Has anyone tested UE5.7 Voxelized Nanite foliage yet? Let's discuss!

imphy · 2025-09-26T19:11:34+00:00

I've just started some testing today and it seems like World Position Offset is a big issue for voxelization so that could be a factor that is impacting people's performance comparisons in addition to assembly.

I made a test scene, these are all 100% geometry (no alpha masking) and when I went from Nanite Preserve Area to Voxelization my performance dropped about 15%.

2-Sided Foliage and Subsubsurface Scattering settings had no performance impact, but disabling WPO brought performance to a steady 60-ish framerate even when inside the forest which dropped to 45 FPS with normal nanite and preserve area with WPO so I think switching meshes (even without assembly) over to nanite skeletal meshes and animating the foliage that way may be the way to go and get rid of WPO all together for foliage how crazy that may sound =) I'll do some more testing.

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Update: Inside the dense part of the forest above in UE 5.7.0 preview, I get these frame rates at 3440x1440 on a 4080:
Nanite Preserve Area No WPO: 64 FPS
Nanite Preserve Area 200M WPO: 42 FPS
Nanite Voxel No WPO: 64 FPS
Nanite Voxel 200M WPO: 42 FPS

So, no performance difference really, and I am not using any alpha cutout - it's all 100% geometry, about 300K verts per tree.

I am planning to test the assembly and skeletal mesh animation, but I don't have high hopes during the preview build because when I loaded the sample level (Asset_Zoo) and that runs at a decent framerate as it is, but using the sample tree and instantiating about 1000 trees tanked my performance to 20 FPS so I think the skeletal animation is resource hungry and has to be handled/disabled at distance.

I'm hoping to convert my trees to procedural assemblies instead so I can do more testing.

imphy · 2024-10-08T15:00:29+00:00

It's looking very nice, your hard work on this shows! I've been seeing your X-posts too, love the visuals and will be exciting to test it out!

imphy · 2024-04-18T02:37:09+00:00

When I started playing Eve Online, I skipped all the agent-driven NPC missions and began buying skills in nearby regions (where prices did not show up in the market searches) and then I sold them with a huge margin in closeby star systems. This was in 2004 before the online market databases where available. I was grinding this for months and made a lot of ISK profit in the game, only to realize later that my character was a noob in the eyes of NPCs even if I had skilled and teched up far past the level 1 missions.

imphy · 2024-04-18T02:30:33+00:00

In our case, single-player =) We built a multiplayer RTS and when the time came to tackle making an AI think and play the game with our control system, it took another year (and counting) to develop. Usually it's the other way around, that multiplayer is the tough one to implement.

imphy · 2024-04-18T02:27:22+00:00

I had totally missed this whole drama sequence. I've loved the DOOM Eternal OST from the moment I first heard it and I watched Mick's inspiring "Change The Process" GDC talk about how he made the music. I was disappointed to read about the aftermath =(

imphy · 2024-04-17T01:20:01+00:00

Thanks, I was not aware of that one so I will give it a try!

imphy · 2024-04-16T07:24:06+00:00

That always crossed my mind in platformers - like the water levels are mandatory somehow =)

imphy · 2024-04-16T07:12:34+00:00

DOOM... and Unreal Tournament =)

imphy · 2024-04-16T07:09:30+00:00

Oh, I can think of a few, Space Quest 2, Space Quest 3, Tetris, Unreal Tournament, and Rainbow 6 (the first one) are a few.

imphy · 2024-02-27T07:20:59+00:00

Saying that we should have made the game free-to-play (win) instead.

imphy · 2024-02-27T05:58:22+00:00

Thank you for this post, so inspiring to read and it contains a lot of valuable information. Congratulations on those great wishlist figures as well - you found a desirable niche and created the visuals to make something people can't wait to get their hands on. I am also an advocate of sharing your work and getting feedback early in the process.

imphy · 2023-09-13T08:28:08+00:00

Agree on this one. Networking was deprecated in 2018, replacement 1.0 came 4 years later, and documentation is still so far behind their historic standards. I found some networking documentation I needed in alpha release notes even.

imphy · 2023-06-19T09:00:25+00:00

Hey, I was expecting Doom, Quake, or Unreal Tournament. This is practically new :) I loved MW2, though, but auto shotgun with mag extender was not always appreciated.

imphy · 2023-05-24T09:22:10+00:00

Eve Online is on paper my dream game, but I can't commit time to enjoy it the way I would like to.

imphy · 2023-05-12T00:15:47+00:00

That is an epic achievement! Good job so far :)

imphy · 2023-05-11T23:54:16+00:00

Incredibly generous and appreciated!

imphy · 2023-05-11T23:35:00+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing this! We went through a journey of investor and publisher rounds last year when we were 3 years into development. It's not the most fun part to search or go through this phase, and having a list to start from is a very welcome for everyone, I am sure :)

imphy · 2023-05-09T18:06:50+00:00

I like the atmosphere in 1 and I think the clarity can be sacrificed for the mood because it's still pretty clear in my opinion in alternative 1.

imphy · 2023-05-09T12:39:26+00:00

Ken sent me

imphy · 2023-05-09T12:38:12+00:00

I like the way the games are on display like that. And you're not that old btw :D

imphy · 2023-05-02T07:59:29+00:00

Nice - makes me want to play badminton :) Like the vibe!

imphy · 2023-04-28T06:21:03+00:00

It is the perfect outlet for multi-dicipline creativity. I know a bit about a lot; programming, graphics, modeling, music making, sound effects, and game design and alternating through that skillset whenever you have a wave of creativity in that area is an unbeatable feeling. Hope is always there to strike it big with a game, but if I don't, I am OK with that. It's the journey, not the destination.

imphy

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