling advanced animations.
Deformers and Control Rig:
Take full control of real-time animations with the integration of Deformers and Control Rigs in Sequencer. Features like TimeWarp curves and Animation Layers allow for non-destructive editing of existing animations, providing even more flexibility.
Nite Skeletal:
Nanite technology now extends to skeletal meshes, allowing for rapid rendering of up to 100 characters in crowd scenes. It supports linear blend skinning, dynamic displacement, and high-quality translucency, ensuring detailed character animations even with large groups.
With these updates, Unreal Engine 5.5 gives both developers and architects the power to create worlds and environments that feel more real, whether it’s a bustling city in a game or a modern architectural design.
