Meta is transitioning its help from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5.1 for apps constructed for the Quest platform. Two of the engine’s headlining options aren’t designed for cell although, so it’s uncertain we we’ll ever see them on Quest.
In a dev weblog submit saying the information, Meta says builders who select to work with Epic’s sport engine ought to begin excited about utilizing UE5 for his or her Quest apps. The corporate isn’t advising devs to improve to UE5 if in the course of a venture although; apps primarily based on UE4 can nonetheless be distributed to the Meta Quest Retailer or App Lab.
Nonetheless, the clock is ticking. Meta will help crucial bug fixes for UE4 till the top of 2023, though devs can entry UE4 assets and documentation on Meta’s GitHub repository even after the help is scaled again.
As you’d think about, Meta says the unique 2019 Quest gained’t be supported—it’s unceremoniously getting pushed off into the ocean—nonetheless the corporate is slated to supply separate binaries for every machine quickly, which can permit builders focusing on Quest 1 an improve path. Notably, OpenXR is the one VR API supported by Meta in UE5.
No Nanite or Lumen
Sadly, two of the most important options of Epic’s newest and best aren’t coming to the corporate’s standalone headsets. Launched in April 2022, UE5 packs in two new instruments referred to as Nanite and Lumen.
Nanite is a virtualized geometry system which makes use of a brand new inner mesh format and rendering expertise to render pixel scale element and excessive object counts.
It primarily works like a steady Degree of Element (LOD) system that pulls element from the unique ‘grasp’ 3D mannequin. In its developer documentation, Epic Video games says Nanite can improve an app’s geometry complexity, greater triangle and objects counts by “a number of orders of magnitude.”
Right here’s a have a look at what Nanite can do for VR video games, courtesy of YouTube channel ‘Good Poly’:
Lumen, the engine’s new dynamic international lighting system, additionally makes digital environments look higher, as it could possibly use each software program and {hardware} ray tracing for extra sensible lighting.
And why not on Quest 2 or Quest Professional? Nanite and Lumen merely aren’t constructed to work on cell processors, and don’t help Android in any respect.
Nanite is at present supported on a number of units, together with PS5, Xbox Sequence S|X, and PCs with even the most-humble of Maxwell-generation graphics playing cards. PS4 and Xbox One additionally help Nanite, albeit experimentally.
Lumen then again is developed for PS5 and Xbox Sequence S|X, and high-end PCs. Software program ray tracing will be executed on NVIDIA GeForce GTX-1070 or greater playing cards, whereas {hardware} ray tracing have to be on NVIDIA RTX-2000 sequence or greater, or AMD RX-6000 sequence or greater. Not even PS4 or Xbox One.
Furthermore, Epic says in Lumen’s documentation that there are “no plans to develop a dynamic international illumination system for the cell renderer. Video games utilizing dynamic lighting want to make use of unshadowed Sky Mild on cell.”
With out direct help from Epic, Meta has little different alternative. Granted, many VR creators decide to develop in Unity because of its relative simplicity for smaller groups and higher total market share, that means extra property and normal know-how to go round.