The Unfeatured Features of Unreal Engine in 2024 | Unreal Fest 2024
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- Опубліковано 4 лют 2025
- Ever caught yourself thinking "Oh, I didn't know Unreal could do that.." Well, hopefully no more! Join Senior Technical Artist Chris Murphy as he covers tips, tricks and some of the lesser known features of Unreal Engine in 2024.
Scene Construction
1:10 Environment Light Mixer - Quickly setup lights in a map
1:53 Cube Grid (Modelling tools) - Quick level design prototyping
2:43 Draw Spline Tool (Modelling tools) - Creates BP and modify spline
3:39 Landmass Erosion
5:00 RVT (Runtime Virtual Textures) - Smooth blend mesh in environment
6:14 Texture Variation Node - Break tiling texture in material
6:41 Landscape Physics Material Node - Custom fx for gn or different footstep sounds
7:51 Water System Overrides - Modify from project settings
8:32 Console Water Variables - VSM Filtering (Virtual Shadow Map)
9:17 Property Coloration Viewmode - Ctrl+Click on any property in details and it will grab all from the scene!
10:10 Render Resource Viewer - View what eats up the VRAM
10:59 Local Exposure - Blend between different exposures in the same view
12:13 Location Volume - Named markers for an area in map partition (Shared between team)
13:15 Use Pinning - Prevent actor from streaming out
13:30 Custom Filters - Regular expression used as filters
14:02 Source Control - In-engine source control
15:04 Diffing Selected - Not just blueprint, works on other asset types too
15:17 Diffing Selected - Use step to jump between changes
15:43 Diffing Selected - Lock and Unlock Panning/Zooming
15:54 Review Tool - Perforce only, Inspect specific changelist
16:32 Custom Validation - Setup in BP and C++ to prevent errors
Working with Nanite
17:34 Nanite Tesselation - Off by default enabled using cvars
18:48 Nanite Landscape
19:09 Nanite Landscape Displacement
19:50 Nanite Vertex Color - Store data and reduce texture overhead
20:53 Nanite Spline Mesh - Spline Mesh Actor
21:24 Nanite Spline Mesh - 'Max Edge Lenght Factor'
22:08 Nanite Foliage 'Preserve Area' - Maintain visual consistency
22:42 Nanite Mesh can be controlled by WPO (World Position Offset)
23:20 Nanite setup troubleshooting WPO using 'Pixel Programmable Visualizer'
24:14 Nanite Overdraw mode
25:20 VSM Nanite Overdraw (Virtual Shadow Map)
26:01 Nanite Overrides - Selector in the material graph if mesh uses nanite
26:30 Nanite Overrides - Disallow nanite with translucent material
26:45 Level instances - Group nanite assets as placeable assemblies
28:08 Level instances - Actor Filters
29:16 Level instances - Easily break them to base actors
29:47 Level instances Zoo - Showcase your assets easily as they are instances
PCG (Procedural Content Generation)
30:10 PCG Intro
30:34 PCG Data Asset Support - Convert level instance to PCG data assets
31:58 PCG Sample landscape layer data - Painting landscape layer and PCG filling it with rocks
32:32 PCG Discard points on irregular surface
33:23 PCG Spline Water Data - Gets information from water system like stream speed
33:52 PCG Hierarchical Generation - Logic processed based on distance (PCG LOD?)
33:35 PCG Biomes Plugin
Custom Tools
37:15 Interchange - Custom ruleset and import popup when importing certain assets
37:46 Geometry Scripts - Intro
38:06 Geometry Scripts Booleans - Cut holes in any mesh
38:28 Scriptable Tools Mode - Add your custom click, drag, etc.. tools
38:57 Toolbox Plugin - Custom button belt that does whatever you program
Bells and Whistles
40:10 Animation Analysis - Works in blendspaces and sets values based on analysis rules
40:58 Harmonix Plugin - Create custom MIDI Sequences
41:54 Soundscape Plugin - Procedural audio in the environment without hand placing them
42:29 Data Channels - Detected by Niagara and spawns effects using one single Niagara asset
43:07 Niagara Simulation Stages - Output to Render Texture and do cool stuff
43:40 Niagara Caching - Caching to quickly play it back anytime later
44:12 Color Picker - Create your theme colors and save them (Can be shared between teams)
44:53 Translucency Overlay Material - Setup custom shadows using translucency pass
45:22 Post Process Material Chain Plugin - Output PP to RT to PP to... (RT = Render Targets)
46:15 Slate Post Buffer - Render scene with UMG to texture
47:00 Console Variable Tool - Window > Console Variables and it shows all
47:18 ABTest - 'abtest' before any console command and it will alternate between them automatically
47:42 Use '?' in console command for description
47:56 Texture Graph - Create procedural textures inside Unreal
48:21 Data Flow - Sets geometry collection and ruleset for destructible objects
48:52 Physics Control Component - Add physics on top of existing animations
49:13 Cheat Manager
49:38 Blueprint C++ Header Preview - Generates C++ header based on blueprint
49:56 Gameplay Tags - Can be used without GAS and it makes things easier
50:48 Leet mode '-leet' - Run the project with this command and it replaces text with leet
Thanks a lot
Thanks, man
🐐
Great Job - Thank you, VERY useful!!
You hero
It's criminal that there wasn't more time allocated to this talk (along multiple other talk). Chris Murphy's talks are a gold mine of informations !
Whenever I hear Chris Murphy's voice I know it's gonna be good
Yeah, he's a very talented tech and presenter
How do u know his name 😂😂📛 @whatphoto hilarious 😂
yeah right
What a nice energy he has!
Took the words out of my mouth
Ripper talk, so many useful features that are undervalued amongst the flagship features.
Also, as another big-time RVT enjoyer I really hope they receive more support/bugfixes in the coming versions.
Wait, i know you, you make kickass tutorials!
Hi dude! :D
Chris! I've been waiting for your contribution :D Here we go!!!
Looking forward to the PCG talk! This one was insanely informative and useful as always. Chris is really Omega Level OP as an evangelist and teacher! Love to watch him!
I'm awestruck by the fact that one person knows so many of these gems across so many parts of the engine. Brilliant video, but watching it once isn't enough. In a perfect world, one would revisit this about once a month and try to pick up five or six of these tips at a time.
Chris Murphy talks always are worth watching. Can‘t get enough of this ❤
The first 15 minutes of feature intros has shown me that I do not need to look externally for tools that already exist in Unreal. Chris, thank you!
Never miss a stream with *Chris Murphy* in it.. just like its used to be *Zak Parrish* .. as always jam-packed with a lot of extremely useful tips and techniques
I'm getting "who is this guy" vibes from this!
He just goes through that presentation like he is doing this daily in front of millions of people! Also all of these super good tips in there! That is a cool video!
Take a look at his past videos. He's my favourite presenter!
WOW. This video is a treasure trove! Signal to noise is 10000!
So much information about so many topics packed into one video. A MUST-WATCH presentation -
I don't know if I'm happier or sadder to see a lot of solutions that gave me so much headache this year. But it's great to know that they know exactly what problems we face and where they can improve, and it's amazing how much better it gets with each update.
Leet speak command has made my day. Thank you for this great presentation!
Every talk Chris gives he surprises me :)
This is all amazing - but that COLOUR Picker blows our minds!!!! Every day is a learning day
Great Talk. Thank you!!!
well, this is going straight to the replay list..
Awesome talk & tips, thanks chris. Even your old UE4 videos sometimes open new worlds of opportunities and are worth the rewatch.
PS the @9:28 feature property view doesn't seem to work in 5.4.3 has it been removed in last updates?
@@MaraldBes Working on my end! Are you Ctrl Clicking after enabling it?
@@chrismurphy6966 aha, i have to enable it first, that would be a show stopper. I found it, it was shown in the first second of the point. Never thought to look at the dropdown menu in the viewport. Missed that bit, thanks!
Is there any way we can have all the outliner shortcuts (end, shiftdrag, ctrl click etc) working in the componentlist in blueprint editor as well?
Loved the last year talk, and this one is fantastic as well.
Really love Chris Murphy’s talks, Iinformative and fun to watch at the same time 👍💪
I've seen you talk a few times and it's always so informative!
Thanks for that max edge length tip I is what was stopping me from using nanite splines
Wow one of the best videos I've watched this year.
Chris Murphy is by far the best on here
This is awesome. Great job Chris!
Ignore, just a list for myself on stuff I wanna get more information on
1:08 - Light Mixer
1:50 - Cube Grid
2:40 - Draw Spline Tool
3:38 - Landmass Erosion
6:13 - TextureVariationNode
6:41 - Landscape Physical Material Node
7:50 - Water System
8:34 - VSM Filtering
9:18 - Ctrl + Click trick
12:12 - Location Volumes
13:31 - Custom Filters
14:04 - Version Control Extra's
16:33 - Data Validation
21:09 - Spline Mesh Actor
22:11 - Perserve Area
22:42 - WPO
26:09 - Nanite Overrides
26:46 - Assets to Level Instances
30:34 - PCG + Level Instances
32:33 - Subgraph in PCG
33:51 - Hierarchical Generation in PCG
37:15 - Custom Import and Export framework
38:30 - Scriptable Tools
38:55 - Toolbox Plugin
40:11 - Animation Analysis
40:58 - Harmonix Plugin
41:54 - Soundscape Plugin
42:28 - Data Channels
43:08 - Niagara Simulation Stages
43:40 - Niagara Caching
44:13 - Color Picker
47:00 - Consol Variables Tools
48:23 - Data Flow
48:50 - Physics Control Component
49:14 - Cheat Manager
49:38 - Blueprint C++ Header Preview
49:58 - Gameplay Tags
This guy is always giving out gems 🙌🏽
Excellent presentation and lots of useful infos. Thank you so much!
This thing is packed.
I see Chris Murphy - instant upvote
Landmass erosion apparently hidden away because holy that's useful if you're not bothering exporting maps from gaea or somewhere else
Omg I just showered in good UE5 tricks I never knew about :)
Great work, Chris🎉
1:18 Env light mixer I saw so many tutorials not using this and I always wonder why this guy is reinventing the wheel!
Can we like this twice?
Would be so cool if the bookmarking system would be integrated into an auto-map creator
37:52 the vine geometry script demo looks very helpful. is it available for download?
Amazing starting point for people wanting to learn more about the engine
CustomValidation sounds mighty useful.
Great! Juuuuuuuuuuuuuust f**king great. Now need a shirt that just says -leet
Awesome! Thanks so much for this gem
This dude is awe-some
anything "Chris Murphy" i will always have time for.
l33t crew represent lol
amazing talk and very helpful tips, thank you ❤
Leet speak wow blast from the past had me loling
Great talk! Been wondering about the filters for quite a while now, especially about where I can find the specific attribute names to actually write them in to the filter? E.g. wanted to make a filter on "approx size" but never figured out how to address the approx size attribute
The only bad thing about this talk is that they didn't allot enough time for it
Great vid
Teases dynamic destructable meshes using a feature called Dataflow Graphs and there is ZERO, i mean ZERO documentation, examples, tutorials, nothing. I want to use it!
I believe you can enable this in plugins, called Editor DataflowGraph
Awesome content!
i work on game dev for 15 years, we never say someone make mistake and blame ... lol. even with git/persec the approach is mostly fix it by yourself or ask the person details about why it set like that.
Can't find any information on the Landmass Erosion....
you win my respect with your sincerity here Chris hahaha 3:45 I know I can trsut some one by this kinds of coments XD
Great presentation. Not everything is working like Property Coloration Viewmode doesnt work for me.
43:00 who made this? Is there any breakdown about this 3d wind effect via niagara?
@UnrealEngine can you do a video on how to integrate a local LLM like llama into our projects to handle npc chat? Id like to make lore as a series of spreadsheets that point to each other, so only certain types of npcs know certain types of things, but its all dynamic conversation etc.
How about some VR improvements? It would be nice to actually use Nanite and Lumen when the RTX5090 arrives.
Seriously, UE needs a team to write all of these things out on the website documentation.
There is absolutely too many tools that are basically hidden. UE is like a video game itself with secrets you can only find if you have a subscription to Nintendo Power.
24:50 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Maybe I can apply these features with my current studio......and I'm laid off.
26:44 wait does that mean i can have windows with transparency in a wall mesh that is nanite? like the brickwall material + the glass material in the same mesh with nanite, ubt the material disable nanite on the window? because now my windows are just opaque
The "disallow nanite" is for the *mesh component*, not the material, to override what the mesh asset says, in case the component changes the material (e.g. a component replacing the default marble material of a nanite statue with a glass/crystal/ice material).
@@NahorCA so its not possible to have a transparent material in a nanite mesh? i cant disable nanite on a specific material of the mesh?
So the only thing useful for this i think is disable the normal map of the mesh ebcause nanite adds tesselation
@@Dhieen
> so its not possible to have a transparent material in a nanite mesh
No, it's a known limitation of nanite: no translucent materials (transparency via masking however is supported but to be avoided because it's costly. Epic recommends modelling individual leaves in a foliage, rather than using a masked material for groups of leaves). If I remember correctly, if you use a translucent material, it will behave as if it was a masked material (any pixel not fully transparent will become fully opaque)
> So the only thing useful for this i think is disable the normal map of the mesh ebcause nanite adds tesselation
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.
Tessellation is optional. Normal maps are needed for lighting (depending on your art style of course), regardless if tessellation is enabled or not.
Nanite can only be used if the asset has been cooked with nanite in mind, via the "enable nanite" property in the mesh asset. But then that property cannot be changed at runtime (AFAIK). The "dissallow nanite" property on the mesh component is what allows enabling/disabling nanite at runtime if need be.
In the case of your wall+glass, if you want to enable nanite for the opaque wall but on not the translucent window, use two different meshes. I'm no modeller, but I would think that what you should be doing anyway, since it would be more modular (e.g. replacing the glass with closed shutters) and optimized (e.g. replace the glass with an opaque quad when too far to see the inside of the room)
@@NahorCA oh yeah true the solution of having glasses separated from the walls can be interesting, in my case its a cathedral so all glasses looks the same for now but its true i could add more variation like broken glass, glass with wood beams on top or something, would be cool in this case
But i had trouble with transparency anyway, with volumetric fog, fog cards in front of the glass, i couldnt find a good shading solution
22:15 yeaah preserve area is the best option ever, why is it not by default?
22:27 "there is a little bit of extra cost".
@@NahorCA yeah but how much?
@@Dhieen Don't know, but I assume it must be enough otherwise Epic wouldn't have bothered with making it an option and choosing to not enable it by default.
3:39 Landmass Erosion, Has anybody able to use this?It instantly crashes the map for me whenever I use it.Tried on a small landscape and i still crashes everytime.Is there any plugin I need to turn of aside from landmass to make it work?Either that or my PC just cant handle it..
For me it crashes if I add it using "Landscape" tool as "Sculpt" brush. If I drop its bluperint into level by hand it doesn't crash, but after I play simulation landscape doesn't update even tho it shows in its "details" view that "saved height" texture is different then original height (aka it has some kind of erosion on it)... still trying to figure out how it is itended to be used.
@@borkoaleksic3629 Chris replied on X like about the time of this unrealfest and said he might make a video on it.Cant find more info about it so thats the best we can get hopefully soon
.
22:34 Fortnite Chapter 4 island
Most of these cool tricks doesn't have a proper document. I mean I can't even find an official "manual" on how to use simulation stage properly. All you do is gives us hope and leave us to death, How crue Epic
The Advanced Niagara Particles section of the Content Examples project has about a dozen Simulation Stages examples. Go check that out for more info!
well if it isn't Chris I'm not watching it
ehrenmann!
What is going on with the next gen terrain solution? World partition importing heightmapa is diabolically awful and is an inefficient memory hog
He sounds so bored! ;)
Fat Zack Braff is my favorite
0 out of 10 switching engine
cool now fix traversal stutter and shader comp or i dont care
stop pushing nanite so hard, it's not really a good solution
This generation is a trip. Giving a presentation and can't be bothered to take the glasses off his head and run a comb through his hair
His presentation sucks and killed the features before presenting them!
Please next time hire someone who has had enough sleep and likes what he's doing.
The PhysicalMaterialChecker. How did he make it. This would be a great debugger. Would love to get my hand on it