Unity has launched a new tech demo titled Time Ghost, highlighting the features of the Unity 6 engine. Spanning over four minutes, the video was crafted by the same team behind other popular Unity demos, including The Blacksmith, Book of the Dead, and The Heretic.
Developers have emphasized the advancements in visual quality and design complexity achieved through various techniques, including machine learning. The new features showcased in Time Ghost have yielded remarkable results. This demonstration highlights improvements to the HDRP (High Definition Render Pipeline) and introduces new lighting options such as APV, Scenario Blending, and Smoke Lighting, while also emphasizing performance enhancements with the GPU Resident Drawer. Unity 6 users will have the ability to tailor graphics using tools like VFX Graph and Shader Graph.
A standout feature of Unity 6 is the incorporation of machine learning for realistic fabric deformation. Even in fast-paced scenes, the fibers of the fabric are clearly visible, and textures respond realistically during motion. With Unity Sentis and training an ML model on 2,000 frames of vertex animation, deformations are achieved in just 0.8 ms per frame, ensuring high visual fidelity.
Time Ghost also showcases a new hair simulation system, initially previewed in the Enemies demo. This system has been refined for smoother rendering, automatic LOD generation, and the inclusion of volumetric wind effects, allowing hairstyles to behave realistically according to weather conditions. High-density hair can be seen in close-ups, rendered in real time.
Unity has released a comprehensive blog post detailing all the new features of Unity 6. Users can look forward to several innovations, including a new VFX collision system that delivers more stable and powerful collision effects. Unity 6 is set to launch on October 17, 2024.
