Unreal Engine 5.8 New Features Explained!

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Hello guys, welcome back to another video. Epic Games just dropped the Unreal Engine 5.8 roadmap and in this video we're going to be covering all of the major new features coming to Unreal Engine 5.8. Things like the new optimized Lumen probe based GI, substrate tune shading, the MetaHuman crowd plugin, mesh to MetaHuman updates, a new gizmo tool, new editor quality of life and UI updates, Steam frame support and the brand new mesh terrain plugin.

[00:00:26]So without further ado, let's go ahead and jump right into the video. The very first big update that's coming in 5.8 is the new Lumen radiance cache. So essentially Lumen now supports medium quality global illumination using radiance fields with probe occlusion.

[00:00:39]It's twice as fast as Lumen high quality which targets 60 FPS on PlayStation 5 while maintaining the art direction for games that rely on GI. So essentially this is basically like a new cheaper GI solution for Lumen that's using a probe based approach. So as you can see here, all these little probes on the screen capturing the scene and basically reprojecting the light. is going to be a cheaper method for using Lumen on lower end hardware as well as for current gen handheld consoles. So it's great to see that Epic is working on actually optimizing Lumen and making a lower end version of it that can run better on low end hardware. Also this feature is still in beta so as they continue to update it, it's only going to improve further.

[00:01:20]The next biggest new feature is the new substrate NPR shading experimental feature. Basically in Unreal Engine 5.8 they introduced a new experimental substrate tune shading, a stylized non photorealistic rendering solution built on the substrate blendable G-buffer mode. It supports all types of lights including local lights, skylights, a Lumen global illumination and exposes precise control over diffuse and specular response through the new substrate tune BSDF and tune profile asset. So this has been actually a highly requested feature over on the forums so it's really nice to see that Epic is working on features that people have been requesting. Next up for rendering, Megalights is considered production ready in Unreal Engine 5.0.

[00:02:00]They've greatly reduced the noise and also improved overall performance to achieve 60 FPS. We have yet to see if they're going to release this nice little Megalights demo. Hopefully, now that it's production ready, we'll actually see this be released and get our hands on it. Next up for character and animations, there's a bunch of updates and new features. The first new feature is the direct mesh controls. So, this is a brand new experimental feature that allows you to use control rig to directly rig parts of the character body. So, instead of selecting control rigs controls, like the little editor gizmos, you can actually just select directly the mesh and animate rotate parts of the body, the arms. And this makes animating a lot easier as you don't have all the controls in the way.

[00:02:42]You can just select parts of the body, especially for smaller meshes or complex, you know, weapon rigs where you have a lot of different controls. Next up, another new feature is a MetaHuman Crowd plugin. So, this allows you to assemble optimized instances of MetaHuman characters to create crowds compatible with mass scaling from the tens to thousands of characters. The new experimental MetaHuman Crowd plugin provides a complete assembly pipeline with seamless transitions between high-fidelity individual actors and low-fidelity instance skeletal meshes based on camera distance. So, it supports modular components, things like head, body, hair, clothing, and you can compose them by hand or procedurally using blueprints. And of course, the whole system is simulated with mass and rendered using Nanite or you can use dynamic LOD systems. An example project is included and it runs on all Unreal Engine target platforms. So, I'll have to go more in-depth in this in a separate video to check it out. So, make sure that you guys are subscribed if you want to see that future video. And before we enter the next feature, I wanted to quickly tell you about my new Unreal Engine 5 beginners course. Want to go from zero experience to building four real games in Unreal Engine 5. In this course, you'll build four complete games step-by-step, a 2.5D crossy road style game, an obstacle course game packed with gameplay mechanics, a 3D puzzle platformer, and a full-fledged zombie first-person shooter game created completely from scratch. You won't just be watching tutorials, you'll actually learn blueprints, player movement, UI systems, enemy AI, weapons, puzzle mechanics, and real optimization techniques, all while actually building playable projects. Each game builds on the last, so you'll always know what you're doing and why you're doing it.

[00:04:19]And every project is optimized to run at over 100 plus FPS on the Steam Deck at native resolution, no upscalers, and the default graphic settings. You can pick up the course right now at a special launch discount. Make sure that you grab it soon as the price will increase later on. And if you're ready to finally learn Unreal Engine 5, click the link in the description below and start building your very first game today. Next up, the next biggest feature in 5.8 that they introduced is that you can now turn meshes into a MetaHuman character. So, previously you were only able to convert a face from a mesh to MetaHuman, but now you can convert any human character mesh with arbitrary topology into a fully rigged MetaHuman in a single workflow.

[00:04:57]This improved mesh to MetaHuman process conforms both head and body simultaneously, accepting input meshes of any topology, and automatically generating results powered by the MetaHuman database. So, this is ideal for characters created from scans, and external gen AI, or DCC tools, or existing character conversions. So, this is a pretty neat feature as you'll be able to take any character model, whether that is, you know, a bodybuilder that has a bunch of muscles, and you can convert it into a MetaHuman character, so it'll have the same exact body shape, but will have all the texture and the detail of the MetaHuman character. Also, for character and animation, another big update is that MetaHuman Animator is now available on Linux and Mac OS. So, if you want to create facial animations using performance capture, you don't need to use a Windows machine. So, it's just nice to see that Epic is continuing to support other different platforms like Mac and Linux. And there's quite a bit of other character and animation improvements and updates, things like the modular control rig, they've added more features to that, as well as improved foot definition for retargeting. Now, as for world-building, we're getting a huge update to the landscape system. In fact, this is a brand new system called mesh terrain, which is different than landscapes. This is a next-generation mesh-based terrain solution to support large worlds with 3D modeling, layering, virtual texture generic editor tools, variable tessellation, and Nanite. This aims at replacing and removing typical constraints in the current height field only landscape solution in Unreal Engine. So, essentially, this mesh terrain plugin allows you to sculpt, sort of like voxel terrain, where you can sculpt in any direction. So, the current restrictions of the landscape system in Unreal Engine is that you can only sculpt up or down. You can't sculpt horizontally, and what the mesh terrain plugin allows you to do is create these cliffs, these overhangs, sort of similar to sculpting, you know, voxel terrain.

[00:06:47]It also has a lot of other features, like you take a rock static mesh and convert that to the mesh terrain. And of course, you can layer all your materials onto the terrain. And of course, when you're done, you can convert the terrain to an actual mesh, so you can bake out H LODs or the Nanite geometry. Also, along with the mesh terrain plugin, it comes with two additional plugins, one for the mesh partition, so it works with the world partition system, and also for the water plugin. So, it actually has support for the water plugin, things like rivers, lakes, islands, oceans, and much more. So again, this is a pretty neat feature. I'll have to check it out in a separate video, so make sure that you guys stay tuned for that. As for PCG and procedural content, they've added a couple of updates to PCG, as well as the procedural vegetation editor. But in 5.2, they've just added additional nodes and improvements to the system. It still remains experimental. As for framework, they added some more improvements to the mover, improved physics, animation, and networking, and also to the mass framework, faster, modular, and support for multi-core CPUs. As for platforms, there have been updates to the mobile renderer. Also, they've added support for the Steam frame, which is the new Valve VR headset. It's pretty cool to see that they're adding updates and support for the Steam frame, and you know, just the Valve hardware. So, yeah, I'm excited to hear you guys' thoughts on the Steam frame, and also the Steam machine. I would actually want to try and get my hands on a Steam machine and just test out some Unreal Engine demos.

[00:08:11]I'm interested to know you guys' thoughts if you'd be interested in that type of content. Let me know down in the comments down below. As for the editor, the editor is receiving a bunch of quality of life updates, as well as a new gizmo system. So, I've already made a separate video about this, but they've added a brand new movement gizmo tool, which basically displays the units by how far you're moving an object to, how much you're scaling it by, and also they replaced the rotation tools with this brand new gizmo that allows you to rotate an object based on the screen space direction of which you're facing it. The new gizmo has visual and interaction improvements, as listed below. And overall, I think this is a pretty good change. Next up, they've also added some preview scene improvements to the static mesh editor, as well as the material preview editor, like a new floor grid that you can customize. But also for the material editor, they've added a new shader ball preview mesh. So, you can actually preview your material on the shader ball, but also you can select what material slot you want to apply or preview the material on, which I think is a pretty neat feature. As for the editor, they've added some quality of life fixes to the editor UI layout.

[00:09:15]Basically, the editor preferences now has these different categories, which you can expand and unexpand, which just makes it easier to scroll through the list and find what settings you need to change. Also, they've moved the keyboard shortcuts into its own separate window.

[00:09:29]So, under the edit tab, you can now access the keyboard shortcuts from its own separate window, rather than having to go into the editor preferences, they've also added these different categories in the project settings, which is very nice because now you don't have to scroll through the entire list.

[00:09:44]You can just select on the category that you need and you'll be able to configurate your project settings from there. As for the content browser, they've updated the content browser right-click menu. They basically moved around the data table and data assets.

[00:09:57]So, instead of it being under the miscellaneous tab, they moved it into its own category under the data tab. So, I know for some people this might throw some people off, but just note that they've rearranged a couple things in the content browser menu. Also, for the editor, they've added a new MCP server experimental plugin. This plugin enables AI systems to connect to the Unreal editor and this allows these systems to understand the engine and the project as well as helping users build assets or systems. So, essentially, this allows you to connect your Unreal Engine project to, you know, AI, whether that's Claude code or another model and allows you to have context-sensitive control over your project. So, yeah, is this something that you guys are interested in? Let me know down in the comments down below. I haven't really messed around much with AI in Unreal Engine.

[00:10:40]Maybe this is something I'll have to give a try in a future video. As for virtual production and production rendering, there have been quite a bit of updates. I'm not going to go over all the different updates here. So, if you guys want to check those out, I'll leave a link to the public road map in the description of this video. But, those are all the major updates and brand new features coming to Unreal Engine 5.8. As for the release date, currently, there is no set release date, but they did mention on the forums that is going to be releasing sometime during mid-June.

[00:11:09]And well, coincidentally, in mid-June, Unreal Fest is also going to be hosted.

[00:11:13]So, from the 16th to the 19th, they'll be having their annual Unreal Fest event. So, I think it's safe to assume that Unreal Engine 5.8, the official release date will be sometime between the 16th and the 19th of June. So, if you guys want to stay up-to-date on the latest Unreal Engine news and content, make sure that you subscribe as I will be making separate videos on all these new features as well as covering Unreal Fest announcements and news as we get closer to the release date of 5.8. And that's pretty much it for this video.

[00:11:40]So, let me know what you guys think about these new features down in the comments down below. And as always, I'll see you guys in the next one.