5 Tips to Optimize Environments in Unreal Engine 4

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00:00 Introduction
00:18 Overdraw
01:41 First Tip
04:03 Second Tip
06:17 Third Tip
07:14 Fourth Tip
08:25 Fifth Tip
11:38 Summary

[@funagengames1177]

The required texture size view mode blew my mind! After watching this I went through my game and resized all the max texture sizes to avoid oversampling. Thanks for the tips, Jakub!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Great, you're welcome!

[@DaFrancc]

You taught me about so many tools that I had no idea existed. I'm running to my pc right now to implement all these optimizations 😁

[@ahmedsameh2384]

Appreciate the effort bro, keep it up

[@dankolevente]

Most useful and easy to understand tutorial on optimization yet, thank you

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@zinetx]

I love how calm you're when explaining things. I noticed this about you and William Faucher, both of you have this talent of presenting info with calmness and professionalism. I was saddened however, because of how small your subscriber count is. I truly hope you gain the audience you deserve. Also, Unreal Ecosystem seems pretty neat. Waiting for the "courses" section to be out of maintenance mode soon.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thank you for the kind words! I'm working full steam on new videos and the course, so when I publish all of this, I hope more people will be interested in the content. The results are not yet visible but the snowball effect is coming.

[@UnrealEngineLearn]

Brilliant tutorial. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[@alpinejonny]

You have incredible videos. Instant subscribe. I really hope you keep going! No bullshit, you explain things so incredibly well. I think i've learned more in your 4 videos than in dozens or hundreds of others. Also, thank you for the alpha brushes.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Glad you enjoyed, thanks!

[@roberthenderson3406]

Fantastic, I appreciate the maps and the explanations given in tutorials.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

My pleasure, cheers!

[@m198891]

Super tutorial. Dzięki i czekam na więcej :)

[@danielzboy]

Thank you for this video! This has been really helpful!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@ashleykettle343]

As someone getting into game development and hoping to build a portfolio over the next couple of years, this video helped immensely! Subscribed

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks!

[@lucaaustro7702]

Instant Follow!!! So useful! Thank Jakub!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@DDouglashey]

Thank you for this video! The attenuation radius tip save my project!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@babbage___]

I love you man, there are so many 2h video on just one way to optimize your game or mod, you quickly but sufficiently explain 5 of them in 12 minutes. and sure enough my lights' radii were way too high, 'lighting' all the way to the other side of the town i made, before watching this i would get 39 FPS in my church, now i get 90 thanks so much for this

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Good to hear that, thanks for watching!

[@deano4906]

very very helpful. Thanks!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@vegitoblue2187]

those dynamic gi ones were an eye opener

[@agustincocco5342]

Great video! Thank you

[@edemyankah5290]

Just subscribed. Coming in from an archviz background. Thanks for explaining it well

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@datonernegen]

Great content Jakub. Thank you very much. Subbed!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks!

[@AnimGraphLab]

Jakub, grateful for this. Thank you🙂

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@eintyp4389]

Your awsome. This realy motivated me on optimizing from the start.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Yeah, optimizing from the start will save you a ton of time, cheers!

[@johno8425]

Wish I could like this more than once. 👍

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Once is enough for me, thank you so much!

[@Glowbox3D]

Useful! Thank you. Would love a revamp of this tutorial for UE5.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Yeah, I should really do it.

[@Glowbox3D]

@@jakubhaluszczak WOoters.

[@kawacristian]

Definitely, as I believe Unreal Engine has never been so accessible. I started not too long ago. Would love to understand how to optimize in UE5!

[@stormolflak]

Thank you this is very helpful!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

You're welcome!

[@UnrealBucket]

Well done Jakub 👍

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thank you!

[@DannyLrsn]

Super helpful video! Thank you so much

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@Mirakuruuu]

Very informative! Also you should turn off alpha channel render for every RoughnessOcclusionMetallic texture map for every asset to reduce half of the texture size for even more optimization

[@miloszgierczak4806]

Dobre tipy, dzięki!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Dzięki wielkie!

[@Ruthardus]

great video, very educative. Thanks!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@playdarkion]

Well explained 👏

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Cheers!

[@soldierofodin6769]

Great video, thnx sir!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@senopatict]

Thanks detail how is ST tree file from SpeedTree, have automaticly setting LOD polygon mipmap too from ST setting or the same step option or automaticly apply with UE4 setting menu?

[@ShwanLoghmani]

good job bro...my wind dont work for trees and grasses ...how i can fix them ?????

[@greatsol2444]

When you bake in your lighting in is it emissive by itself or is it just a “lightened” effect on a surface?

[@phantomgaming5199]

AMAZING VIDEO !! Can you tell is it better to use draw distance or cull volumes? Also in UE5 we dont have nanite so we dont need to use LODs on static meshes but lighting is Lumen, does Lumen work same way or there are ways to optimize it as well? Thanks

[@jakubhaluszczak]

The main problem with lumen is we can't do much optimization, it's just a system that we turn off and on. In theory, we can reduce the quality and play with some console commands, but I think it's a bad idea, and it's easy to mess sth up. Epic said that it should be more performant in UE 5.1, but I don't know when it'll come out, so we are in a bit weird spot right now.

[@phantomgaming5199]

@@jakubhaluszczakokay. Thanks

[@LuizFernandoSC]

excelent video

[@rickfuzzy]

Great video

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thank you!

[@GamesStudio313]

Nice Tips thank you :D

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks!

[@CanisoGaming]

Problem with archviz is that all textures gotta be at the highest quality because u get super close whether it be in interactive archviz mode as well as in cinematics :/

[@markecgazda3880]

Hey men Im still using your brush for alpha brush for creating mountain etc since I did started in UE4. I remember you posted somewhere on web when I googled free for alpha brush, thanks!!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Haha great to hear that. I'm gonna have new erosion brushes coming up in 2024 so stay tuned.

[@I_Stern]

i don't know but i would also cover master materials. Each material on an object is also a draw call. So, 20 Materials on your object is 21 draw calls.

[@rafalkolodziej5438]

Very good educational video. I'm waiting for shaders.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Cheers!

[@SaviourFik934]

I think my friend Jeffrey needs to see this

[@suitoha9336]

Amazing video! Thank you for sharing! I developed a 2D game but I used 3D backgrounds from the free assets in the marketplace. So, I had to use a Perspective camera and put it waaaay back in the distance to give the appearance of 2D. But, now the backgrounds take so much computing power. I used LODs, and reduced the triangle count tremendously. And, now the game performs better, but the quality of the backgrounds are visibly subpar, and hurting the game's first impression. So, I'm wondering do you have any suggestions on this situation of mine, perspective camera for 2D games + 3D backgrounds? Subbed!! Looking forward to more content!!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

I don't create 2D games, but if I had to I would just stick with 2D models with color variation to create depth in the image using distance from camera and combine it with fog. But of course, if you want those mountains to be 3D and still high quality you can just turn on Nanite in UE5 and increase the number of triangles to about 6-8 times without any problems.

[@suitoha9336]

@@jakubhaluszczak Thank you so much for the reply!! I am trying to move my project from UE4.26 to UE5. But, I'm running into compilation issues. I will try Nanite, and let you know!

[@ashleykettle343]

As far as shader complexity is concerned, ho would you go about reducing that, particularly for megascans?

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Megascans material is quite optimized. If you want to have something faster I would consider creating your own master material from scratch.

[@darnunt]

Is using 2k textures on (almost) everything too much? I don't plan on having any 4k or above that. Thanks

[@SamDreamsMaker]

It's a very good video. We are making a mmo with a day night cycle, lighthing is a pain to optimize.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks!

[@AlliasEllie]

Really good video, would love too see your tips on UE5. Subscribed and hoping :)

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Yeah, considering the new features and systems in UE5, and how heavy they are, I have to.

[@devboiagru]

Very helpful. I was struggling with LODs, and this helped me a lot

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Glad I could help. Thanks!

[@MonsterJuiced]

Yea actually I just wanna add that this really helped, the LOD system is very powerful but not many people have gone into the detail like you have. Such a simple tickbox but almost always overlooked

[@lz4090]

This is very helpful please make more of these tips for optimization like when using megascans, etc. Thank you

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching. I keep that in mind!

[@The9PointStar]

My foliage meshes are black in that mode? why could that be? thank you

[@ssd3d]

good ...... why dont you continue making tuts you are good teacher

[@gamedev-erino5224]

another tip I would add is reducing the number of draw calls or unique items in a scene. especially for games, this is very important

[@allashama]

to reduce draw calls, you need an optimised Mesh. The more texture your mesh have, the more Draw call you will have. 1 Mesh can have 4 texture... Albedo, Normal, Roughness, Metalic, AO. some have Specular and more.. Each of those texture will call a Draw. I made an unoptimised mesh, with 25 texture... 25 draw calls. If i put 10 of this Mesh in game, i can see a drop in FPS. So the number of texture a mesh has is important too. The less is has, the better it is.

[@ljubljanasokolov4055]

I always have this texture and light problem that it would take me ten years to fix apart from the optimization that somehow interferes with the animation of the project in the end one thing affects another

[@MagmaProductionsYT]

This video helped so much! Messing with the LODs and Mipmaps made my game run so much more smoother! Thank you! I subscribed and honestly, I'm surprised you only have 427! This is some really good production quality!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks.

[@MagmaProductionsYT]

@@jakubhaluszczak No problem, man!

[@rmanj2300]

I can't believe how well you demistifyed all of these.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks!

[@tylerscott3192]

When i enter Light Completixy all of my level is black. am i doing something wrong?

[@BigfootU]

I found this very helpful. Thank you!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@phalhappy8612]

Can you talk about how modern open world game like Forza horizon 5, GTA5, and battle field texture the terrain that works up close and from very far away. One thing I notice, they have very vast variety of textures and each square meters of lands always look different, unlike the layer painting method in UE4 which I found very limited at least to my knowledge. Please share your priceless knowledge of how to achieve that in UE4 if possible. Thanks in advance.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

When it comes to creating good landscapes in UE, layer painting is the best thing we have right now and it can produce realistic results, but you need to use quality textures (e.g. megascans), and have a good landscape material, which will hide the texture repetition, and scale your textures based on your distance. Remember that landscape is just a base layer, in every game you have a lot of stuff put on it, like grass, trees, buildings. Once I read about how Rockstar optimized landscape in GTA5 and it turns out, it's divided into sections, and when you are far enough, a part of a landscape switches to a single draw-call mesh with its own texture, and that's how they made the game work smoothly. Hope it helps!

[@vegitoblue2187]

one more - virtual texturing can give a massive boost

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Yeah, Virtual Texturing is now "go to" thing especially for high resolution textures.

[@Nepfish]

@@jakubhaluszczak It increased GPU overhead cost so it might not be suitable for every project.

[@GrekkoGaming]

AWESOME video bro ! I have many games on Steam but a large refund from those have lower PC, with your tips, the refund'% decrased much more ! xo...

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Glad I could help.

[@allashama]

i actually have a problem with lighting. i add 6 Lights close to each others. If lights are off i get 75-80 fps. If Lights are ON, i drop down to 59-60 fps. Even if i turn off Shadow from those lights, i still get massive lag. And how to put a light to Static of the Directional Light ( Sun) is on Movable? you can,t bake a shadow with a movable sun. So how to do? hmm.. if you want to use Static Lights, you have to disable to Sun movement. You have to have a static sun, wich will give you a static light, and being able to bake shadow.

[@MarcDubeauchannel]

Excellent tutorials Jakub. Will use with my students, cheers!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Happy to hear that, thanks!

[@itsandylittle]

As a total beginner who has watched a lot of UE4 videos. This is one of the clearest and easy to understand I've seen. Great work!

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks, I really appreciate that!

[@puzon9220]

Ooo Polak widzę

[@KillerDudeT19]

in ue5 couldnt you just use nanite?

[@jakubhaluszczak]

For the majority of things, yeah.

[@octaviosilva5808]

Incredible video man. Keep up the hard work, you will soon blow up 😀

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thank you for the kind words!

[@vegitoblue2187]

you are everywhere 🤣

[@KerryCronic]

switched my trees from using nanite to using LODs and gained a ton of FPS. Strange. I figured nanite would be better on performance but it seems as though it's not.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

I don't think that's nanites fault. You can check what causes this decreased performance using GPU VIsualizer and compare with nanite on and off. I bet the problem is with the shadows.

[@willdiegamingnetwork4592]

This was very helpful. I ran into lots of precision problems with large landscapes and scaled it back but still working on running out of memory. Currently figuring out best ways to setup LOD's and optimize textures and static meshes. This has given me a lot of pointers, thanks.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching!

[@Restart-Gaming]

Wow i did this still have the same frame rate from when i started did not d i anything when you have grass a trees

[@RigelOrionBeta]

It didn't seem like you showed any difference in the LOD comparisons with and without.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

If you set up good LOD reduction and distance settings, it's hard to spot loss of quality in the final image.

[@amanitamuscaria5863]

Now if only AAA devs watched this video.

[@darodism]

VERY Helpful. Thank you!!!! I love how only 9k devs were interested in this. While 4k, realistic scenes get millions of views. No one cares about optimizing its quite embarrasing, especially most to almost all games are not optimized whatsoever. If you're going to argue that they are BULLSHIT. What's the point of getting a 30 series card for over a grand yet I have frame drops in 4k ultra and still looks meh. Na, cash grabs is what video games are now. 15 years ago games HAD to optimize because if they weren't most pc's wont even run the game. Sad but 100% true. Gaming pc since MechWarrior 2.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching, that's actually a very interesting topic. I personally think that many games aren't that optimized because companies focus on optimization at the end. They want to show great realistic graphics in their products and that's why they put it off until the later stages of development. I understand their point of view, they want to make as much money as they can, but it can also affect their reputation. An example of it may be Cyberpunk on PS4, for sure optimization was done at the end of development (frames were often dropping and quality was really bad). Good project optimization should start with pre-production, and finding a balance between quality and performance is the key to making gamers satisfied in terms of game graphics and gameplay fluidity.

[@ShiningMuffin]

Laughs in unreal engine 5

[@danielbarros8299]

You still need a balance XD

[@garrytalaroc]

The problem still exist. Nanite can be impressive but it can't work on trees and foliages which are 90% of my scene.

[@samuelkilik8233]

@@garrytalaroc laugh in ue5.1

[@garrytalaroc]

@@samuelkilik8233 nanite foliage is a heaven sent for my project.

[@IstyManame]

@@garrytalaroc it can

[@_casg]

So then nanite ain’t shit?

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Nanite is way better than LODs. I recorded this video when nanite wasn't even a thing.

[@karolkapusta3148]

Polska górą! 🇵🇱

[@gerarddiazvidal5121]

Op timi zation? Hahahaha

[@starvosxant4348]

Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y C-O-N-T-E-N-T EVERYONE, SPELL THIS FOR ME.

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Haha thanks!

[@sakbiulalom5849]

Optimization in Unreal Engine sounds like a joke 😂😂

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Now in Unreal Engine 5 there are many more ways to optimize your projects.

[@halfadrop9360]

Wow, this is the clearest tutorial for unreal engine hey keep going dont stop this channel thaanks. 🤍

[@jakubhaluszczak]

Thanks for watching.

[@ssd3d]

good ...... why dont you continue making tuts you are good teacher

[@ssd3d]

good ...... why dont you continue making tuts you are good teacher