Unreal Engine 5.7 preview now out with production-ready Procedural Content Generation Framework

Unreal Engine 5.7 Preview is now available with production-ready Procedural Content Generation Framework (PCG) with nearly twice the performance compared to UE5.5.

Epic Games says that it has added GPU parameter overrides, scaling improvements, and better multiplatform support, as well as FastGeo. There's a new PCG editor that introduces spline drawing, volume creation, and painting, while PCG Graphs are now capable of running in standalone mode.

The developer adds that there's a new Procedural Vegetation Editor inside of the new experimental plugin, which will allow developers direct creation and customization of Nanite-ready foliage inside of the Unreal Editor, and it will let users grow and shape trees, tweak leaves and branches, and export meshes without the need of third-party tools.

Nanite Foliage is also shipping in an experimental mode, combining Assemblies, Skinning, and Voxels to render dense, detailed vegetation with "playable" performance.

Some of the other changes in Unreal Engine 5.7 Preview include MegaLights moving out of beta with expanded lighting support and tweaking controls, as well as Substrate materials reaching production-ready status, which will enable layered materials with higher accuracy and platform flexibility.

Epic notes that MetaHuman updates bring the Creator plugin to both Linux and macOS, with Python and Blueprint APIs for scripting. Link Live Face support for real-time animation is in the pipeline for the final release of UE5.7, too. Animation and rigging improvements include Selection Sets, a redesigned Constraint interface, blend shapes, sculpting, and skeletal editing features.

You can read more about Unreal Engine 5.7 Preview right here.