Unreal Engine 5 Portal Fan-Remake: Why is it stunning?

It’s been a long time since the launch of Portal 2, but fans still hope to see the next mainline entry from the franchise. Although Valve just doesn’t seem interested enough in returning to this franchise anymore, a Portal remake could still be somewhere in the company’s plans!

Unreal Engine 5 Portal Fan-Remake

Unlike some other companies that usually stop modders from creating remakes or remasters of their IPs, Valve is mostly kind towards modders and supports them when they really have something worthy of release. The best example of this is Black Mesa, an unofficial remake of the Half-Life franchise that was released on Steam.

Now, an environment artist has recently recreated the first level of Portal in Unreal Engine 5 with modernized visuals, high-resolution textures, and Ray-Tracing, which could be a good signal for passionate modders that how great a remake of Portal would look like in UE5.

Portal Remake in Unreal Engine 5 Looks Incredible, But It Won’t Be Released!

While Alfred Beddow has done an incredible job recreating Portal in Unreal Engine 5 with 8K textures, it is not going to be a full project, which means there wouldn’t be a playable version of it.

This Portal remake is only a demo to show what Unreal Engine 5 is capable of as well as the quality of the artist’s work in this brand new engine from Epic Games.

That being said, this could already become a great idea for modders and developers to really work on a remake of the Portal franchise in a modern-day engine like Unreal Engine 5.

Such a project would definitely find a huge community of supporters if Valve would allow it to become a commercial launch in the future.

Portal Level 00 REMAKE in Unreal Engine 5 – [Ray-traced]

This is a recreation of the first level 00 of portal in Unreal Engine 5.

Portal Unreal Engine 5 Fan Remake With Ray Tracing Looks Like a Proper Next-Gen Remake

A Portal Unreal Engine 5 fan remake video has surfaced online, showing Valve’s 2007 puzzle-platform title in Epic’s new engine, and it has us thirsting for a proper next-gen remake.

Since the release of the Unreal Engine version, there have been plenty of videos showing titles being remade in Epic’s new engine. Today, we wanted to share this Portal remake video, complete with Ray Tracing. The fan video is courtesy of artist Alfred Beddow and shows the game’s first environment from the prelude, “test chamber 00”, in UE5. We’ve also included some screenshots of this pretty spectacular fan project.

Unfortunately, as with most of these Unreal Engine 5 remakes, it’s unlikely that the artist will create the entirety of Portal in Epic’s new engine. Also, this remake probably won’t be released to the public. Beddow, however, does mention that, if there’s developer interest, a full remake might be a possibility.

“Made for a university project, each asset was recreated from the ground up with new models and textures”, the artist writes. “Creative liberty was taken in some aspects to improve the fidelity of the models as the originals could be of very low quality and hard to replicate. Some assets such as the walls and doors were taken inspiration from Portal 2. I admit it’s not perfect and is missing a few things but I was on a time crunch and unfortunately didn’t have time to do everything.”

This Portal Fan Remake in Unreal Engine 5 looks absolutely stunning

Thanks to an innovative modding community there have been enough mods made for Portal and Portal 2 to make the games feel completely new. One mod in particular, known as the Desolation Mod in Portal 2, adds an entirely new story and set of puzzles for fans to try to figure out. It is an exciting experience for Portal fans, but not quite enough to scratch the itch of waiting for a new game. However, the Desolation mod, along with another mod known as Portal Reloaded, has given fans something new to experience within the Portal world while they wait for news from Valve.

DualShockers shared a YouTube video made by Alf Does Stuff of their demo of the first level in Portal. This was made in Unreal Engine 5, which considerably enhances the game’s graphics. The video goes through the entire level, showing off different aspects from the walls to the cubes to the cameras hanging ominously on the walls, watching the player’s every move. The surfaces look very life-like, and it feels as though the videographer is walking through a real setting, filming the Portals and the cubes in person. Everything about this Unreal Engine 5 demo will likely make fans want Portal on a new generation of consoles more than they already do.

This is not the first time a fan has brought an older game to the next generation of graphics. Someone recently used Unreal Engine 5 to make a playable Spider-Man demo and it is absolutely stunning, much like this Portal demo. The updated graphics really prove how beautiful a new Portal could be if it ever sees the light of day.

Portals, How Do They Work ?

A portal is basically looking into a window that does not look outside but into another place, that means we define a specific point of view locally to an object and replicate that point of view somewhere else. By this principle we can stick two spaces next to each other even if they are far away. The window is like a mask that allows us to know where and when to display the other space instead of the original one. Since the original point of view is replicated to the other place it gives the illusion of being continuous.

The Capture device (a SceneCapture in UE4) is located in front of a space that match one visible from the player point of view. Everything visible after the line is replaced by what the capture can see. Because the capture device could be located between a door and other objects, it is important to put in place what we call a “clipping plane”. In case of a portal what we want is a near clipping plane which will mask out objects visible before the portal.

To summarize what we need :

The player location
A portal entry point
A portal exit point
A capture device with a clipping plane

How does that translate into the Unreal Engine then ?
The “Portal” class is an actual Portal entry point in a level with a target actor as its viewing/exit point. Then there is the “Portal Manager” which is spawned by the PlayerController and updated by the Character in order to manage/update properly every portal in the level as well as manipulating the SceneCapture object (which is shared between Portals).

Did Unreal engine make portal?

This product contains a full Unreal Engine project folder, complete with Config files, Content files and . uproject file, which can be used as a template to create a new project.

Can Unreal Engine Export to Web?

The Unreal 4 games can now be exported to HTML5 browsers by developers. Unreal Engine 4 developers will now be able to create content with this feature. With the click of a button, you can compile it to the Web, and launch it in your preferred browser.

Is unreal better than unity?

Unity has a wide range of mods in comparison to unreal. Unreal has around 10000 assets while unity has 31000 assets. Graphics: Both tools have good graphics but the unreal engine is preferred over-unity because of its graphic quality. Source Code: Unreal engine has open-source making the development process easier.

Does Unreal engine support WebGL?

The company announced today that it is adding HTML5 exporting to its Unreal 4 game-development engine. This will enable developers to export their projects to run on the Web in a browser like Firefox, which supports HTML5 and WebGL graphics.