UNIGINE 2.18 was released
The developers of UNIGINE announced the release of a new version of the engine — 2.18. Among the key changes are improved performance, VR out of the box, improved animation system and editor, and much more.
Let's briefly go through some of the innovations that the developers note.
At the optimization level:
- configuring the engine for DirectX 12 and Vulkan (primarily on the processor side);
- CPU performance on the engine increased by 17.6% (in the case of DirectX 12);
- reduced RAM consumption by the engine (up to 18%);
- fixed, among other things, crashes when minimizing the window (on a bunch of Vulkan + AMD);
- the work with light and shadows has improved (on DirectX 12, the shadow rendering speed has increased by 14%).
At the visual effects level:
- It is now possible to correct exposure and white balance through curves and a Measuring mask;
- significantly improved the work with visual artifacts (now the built-in denoizer removes hosting and noise by default);
- There is a function for local tone correction based on a mask generated based on the entire image (as the developers comment, it "provides a more pleasant result to the eye, since human vision is more sensitive to local contrast").
At the animation level:
- experimental animation retargeting (according to the team, it "allows you to use one animation for several models with different proportions");
- an experimental new sequencer for a future animation system that is still under development.
In addition, in the new version of the engine:
- VR support is provided by default, you do not need to install separate plugins;
- the functionality of the editor has been significantly improved (for example, it has become possible to expand the scene to full screen with one button);
- a new project has appeared that demonstrates the capabilities of the engine — "Drone Simulator".
You can read about the main innovations in Russian on the company's blog, and the full list of changes is published in English in the blog.
Recall that the previous UNIGINE update was released in July. It took the team only five months to create the update.
