For game developers looking to build AAA titles of the highest calibre, Unreal Engine has been
a pioneer as well as one of the popular game engine development tools. Since Epic Games
developed it around 25 years ago, there have been several iterations and updates. Only
recently, Epic released its new version of Unreal Engine—version 5.
Several examples of Unreal Engine 5's capabilities have been demonstrated since its release in
April 2022. Unreal Engine 5 is even being used to create the upcoming Witcher video game.
Thus, it is only natural that a prominent game developer like Sumo uses it to maximize the
impact of its games.
Sumo Pune was the second studio that Sumo Digital created, and it was founded in 2007. Since
then, Sumo Pune has grown to become India's top location for creating console and PC games.
We work together across Engineering, Art, Design, QA, and Production with all the Sumo Digital
family studios to co-develop games at every level of development and publication.
Several Sumo India games have used Unreal Engine, including Spyder, Snake Pass, Hood:
Outlaws & Legends, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure. Unreal Engine distinguishes out among
today's popular game engines mostly because of its vast array of tools for all game production
specialities. Unreal Engine 4 is one of the major reasons large studios like Sumo choose it for
many of their games. Almost all aspects of video game development can be handled with the
engine's tools and tech. The engine has many unique features that make it effortless for a
beginner to get lost.
The engine has made huge strides over its predecessor, bringing many new features. New
technologies like Nanite and Lumen give creators a means of achieving photorealism and
defining the next wave of interactive experiences. Aside from Lumen, which offers high-
performance physics and destruction, Niagara for creating next-generation VFX, Meta Sounds
for audio, Meta-human creation, World Partition for building expansive open-world maps, In-
Engine modelling tools, Animation authoring tools, and much more, there are many other
fantastic features. These new features will appeal to individuals pushing the boundaries of real-
time 3D and is interesting for those of us in the game's industry.
Each application in a game engine requires a steep learning curve because many programs
work together. A developer's biggest challenge is learning all the aspects of the engine from top
to bottom. Our team at Sumo Pune has been focused on making it easier for developers to
learn UE5 through Epic's training programs, our learning platform, or simply by interacting with
people in other Sumo Group studios that are learning with us.
Sumo studios have benefited greatly from Epic's Online Learning platform, weekly live streams,
and recently redesigned community website, documentation, and sample projects, all free to
use. If there are still difficulties, Sumo programmers can look through the engine's source code
and find the answers themselves. Finding time to explore all the engine's new features has
been the main challenge.
It was significantly easier to work on UE5 after having worked on UE4. Nonetheless, the
community and resources in place make it easier for anyone starting out who wants to begin
this journey. Before UE4, a lot of platforms and resources were not available. However, Epic
has created many curated learning contents over time to help beginners get started with the
engine. We have a robust mentor-based trainee program here at Sumo Pune to ease the curve
a tad for beginners as well.
It is necessary to use tools such as Lumen and Nanite when developing photorealistic visuals.
As a result, Nanite's virtualized geometry technology creates automatic LODs for high poly
models and streams them seamlessly, allowing developers to show larger worlds with more
detail.
Due to Lumen's real-time lighting and reflections, we at Sumo Digital no longer have to bake
these large worlds, and artists no longer have to wait for others to see their changes because
everything is now real-time. There is no loss of visual fidelity when you use real-time. In fact,
there has been an increase in visual fidelity. Matrix Awakens is an excellent example of what
the next generation of consoles can expect in terms of visuals.
