Epic has announced the release of Unreal Engine 4.25 adding initial support for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Also in this release also include improvements to the Unreal Insights standalone profiling application, new features for Niagara VFX and Chaos physics thanks to their development for Fortnite, a brand new media output pipeline for studios that are producing high-quality movies and stills for uses like cinematics, marketing materials, or linear entertainment.
For simulating materials like tinted car windows and brushed metal, there’s a new Thin Transparency shading model, and a new Anisotropy material input property. The Clear Coat shading model has also been improved so that it now exhibits a much more physically accurate response to directional, spot, and point lights.
The Unreal Audio Engine now supports sound field rendering and convolution reverb processing, enabling users to use detailed captured or designed sound fields that spherically envelop your listeners, and sampled reverb impulses that simulate real-life acoustic spaces.
A new plugin to support LIDAR data is included that allows the user to import, visualise, and edit point clouds. A version of the the plugin was previously made available on MarketPlace but is included in the main package. The updated version offers new support for working with multiple point cloud segments while still maintaining frame performance, an option to delete hidden points, and various other small enhancements.
Support for HoloLens 2 is included with performance improvements and support for mixed reality capture from a third-person camera view. Epic has announced that with this release real-time ray tracing is officially production-ready.
See the full list of what’s new in the online release notes.
