After more than three years from the Unreal Engine 5 dazzling tech demo, the Layers of Fear remake is ready to claim the distinction of being the first third-party game built using Epic’s premier game development engine. Although Epic Games had already updated Fortnite to support Unreal Engine 5 and had recently enhanced the visuals through UE5’s signature features, Lumen and Nanite. The Layers of Fear remake, which includes the first two games in the series and a brand new story, has been co-developed by Bloober Team and Anshar Studios (Gamedec). With the game’s release date scheduled for next week, Anshar’s Programmer, Krzysztof Kansy, and Technical Artist, Michał Gawron, talked about the game’s implementation of UE5’s Lumen technology, console specifications, and the newly announced MacOS version that has been optimized for Apple Silicon.
If you want to read more about the Layers of Fear remake, head over to Francesco’s hands-on review.
How do you feel after building the first third-party Unreal Engine 5 game on the market?
Krzysztof Kansy: Introducing a new technology is always a thrilling challenge. It’s not the first time that Anshar Studios and Bloober Team had cooperated on “Observer: System Redux”, being among the first titles on the latest generation of consoles, so it’s not our first time taking on such a challenge. And as usual, there were things that went surprisingly smoothly and obstacles that we didn’t expect. Nevertheless, the overall experience was satisfying, and we’re happy with the outcome.
What version of UE5 did you use for Layers of Fear?
Krzysztof Kansy: Currently we are using UE5.1. There are some plans for the 5.2 upgrade, but we still need to do some research on that.
From a usability perspective, did UE5 meet your expectations? Does it speed up the workload?
Michał Gawron: Yes, UE5 is fast and enjoyable to work with. In terms of speed, Lumen is a significant improvement. Thanks to it, we witnessed the effects immediately, without needing to bake the lights for several hours.
In a recent showcase video, Lumen has been highlighted as one of UE5’s major innovations, critical for enhancing the visuals. Can you share your experience with Lumen and the specifics of your implementation?
Michał Gawron: Using Lumen was an obvious decision since the game relies heavily on light and shadow. This allowed us to create entirely dynamic lighting that responds to in-game events. However, incorporating Lumen was a big challenge since we had to learn how to get the most out of this technology. Eventually, we’re happy with the outcome, and we hope that the players will also notice the difference.
Ray tracing is listed as a feature. Which effects are ray-traced in Layers of Fear?
Michał Gawron: We use Lumen’s ray tracing features to enhance the quality of Global Illumination and Reflections.
In a previous discussion, you mentioned the Niagara VFX system. How did it improve the game’s visual presentation?
Michał Gawron: By using Niagara, we were able to create more elaborate effects; it can contain more particles. Compared to the older system, we created precisely what we wanted without compromising quality and performance.
Does Layers of Fear support Nanite? If not, why?
Michał Gawron: We didn’t implement Nanite since the game doesn’t require it. Nanite is more helpful in solving open-world rendering. In contrast, Layers of Fear occurs indoors, in a labyrinth of an old manor or a ship, with a strange and claustrophobic atmosphere.
In terms of graphic settings and features such as Lumen, Niagara, and ray tracing, how do console versions compare with the PC version?
Michał Gawron: On consoles, we use the same graphics settings and features as on PC. There’s a full implementation of Lumen with Ray Tracing and Niagara support.
Can players choose between different presets (quality, performance mode)? What is the intended resolution and targeted frame rate?
Michał Gawron: On consoles, the player can choose between Quality and Performance modes. Quality is a hardware ray-tracing mode with the highest graphics settings at 4K and 30 fps, and Performance is a 60 fps mode with dynamic resolution up to 1440p with lower graphics quality. Additionally, for XSS, we offer 60 fps in Performance mode with additional optimizations.
The Layers of Fear demo supports UE’s TSR, NVIDIA DLSS, and Intel XeSS. Are you also going to add AMD FSR at some point?
Krzysztof Kansy: We are currently working on AMD FSR integration. It will be available when the game releases.
The Unreal Engine has become infamous for shader and traversal stuttering often encountered in games based on this technology. The Layers of Fear demo seems mostly free of this issue. How did you address it?
Krzysztof Kansy: In our game, most of the stuttering would be caused by Pipeline State Object generation during gameplay, a common issue in other Unreal Engine games, as you mentioned, related to shaders. To mitigate this source of problems, we’re using the PSO Cache system, a built-in tool that allows us to collect relevant PSO information during development and cook it into the build. We can then generate and cache actual PSO in runtime beforehand instead of generating them during gameplay.
Bloober Team released Layers of Fear VR a few years ago. Would it be technically feasible to optimize this UE5 version of the game to run on high-end PC VR and/or PS VR2, or would it require significant changes?
Michał Gawron: It’s hard to say since we haven’t worked on an earlier version of VR. Overall, the potential VR version of the new game will need to undergo some significant changes.
You just announced the Apple Silicon version of Layers of Fear. Was it challenging to port the game to this different combination of hardware and software?
Michał Gawron: Working closely with Apple, the process went smoothly. Apple’s involvement in the process was invaluable, and the results are astounding.
Does the MacOS version of the game support the same features as the PC version, such as ray-tracing, Lumen, and Niagara? Are there any differences in performance and rendering that players should know of?
Michał Gawron: Yes, the MacOS version of Layers of Fear is the same game as the PC version, with no compromise in performance! The Mac version also supports Lumen global illumination and reflections system from the Unreal 5 engine as well as MetalFX Upscaling to boost performance and quality.
Thank you for your time.
Denial of responsibility! TechCodex is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
Eugen Boglaru is an AI aficionado covering the fascinating and rapidly advancing field of Artificial Intelligence. From machine learning breakthroughs to ethical considerations, Eugen provides readers with a deep dive into the world of AI, demystifying complex concepts and exploring the transformative impact of intelligent technologies.
