Epic Games has shared a new video that shows off some of the new features that developers can play with in Unreal Engine 5.3, the latest iteration of the popular game engine that is now available for download. According to a blog post that discusses all of its new features, one of the biggest improvements that users will find with Unreal Engine 5.3 is faster performance for Nanite, the new geometry system that enables “millions of poly models to be rendered effortlessly in real time.” Other additions include new experimental rendering, animation, and simulation features.
With this release, we’ve continued to refine all core UE5 rendering features to address our ongoing goal of making it easier for developers to leverage them at higher quality in games running at 60 fps on next-gen consoles; the improvements also offer higher-quality results and enhanced performance for linear content creators.
Specifically, Nanite has faster performance for masked materials, including foliage, and can represent a greater range of surfaces due to the new Explicit Tangents option, while Lumen with Hardware Ray Tracing has expanded capabilities that include multiple reflection bounces, and delivers faster performance on consoles.
Other areas with notable advancements include Virtual Shadow Maps (VSM)—which is now Production-Ready—Temporal Super Resolution (TSR), Hair Grooms, Path Tracing, and Substrate.