LogInTom Looman explored the Dark Ruins sample project, offering valuable tips and tricks on VSMs, Nanite, Niagara, and more.
The Dark Ruins project, crafted by Quixel to showcase cutting-edge visuals, certainly delivers on that promise. Quixel has acknowledged that performance wasn't their focus, so this incredibly beautiful environment offers an ideal foundation for optimizing and scaling down to lower-end hardware.
Tom Looman explored the Dark Ruins sample and spent an hour optimizing it while sharing valuable tips and tricks, talking through lighting, virtual shadow maps, Nanite settings, Niagara culling, detail mode for scalability, sharpening, and more. In this guide, you'll get a glimpse of in-context optimizations, along with the thought process and considerations involved in the optimization process.
Please note that this isn't a scripted video, so feel free to use the timestamps to skip to the sections you're most interested in. Depending on how well the video performs, Tom mentioned that he could dive even deeper and potentially even run the project on a Steam Deck.
Tom is well-known as the author of numerous Unreal Engine-related courses and educational content, which he occasionally shares for free, like the source code for simple animation system implementation. He also offers a Complete Game Optimization for Unreal Engine 5 course, including a large catalog of profiling and optimization videos covering a wide range of topics. It's regularly updated with new lessons and is used by many AAA studios to learn game optimization processes and techniques specific to Unreal Engine.
We also recommend checking out PolySphere Studio's recent tutorial on optimization in Unreal Engine 5 using Instanced Static Meshes and Dallas Drapeau's videos on common misconceptions about Unreal Engine 5's optimization features and creating your first Nanite foliage:
Visit Tom Looman's site for more and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.