Try the brand new options in Unigine 2.19

Unigine has launched Unigine 2.19, the newest model of the sport engine.

The replace provides a brand new multi-threaded renderer, introduces help for multi-bounce lighting, updates the experimental character animation system, and provides help for OpenXR.

Customers of the high-end editions additionally get USD export and video streaming through WebRTC.

A high-end real-time 3D engine for enterprise-scale engineering and simulation initiatives
First launched in 2005, Unigine began as a more general-purpose game engine, however since 2012 has targeted on enterprise markets, together with simulation, coaching, engineering and metropolis planning.

Distinctive options embrace 64-bit precision for world space co-ordinates.

That signifies that, not like most traditional sport engines, which use 32-bit precision, Unigine can simulate planet-scale scenes somewhat than a lot smaller sport worlds.

The high-end editions – the Engineering SDK and Sim SDK, each priced on demand – additionally help GIS information and customary CAD information codecs, and help OpenGL in addition to DirectX.

Nevertheless, the software program can be used for leisure work, and since 2020, has been obtainable free for business initiatives that generate beneath $100,000/yr in income.

Unigine 2.19: faster-rendering, sooner to begin, and extra reminiscence environment friendly
One key change in Unigine 2.19 is just that it’s a lot sooner than earlier variations.

Specifically, the brand new multithreaded DirectX 12 renderer gives a “x2 CPU efficiency achieve”, with the comparability picture above exhibiting a rise in FPS nearer to 2.5x over Unigine 2.18.

Begin-up instances have been lowered “from x1.4 to x1.9” on “large-scale” initiatives, with meshes and properties now loaded asynchronously, and higher multithreading for texture loading.

Higher information streaming from archives – ZIP recordsdata, and recordsdata in Unigine’s UNG format – present a lift of “as much as 1.2x” at startup, and each RAM and VRAM utilization has been lowered.

As well as, it’s simpler to commerce efficiency towards visible high quality, with a brand new Material Quality Switch node switching between totally different resolutions of a cloth.

Updates to supplies, lighting and character animation
Different modifications related to CG artists embrace quality-of-life enhancements to the fabric editor, together with new hotkeys for generally used nodes like Add, Multiply and Clamp.

Lighting modifications embrace help for a number of gentle bounces on Planar Reflection Probes and Surroundings Probes, and the choice to present situations distinctive lightmaps and shadow maps.

When utilizing the Sky object, it’s now potential to make use of LUTs to manage the colour of the sky, clouds and haze.

The experimental character animation system will get various updates, together with help for look-at chains and bone rotation constraints for skinned meshes.

Assist for OpenXR, USD and video streaming
As well as, Unigine 2.19 provides help for OpenXR along with OpenVR, streamlining growth of VR, AR and mixed reality projects.

The preliminary implementation gives “primary performance” like help for various HMDs and controllers, with eye monitoring and hand monitoring due in future updates.

Customers of the SIM and Engineering editions get the choice to export scene content material in USD format, through the brand new UsdExporter plugin.

Customers of the Sim version additionally get help for video streaming via WebRTC, and a brand new SpiderVision plugin that unifies the present instruments for rendering to show partitions and projectors.

Pricing and system necessities
Unigine 2.19 is offered for 64-bit Home windows 10+ and Linux (kernel 4.19+). Each engine and editor are hardware-agnostic: you’ll be able to find a list of supported AMD, Intel and NVIDIA GPUs here.

The Group Free version is free to make use of for non-commercial work and business initiatives with income or funding beneath $100,000 previously 12 months.

The Group Professional version has no income cap, with subscriptions now costing $1,500/yr. You’ll be able to find a feature comparison table with the enterprise editions here.

Read a full list of new features in Unigine 2.19 in the online release notes

Visit the Unigine product website

Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). In addition to with the ability to touch upon tales, followers of our social media accounts can see movies we don’t publish on the location itself, together with making-ofs for the newest VFX films, animations, video games cinematics and movement graphics initiatives.