Unreal Engine has become one of the most popular videogame engines, offering a wealth of tools for creators and developers to make and improve digital projects, including those meant for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
The latest preview build of Unreal Engine 4.20 is known simple as ‘Preview 5’ and includes a whole host of bug fixes, including several that are aimed solely at AR and VR development.
Epic Games has emphasised that the preview builds are for testing only, and should not be used for active development. Some of the bugs and glitches which have been addressed in the new build include UE-58081 ARKit face AR, where the native orientation in Unreal Engine 4 is Landscape, but a number of apps need a native portrait orientation, so this is has been remedies so it now correctly matches the app
Other VR and AR related issues are things such as UE-61204, where ARCandidateImage and ARCandidateObject are missing Blueprint accessible APIs, or UE-58385 FaceARSample – Looking for face to track prompt does not come up if tracking is lost while app is running.
One particular issues is related directly to the secretive AR headset, the Magic Leap One, which recently unveiled its Creator Portal to let developers get started with creating content for the device. This process might be easier since an issue involving Magic Leap, has now been resolved. Specifically: UE-60963 Failure to launch onto Magic Leap due to Shader Compiler issues.
Quite a few of the highlighted fixed bugs involve AR features in some way. This is somewhat to be expected due to the continued push from both Apple and Google with regards to their respective AR toolkits, ARKit and ARCore, as well as the introduction of Magic Leap support.
The full list of bugs can be found on the Unreal Engine forums. As usual, VRFocus will continue to keep you up to date on developments in the VR and AR industry.