UK Marketing What's New on Unreal Engine 5.4?

The much-anticipated Unreal Engine 5.4 update has arrived, packed with cutting-edge tools and significant improvements that are set to revolutionize game development.

Unreal Engine 5.4 update offers a broad array of enhancements, from animation and character setup to rendering performance and virtual production.

Animation and Character Tools

1. Modular Control Rig (Experimental)

Unreal Engine 5.4 introduces the Modular Control Rig, an experimental feature that revolutionizes rigging by allowing animators to build and animate rigs on any skeleton instantly. This system simplifies the creation of animation rigs through:

• Modular Rig Asset and Editor: Streamlines the rigging process with a user-friendly interface.

• Visual Schematic: Offers real-time feedback in the viewport for efficient adjustments.

• Library of Modules: Provides pre-built modules to quickly assemble complex rigs.

• Authoring Flexibility: Easily convert control rigs into modules, create interconnections with connectors and sockets, and automate connections with the new Connector Event.

• Enhanced Rig Logic: Utilize Pre/Post Forwards Solve events and metadata nodes for advanced rig customization and control.

(Modular Control Rig, Credit: Epic Games)

2. Automatic Animation Retargeting

Automatic Animation Retargeting for bipedal characters in Unreal Engine 5.4 is designed to streamline the animation process, making it more accessible and consistent for developers.

This workflow enhancement focuses on common bipedal skeletons, offering significant improvements:

• One-Click Automation: Retarget Chain Creation and Full Body IK setup are now automated, reducing complex setup to a single click.

• Pose Alignment Tools: The Retargeter includes new tools that ensure better pose matching between source and target skeletons during the retargeting process.

• Unified Retargeting Dialog: A simplified dialog combines the automation processes, allowing for quick batch retargeting or generation of automated assets for further refinement.

With these advancements, animators can expect a more intuitive and less time-consuming retargeting experience, enabling them to focus on the creative aspects of character animation.


(Automatic Animation Retargeting for Bipedal Characters, Credit: Epic Games)

3. Skeletal Editor (Beta)

The Skeletal Editor, now in beta, has undergone significant enhancements to boost performance and broaden its functionality, making it a more powerful tool for animators and riggers:

• Component Editing: Simplifies the modification of bones and weights.

• Component Editor Tools: Introduces snapping, advanced selection, and PolyGroup painting with a Quad mesh display.

• Animation Insights: Facilitates in-context bone and weight adjustments during animation.

• Characterization Tools: Provides improved defaults for quicker rig setup.

• Bone Operations: Offers easy copy, paste, and duplication of bones.
  
  

(Skeletal Editor, Credit: Epic Games)

4. Deformer Graph Libraries (Beta)

The beta release of Deformer Graph Libraries in Unreal Engine 5.4 allows for a more streamlined and modular approach to character deformation.

Animators can now encapsulate complex deformer graphs into functions, enabling them to create custom deformation schemes by mixing and matching pre-built deformers, such as Linear Blend Skinning, Dual Quaternion Skinning, and morphological modifiers like Bend, Twist, and Squash & Stretch.

This functionality simplifies the deformer graph, providing the ability to loop over nodes, collapse graphs into functions, and leverage a comprehensive Deformer Function Library for efficient rig customization.


(Deformer Graph Libraries, Credit: Epic Games)

5. Animation Authoring & Gizmos

Revolutionizing the rigging and animation workflow, Unreal Engine's latest update delivers a suite of enhancements designed to streamline the animation process.

> New Gizmos for Enhanced Posing

Redesigned gizmos offer improved direct manipulation, an upgraded arcball, and a new Parent Space option in the Viewport for more intuitive character posing.


(New Gizmos, Credit: Epic Games)

> Sequencer Upgrades for Advanced Control

The Sequencer now features Layered Control Rigs, enhancing both the control and readability of complex animation sequences.

> Constraints 2.0 for Seamless Workflows

A reimagined constraint system integrates seamlessly with level sequence workflows and features an enhanced evaluation engine to prevent cyclic dependencies.

> Familiar Channel Box Experience

The Anim Details 2.0 channel box overhaul provides an interface in line with popular DCC tools, making it more accessible for artists transitioning to Unreal Engine.

Rendering and Performance Breakthroughs

1. Nanite

> Nanite: Tessellation (Experimental)

Nanite introduces dynamic programmable displacement, allowing real-time modifications of meshes using a displacement map or procedural material.

Unlike World Position Offset that affects only original mesh vertices, this feature tessellates the mesh at runtime to create extra triangles as needed for the detail in the displacement map.

Key advantages include:

• Using simpler source meshes in the production pipeline.
• Material-driven and animated displacements.
• Crafting detailed Nanite terrains.

(Nanite - Tessellation, Credit: Epic Games)

> Nanite: Optimized Shading

The Nanite Compute-Based Shading project aims to transition from traditional raster shading to compute shaders for optimization and new features. The ultimate goal is to completely replace pixel shader paths to boost CPU and GPU performance and streamline code maintenance.


(Nanite - Optimized Shading, Credit: Epic Games)

> Nanite: Spline Mesh

Support for experimental Nanite spline meshes was introduced in UE 5.3, enabling static meshes to deform along splines, like roads on terrain.

Future work focuses on enhancing performance, memory efficiency, preventing visual cracks, and improving level streaming and transform caching.

Further reading is available at Nanite Virtualized Geometry.

2. Temporal Super Resolution Updates

Nanite now includes Tessellation and software variable rate shading, offering significant performance improvements. Temporal Super Resolution is enhanced for stability and predictability across platforms.

3. Movie Render Graph and Unreal Cloud DDC

The new Movie Render Graph enables node-based setup of Render Layers, and Unreal Cloud DDC introduces a self-hosted cloud storage system for efficient data sharing.

Virtual Production and VR Scouting

1. Virtual Camera and VR Scouting Tools

Virtual Camera support extends to Android and macOS, and a new customizable VR Scouting toolkit supports OpenXR HMDs. Depth of Field Compensation for nDisplay enhances the realism of LED wall shots.

Editor and Workflow Optimizations

1. Improved Editor Load Times and PIE Workflows

A new server architecture for the local Derived Data Cache boosts editor performance and streamlines Play-In-Editor (PIE) workflows.

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With Unreal Engine 5.4, the future of game development looks brighter than ever. The suite of new and improved tools is a testament to the engine's commitment to innovation and user-friendly design.

The Modular Control Rig and Automatic Retargeting simplify character animation, while rendering enhancements like Nanite's Tessellation feature and Temporal Super Resolution's stability improvements ensure that developers can create visually stunning games more efficiently.

The update's focus on virtual production and VR scouting tools also underscores the industry's shift towards more immersive and interactive design processes. Overall, Unreal Engine 5.4 is set to empower developers to push the boundaries of creativity and technical excellence.