TiMi Studio Group has raised the technical bar with Honor of Kings: World, an open-world MMORPG that fully leverages Unreal Engine 5. The title not only boasts a Chinese fantasy art style but also implements cinematic post-processing systems and advanced fluid physics to simulate rivers, waterfalls, and seas with a realism never before seen in the mobile genre. Behind this visual facade lies a production pipeline that combines classic tools with generative artificial intelligence. 🎮
Asset Pipeline: 3ds Max, SpeedTree, and Procedural Biome Generation 🌿
For hard-surface geometry and character creation, the studio relies on 3ds Max as the backbone of modeling, leveraging its procedural modifiers and native integration with UE5's material system via Datasmith. Vegetation, meanwhile, is built with SpeedTree, allowing granular LOD control crucial for maintaining 60 fps on mid-range devices. However, the qualitative leap lies in generative AI: diffusion algorithms trained on datasets of Chinese landscapes generate biome variations (bamboo forests, floating mountains) that artists then refine. This reduces the time to populate a 100-square-kilometer map from weeks to days, though the team must manually oversee topological coherence to avoid real-time artifacts.
Real-Time Optimization and the Challenge of Fluid Physics 💧
Fluid physics in an open world is a performance challenge. TiMi has opted for a hybrid solution: particle simulation for local interactions (splashes, eddies) and a deformable mesh system with distance shaders for large bodies of water. Thanks to Unreal Engine 5's dynamic occlusion and the use of Nanite for static elements, the game manages to maintain a manageable polygon load. Even so, cinematic lighting with Lumen requires a fixed time of day in certain areas to avoid saturating the GPU, a necessary compromise for Chinese fantasy to shine without sacrificing gameplay.
How TiMi Studio Group optimizes Unreal Engine 5's performance to render vast landscapes inspired by Chinese mythology without sacrificing smoothness on current-generation consoles and mid-range PCs
(PS: optimizing for mobile is like trying to fit an elephant into a Mini Cooper)