Major New Features

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Strand-based hair and fur (Experimental)
Create more convincing human characters and furry or hairy creatures, with the new ability to simulate and render hundreds of thousands of photoreal hairs at up to real-time speeds from grooms authored in DCC packages. Strands can follow skin deformations for realistic fur and facial hair. The system features an advanced hair shader and rendering system and integrated physics simulation.
Nondestructive landscape creation and editing tools (Beta)
Create and edit large terrains directly within the Unreal Editor with the new ability to add multiple height maps and paint layers to a landscape, and to edit them independently of each other. Plus, use Blueprint to create unique custom brushes, such as one that automatically fits the height of the landscape to the bottom of buildings.
Atmospheric skies
Create realistic real-time outdoor environments—including sunsets and space views—in a few clicks. The Sun Positioner now contains a new physically based SkyAtmosphere component that enables you to render an atmosphere that can be viewed from the ground or from the air, and to dynamically change the time of day.

Screen Space Global Illumination (Beta)

We’ve implemented Screen Space Global Illumination (SSGI) as an alternative to our existing ray-traced GI method, enabling you to simulate the effect of natural, indirect lighting where light bouncing off one object affects the color of another. SSGI is sufficiently performant to scale across desktop and console platforms.

Datasmith and static mesh editing

With this release, we’re bringing all of the features of Unreal Studio to Unreal Engine—for free. These include Datasmith, which offers seamless conversion of entire scenes from 3ds Max, SketchUp Pro, Cinema 4D, and a host of CAD and BIM formats. Plus, there are basic mesh-editing tools and UV projections, jacketing and defeaturing tools, and a Variant Manager.

Visual Dataprep (Beta)

Easily automate data preparation workflows—even if you’re not a programmer—with a new simplified visual tool that lets you create a “recipe” of filters and operators that you can save and reuse on other scenes or projects. Make LODs, set up Lightmap UVs, substitute materials, and delete or merge objects based on factors such as class, name, metadata tags, or size.

Improved USD support (Beta)

With new first-class support for reading USD files and writing back changes, you can collaborate better with team members and work in parallel to bridge your real-time and traditional asset creation pipelines. For example, modelers can refine assets in a DCC package while scenes are being laid out in the Unreal Editor, which will immediately pick up the updates.

Enhanced multi-display rendering

We’ve redesigned and refactored the foundation of nDisplay from the ground up to make it consistent with standard Unreal Engine workflows, allow native compatibility with existing projects, and deliver perfectly replicated inputs and synced visuals across networked PCs. Key enhancements include removing the need to use custom Pawns and Game Modes.

Easier task-specific project creation

Hit the ground running when creating new projects, with a new wizard that guides you to select a template relevant to your industry and appropriate for your project’s intended use, and then automatically loads required plugins and configures settings. Examples include studio lighting with an HDRI backdrop for product design, and a sun and sky environment for archviz.
Release Notes 4.24