UE4 Physically Based Rendering

Made by Epic Games, Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) is known as a complete suite of tools used primarily for game development, but is also quite useful for building a variety of highly-polished immersive digital art experiences.

UE4 is known for its uncanny ability to create true-to-life imagery, made possible due to a simple yet ingenious process called Physically Based Rendering (PBR).

PBR has algorithms based on real-world physical parameters, making dynamic scenes seem almost life-like. Physically Based Rendering uses common units and natural laws (such as lumens to measure light intensity and a light intensity fall-off rate determined by the inverse square law) and closely approximates relationships between materials and lighting. The results are incredibly realistic visuals that replicate real-world experiences.

UE4’s High Dynamic Range Rendering

One of our favorite features, this capability models real-life human pupillary responses to changes in environmental lighting. For example, when a viewing angle within a 360 degree scene changes from dark to light (i.e. turning your head from a dark corner of the room to a window letting in the midday sun), High Dynamic Range Rendering will imitate how our eyes adjust to these lighting differentials by modeling how the human iris contracts to limit brightness allowed into the eye. If you then turn back to a dark corner, the engine will take some time to adjust to the new amount of light available, modeling the time it takes for the human iris to open wider in the presence of less light. UE4 performs these functions in real-time using sophisticated compute shaders.

UE4 and NVIDIA

It looks like UE4 is now crossing over into the mobile market. At CES 2015, NVIDIA introduced their Tegra X1 mobile processing chip. Touted as a “mobile superchip”, the Tegra X1 is capable of doing 1.1 teraflops worth of calculations per second. UE4 will support NVIDIA’s mobile processor offerings and Unreal Engine 4's Elemental Demo is already running on the Tegra X1. This means that the high-quality visuals previously only available through game consoles and PC’s can now be obtained on a mobile platform, further bridging the gap between conventional and mobile gaming.

We're excited about all the projects we will continue to create using UE4 and we're looking forward to all of the awesome games the UE4 community will continue to produce. Keep checking in for more projects done with UE4!