Feature Summaries and Explanations

• Nanite:

  
  

  A virtualized micropolygon geometry system that enables artists to create cinematic-quality scenes with massive amounts of geometric detail.

• Lumen:

  A fully dynamic global illumination solution that reacts to scene and light changes, enabling realistic and high-quality lighting effects.

  
  

• Orthographic Rendering (Experimental):

  A rendering mode that allows the camera to project parallel rays, creating a 2D effect with no perspective distortion.

  
  

• Sparse Volume Textures (Experimental):

  A texture format that supports very large textures with sparse data, allowing for efficient memory usage and streaming.

  
  

• Path Tracer:

  A ray tracing mode that simulates the physical behavior of light, producing photorealistic images with accurate reflections, refractions, and shadows.

  
  

• Substrate (Experimental):

  A system that enables the creation and manipulation of complex material networks using a node-based interface.

  
  

• Virtual Shadow Maps:

  A shadow mapping technique that uses a virtualized texture cache to store and reuse shadow information, improving performance and quality.

  
  

• Hair Temporal Super Resolution (TSR):

  A rendering technique that uses temporal information to increase the resolution of hair strands, reducing aliasing and flickering artifacts.

  
  

• Render Resource Viewer:

  A tool that allows users to inspect and debug various rendering resources, such as textures, buffers, shaders, and pipelines.

  
  

• Lighting:

  A system that provides various options for lighting scenes, such as static, dynamic, baked, or ray traced lighting.

  
  

• World Building:

  A system that enables users to create large and detailed worlds using tools such as World Partition, Landscape, Procedural Content Generation, and Level Streaming.

  
  

• Level Instance Actor Filters:

  A feature that allows users to filter out level instances based on various criteria, such as name, tag, or layer.

  
  

• Level Streaming Persistence (Experimental):

  A feature that allows users to save and load the state of level streaming volumes across sessions, preserving the visibility of streamed levels.

  
  

• Nanite Landscape:

  A feature that allows users to use Nanite on landscape actors, enabling high-fidelity terrain rendering with minimal performance impact.

  
  

• Large Landscape Import/Export:

  A feature that allows users to import and export large landscapes from external sources, such as heightmaps or GIS data.

  
  

• Landscape Physical Materials Display:

  A feature that allows users to visualize the physical materials assigned to landscape layers, such as grass, dirt, or snow.

  
  

• Landscape LOD Groups:

  A feature that allows users to group landscape components into different levels of detail (LOD), improving performance and memory usage.

  
  

• Procedural Content Generation (PCG):

  A system that enables users to create content procedurally using rules and algorithms, such as fractals, noise, or cellular automata.

  
  

• Hierarchical Generation Rule Processing from External Data:

  A feature that allows users to use external data sources, such as CSV files or databases, to drive the generation of procedural content.

  
  

• Subgraph Inspection:

  A feature that allows users to inspect and edit the subgraphs of procedural content generation nodes, such as noise or pattern nodes.

  
  

• Graph Instances Parameters

  A feature that allows users to create multiple instances of a procedural content generation graph with different parameter values, such as seed or scale.

  
  

• Custom PCG Elements:

  A feature that allows users to create custom procedural content generation elements using C++ or Blueprint code. Some additional summaries are:

• Developer Iteration:

  A system that provides various tools and features to improve the development workflow and productivity, such as hot reload, live coding, multi-process cook, and virtual assets.

  
  

• Multi-Process Cook (Beta):

  A feature that allows users to cook assets in multiple processes simultaneously, reducing the cooking time and improving performance.

  
  

• Virtual Assets:

  A feature that allows users to create assets at runtime without saving them to disk, enabling dynamic and procedural asset creation.

  
  

• C++20 Default Version:

  A feature that sets C++20 as the default standard version for Unreal Engine projects, allowing users to use the latest C++ features and libraries.

  
  

• Platform XR:

  A system that provides a unified interface for developing immersive experiences across various platforms and devices, such as VR, AR, or MR.

  
  

• Mobile Renderer Support for Nanite on Apple M2 Devices (Beta):

  A feature that allows users to use Nanite on mobile devices that support the Apple M2 chip, such as the iPhone 13 or the iPad Pro.

  
  

• iOS Workflows:

  A system that provides various tools and features to simplify and streamline the development and deployment of iOS applications, such as remote compiling, provisioning, and debugging.

  
  

• Character & Animation:

  A system that provides various tools and features to create and animate realistic and expressive characters, such as dynamic workflows, animation retargeting, animation authoring, skeletal editor, ML deformer, and control rigs.

  
  

• Dynamic Workflows for Runtime and Non-Linear Cinematics:

  A feature that allows users to create and edit cinematic sequences at runtime, enabling interactive and branching storytelling.

  
  

• Animation Retargeting:

  A feature that allows users to transfer animations from one skeleton to another, enabling reuse and adaptation of existing animations.

  
  

• Animation Authoring:

  A feature that allows users to create and edit animations using various tools and methods, such as keyframes, curves, layers, blendspaces, state machines, and montages.

  
  

• Skeletal Editor (Experimental):

  A tool that allows users to edit the properties and structure of skeletal meshes, such as bones, weights, sockets, and morph targets.

  
  

• ML Deformer:

  A feature that allows users to use machine learning models to deform skeletal meshes based on various inputs, such as poses, expressions, or audio.

  
  

• Build Control Rigs from Data:

  A feature that allows users to generate control rigs automatically from data sources, such as motion capture or animation clips.