“The way we run conveyer belts at such a massive scale is that we tweaked how those meshes are instanced,” Hofma expanded. The team also did a ton of custom work on Satisfactory’s previous engine to make the game function in unique ways that didn’t translate well into the default settings of Unreal Engine 5. Other issues of the engine move have included systems that were either deprecated or simply didn’t work. So, we figured we might as well do it in an engine move.” Even so, one of the reasons we did move was because we reached a point where we felt we actually needed to improve the physics anyways. All of the physics in the game had to be completely remade, specifically for the vehicles… The physics issue was actually one of the main reasons we were hesitant to move engines when we were investigating the possibility. “Previously we used PhysX,” Snutt explained. Some parts of the game had to be entirely reconstructed, such as the physics engine. The mere move of the game over to a new engine introduced a wealth of bugs that weren’t present on the old system. The devs admitted that in moving to Unreal Engine 5, they discovered a wealth of new problems. Where much of Satisfactory’s maps previously loaded in massive chucks, the system helped to break up that workload by segmenting the world into more manageable pieces. Unreal Engine 5 also allowed the team to optimize how Satisfactory loads thanks to its world partitioning system. When people post on Reddit now, it doesn’t look like the same game anymore.” “It looks better even without using any of Unreal Engine 5’s new techniques, some of which you have options for in the game now. “We fine-tuned the graphics of Satisfactory overall,” Hofma told me. This allowed them to implement features such as better textures that can be loaded more easily and look good, especially from a distance, as well as toying with early efforts in global illumination and realistic lighting, which gives an impressive and dynamic look to nearly all facets of the game. More than that just making it look good in the new trappings, the team also wanted to make use of the tools that UE5 had been repping, such as Nanite (the mesh rendering tool). Many parts of the game had to be rebuilt from the ground up in the new engine. It was no easy task, Hofma explained to me, as the team actually began the effort somewhere around November 2022. One of the most important changes that came to Satisfactory Update 8, and the one that sets the stage for all things ahead, was the move to Unreal Engine 5. I recently got to take a tour of Satisfactory Update 8 with Game Director Mark Hofma and Community Manager Snutt about the latest features, the road here, and what lies ahead. For a few years now, the Coffee Stain Studios team has been tweaking, updating, and meeting community requests head-on, but with a huge move of the game to Unreal Engine 5, they feel like the true release of Satisfactory is finally within sight, though there’s still a lot of work to be done. In fact, it was one of the first games we checked out on the Indie-licious livestream when it began in 2020. Satisfactory has been around in early access for quite a while.
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