Unreal Engine 5 has taken the gaming community by storm due to several significant upgrades from UE4 that caused game makers and game engineers seeking new video game jobs to take immediate notice. Gaming companies and recruiting agencies focusing on UE4 recruiting began shifting their impetus to Unreal Engine’s fifth edition as soon as it was released. Currently, most big game development companies have transitioned from Unreal Engine 4. While UE developers at Epic have made several upgrades to the newest incarnation of the platform, there are five key differences between Unreal Engine 4 and 5 for studios and engineers looking for remote video game jobs.
While the installation file is significantly larger than its predecessor, Unreal Engine 5 has roughly a 90-percent resemblance to UE4, making it an easy transition for those who have experience with UE4. One of the first major studios to use the new platform was The Coalition that used UE5 to create the much anticipated “The Matrix Awakens.” The development team at The Coalition reported the switch to UE5 from UE4 was incredibly smooth, and the new version rendered 100 the detail of UE4. The Coalition’s studio technical director Kate Rayner reported the transition to UE5 was virtually seamless. Numerous reports from other studios and video game recruiters provided similar accounts. Following is a list of the key differences between UE4 and UE5 and the upgrades made to Unreal Engine 5:
Improved Optimization
One of the significant upgrades to Unreal Engine 5 was the introduction of a temporal super-resolution, or TSR, feature. This integrated upsampling system is set by default in UE5 and essentially equates to 4K resolution running at a 60 frames-per-second frame rate at 1040p. This is accomplished by masking lower frame rates with a higher-resolution AI-generated image. This allows publishing games made with Unreal Engine 5 at previously impossible high-quality resolutions, but without overtaxing the hardware or restricting machine or game performance.
Less Complicated Lighting
UE5’s Nanite and Lumen work to optimize meshes automatically for in-game use. These drastically improve immersion in virtual reality due to the duo’s ability to increase the geometric detail of surrounding objects. Nanite calculates the orientation and distance of an object from the camera and automatically reduces the polycount, meaning the total number of polygons found in a three-dimensional graphic model. Lumen is referred to as “global illumination” as it causes light to bounce off of surfaces for a more realistic lighting effect. The automated optimization has resulted in many of the constraints in the previous version, such as setting the polycount, becoming obsolete.
The integration of this dynamic duo allows objects to be represented in fuller detail than with UE4. The automated optimization also breaks down the meshes into triangulated segments that the editor then visualizes so that only viewable details are rendered. Video game recruiters have reported game engineers familiar with UE4 and 5 to say the new optimization is much more efficient than UE4, which rendered the entire object whenever that object was active in the engine. Additionally, higher polycount in UE4 tended to negatively affect game performance and typically caused problems in the three-dimensional modeling workflow. This may have caused issues in the past for engineers seeking remote video game jobs as the constant rendering could be somewhat bulky to work with remotely with older machines.
Compared to the illumination features in UE4, Lumen and Nanite is a much more straightforward and dynamic lighting system. By default, lighting is in real time in UE5 and optimized to run without high-end hardware, whereas illumination had to be graphically integrated into UE4, which required powerful software and hardware. For example, UE5 Lumen can operate at full quality on PCs made in the past five years. Paul Bannon, CGHero Executive Producer, stated Nanite and Lumen have removed most of the time constraints associated with Unreal Engine 4 and made polygon limits and light baking obsolete. However, candidates looking for video game jobs in the virtual reality space need to know Lumen and Nanite do not yet work with VR. This is due to Lumen’s only run at a maximum frame rate of 60FPS, even on the most up-to-date hardware, whereas VR headsets will only function at 90FPS or greater.
Better Modeling
Unreal Engine 5 allows for quick customization using a huge variety of improved tools. UE5 unveiled very impressive modeling tools that enhanced sculpting ability and UV mapping, allowing the ability to model an entire scene from scratch. While it is still more easily done on actual three-D software, Unreal Engine 5 allows for quick minor tweaks of objects. This eliminates the need to create dozens of variations as was required in UE4, making it easier for those wanting to find remote video game jobs.
Increased Modularity
One of the most improved features offered by Unreal Engine 5 is the increased modularity of the program’s architecture. This allows plugins that contain actual content instead of just script, significantly extending the new engine’s flexibility and functionality and allowing designers to create stunningly realistic game environments.
Updated Interface
Unreal Engine 5 has a fresh new look that makes the dated UE4 interface look from the DOS era. While fully functional, unreal Engine 4’s interface hadn’t been updated since its 2012 release. With the new release, Unreal Engines 5 brings developers a more intuitive and smoother functioning editor with much easier-to-use features. These features include a new “Create” tab, increased support for plugins, a superior content browser system and a more efficient program launcher. However, UE5 is fully backward compatible, so projects created from earlier UE versions can be imported into Unreal Engine 5 and the majority of UE4 tutorials apply to UE5.
Conclusion
While it does have competitors, most game engineers feel Unreal Engine has been the best-in-class development program for creating the most true-to-life games for over a decade. At this point, virtually every game development company that relies on Unreal Engine has moved to UE5 because of the enhancements that produce higher-quality and more intricate graphics. UE4 will continue to work just fine, but for those who want increased performance and flexibility, it is worth upgrading to UE5.
While only two major upgrades significantly differ from UE4, Lumen and Nanite alone provide enough improvement to have caused most development companies to switch to Unreal Engine 5. The changes to UE5 have also resulted in an increased demand for skilled game engineers. The improved gaming performance Unreal Engine 5 provides, and its wide acceptance, has led to increased demand and pushed game recruiters to find skilled candidates seeking video game jobs with the skill set to run the new program. However, because gaming companies want only the most skilled engineers, job candidates will have a better chance at landing a coveted position if they work with video game recruiters like DAM who have success with UE4 recruiting, a large enough client base to provide genuine opportunities.
