Unity is getting some exciting new graphics features, including better lighting, water effects, faces, and more. the best part? All of these are scheduled to arrive in 2023.
This was announced during today’s GDC talk titled “The Unity Roadmap for Games to 2023.” The presentation lays out the near-term future of the engine used to create most of today’s video games, and features graphics product manager Mathieu Muller, who spills the beans.
Just ahead, the crowded room was told that Directx 12 would end its preview phase with the release of the 2022 LTS (LTS is basically a major update) in the spring. Later, with the release of version 23.1 LTS, the much-hyped rendering effect of ray tracing will also stop previewing. Neither of these LTS releases has a specific release date, but they are coming soon.
Unity is also working on a new randergraphic system, which should apparently improve the performance of Unity games, but is still in beta.
On the VFX side, a future LTS release will offer better visual fidelity for smoke effects with a six-way lighting system, so fog, explosions, etc. will look more realistic. The 23.1 LTS release will also include Screen Space Lens Flares, which automatically generate lens flares for shiny objects and surfaces.
Then there are adaptive probe volumes – in layman’s terms, this means that Unity can automatically place lights into the scene. Not only does this speed up the process of adding nice lighting, but it should result in better looking lighting in Unity games that use the tool.
That’s all well and good, but what about some really cool stuff? Should you, the player, really be excited about it? Well, first, we should make some major improvements to water simulation in Unity games. Waves, ripples, and foam will be coming soon, and should allow for some stellar-looking oceans and rivers in future games.
We should see some better-looking vegetation, too, as the 2021 acquisition of vegetation modeling company Speedtree starts to bear fruit. This means trees and other bushes that look (and perform) more realistically, which should make worlds in future games even more realistic.
Finally, better faces. With ZIVA VFX and their facial tech falling into the hands of developers later this year, no one likes unflattering characters, poor facial animation and Unity games are immune to this problem.
The conversation was very deep into baseball and aimed at developers, that’s the point, but even if you’re purely a consumer of Unity games, the message is clear. Unity games are likely to start seeing something spectacular in the coming months.
Which of these upcoming features are you most excited about? Also, just for fun, which games would you like to see get any of these fun new features? Let us know below!