We’ve written a lot about the power of Unreal Engine 5 for both game design and film and TV (and for 3D visualisation using Gaussian splatting). Now a new example of the engine’s abilities is generating debate over on YouTube. It shows graphics that verge on the photorealistic, but how viable is it for practical use?

Scans Factory’s Unreal Engine 5.4 demo shows a fictional version of Rome with cafes, cobblestone streets and, of course, lots of Vespas. The demo made use of UE5’s Lumen and Nanite as well as photogrammetry technology on RealityCapture software. It has multiple lighting scenarios and more than 1,000 assets including effects, sounds and level instances.