Epic has officially launched Unreal Engine 5.7 to developers.As the industry's leading commercial game engine, the new version has been fully upgraded in terms of performance, visual effects, and development efficiency, and brings a number of new features.

First, the MegaLights feature that existed in "experimental" form in earlier versions has now been upgraded to the Beta stage.This feature allows developers to add more dynamic, shadow-casting light sources to the scene to achieve more realistic soft shadow effects, especially for scenes with complex light sources (such as area lights).The new lighting workflow is more flexible and efficient, and can help teams more intuitively build larger, more detailed, and more immersive game worlds.

In terms of graphics performance, Unreal Engine 5.7 further improves visual fidelity - adding support for more precise lighting and shadow calculations for directional lights, translucent materials, Niagara particle shadows, and hair.Epic said the new version has also been optimized for performance, bringing a better out-of-the-box experience, reducing noise and reducing the need for manual dimming.

Another highlight is the new Nanite Foliage (Nanite vegetation) function, which is currently in the "experimental" stage.In the past, Nanite could not be used for vegetation rendering, but now with a new geometry rendering system called Nanite Voxels, this limitation is completely broken.The engine can efficiently draw millions of tiny overlapping elements, such as tree crowns, pine needles or weeds on the ground - appearing as a solid whole in the distance, with stable images without jumps and no need to manually create LODs.Nanite Foliage also introduces Nanite Assemblies to reduce storage, memory and rendering costs, and uses Nanite Skinning to achieve dynamic responses, such as the effect of wind blowing leaves.

In addition, the procedural content generation (PCG) framework in Unreal Engine 5.7 has now reached official version levels.It further optimizes GPU performance and adds a new Editor Mode to facilitate developers' personalized customization.

This version also brings the official version of Substrate.Substrate, a system for creating complex, high-fidelity, physically accurate, multi-layered hybrid materials, is now production-ready.

Finally, Epic also added an AI Assistant to Unreal Engine 5.7.This feature is integrated directly into the editor, providing a separate side panel where developers can ask questions, generate C++ code, or get step-by-step guidance—all without leaving the editor.

Overall, Unreal Engine 5.7 not only takes an important step in graphics rendering and performance optimization, but also further improves the intelligence and ease of use of the engine, creating a more powerful and efficient creative environment for game developers.