In January this year, Tencent released the latest 8.8.55 version update of mobile QQ, the size of the Android version installation package is as high as 371MB, and the iOS version is 879MB, which is directly double compared to the previous version.
Even more outrageous than this is that Tencent has also stuffed an Unreal 4 engine in this version of QQ, and the built-in game engine cannot be directly seen by users in QQ, and it can be easily found through some third-party application analysis software such as "LibChecker".
Now, the latest versions of QQ Android and iOS are 8.8.88, the installation package size is 351MB and 796MB, and the actual application size after the Android version is unpacked has reached 849MB.
More importantly, the 20GB+ storage space is often occupied, which is simply easy for QQ.
Compared with the 8.8.55 version of the first built-in Unreal 4 game engine, although the application volume is slightly reduced, it does not affect it at all to call it Tencent's first domestic "AAA masterpiece".
As a chat software, how should you accurately describe the mobile phone QQ with an application volume approaching 1GB?
If you open the qq official website homepage and click download QQ for Windows, you will find that the installation package volume is only 174MB;
10 years ago, the QQ installation package was only about 50MB;
As a national mobile phone operating system, WeChat has an Android application volume of 827MB;
ISO image size for Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3 operating system 601.04MB;
The volume of the pc-side crossfire initial version installation package is about 500MB;
Facebook App 258MB；
Instagram App 183MB；
Twitter App 176MB；
Telegram App 93MB；
LINE App 72MB；
Messenger App 70MB；
The sum of the above 6 app installation packages is 852MB.
The mobile QQ application is close to 1GB in size, and the direct reason is that the Unreal 4 game engine is built-in, occupying one-third of the size of QQ.
Starting from the 8.8.55 version in January, QQ launched a new function: Super QQ Show, compared to the previous QQ Show, the avatar in the Super QQ Show was upgraded from 2D to 3D, and also with a 3D virtual scene similar to the VR effect, all of which is the service support provided by the Unreal 4 engine.
Users can customize face pinching in the new version of the QQ show, and face capture can also be achieved through the "AI photo pinch face" function, and there is also a "clothing system", and some costumes need to be purchased to have.
Unreal Engine 4 is a 3D graphics creation platform owned by Epic Games, which is widely used in game development, such as the well-known PUBG, Fortnite, Peace Elite, Kill by Dawn, Infinity Blade and other games are created by Unreal 4 Engine.
Epic Unreal Engine official website homepage
And QQ is just an instant messaging software, how did not expect that one day will be QQ and unreal 4 engine linked to write an article, even if QQ has graphics rendering needs, but it seems that it really can not make the built-in Unreal 4 engine, there is always a sense of dislocation of oversized.
For example, the Taobao App is similar to the "Taobao Life" function, which uses HTML rendering.
What is the real purpose of QQ's built-in Unreal 4 engine?
Perhaps exploring new models of graphical socialization, the built-in UE4 is just the beginning.
If mobile Internet social networking was originally the era of words, and now it is the era of pictures and videos, then in the context of the current wave of the metaverse, a new era of graphical social networking will become possible in the future.
Different from the third-party information carrier medium such as text, pictures or videos, the emergence of virtual images makes everyone have their own "avatar" in the Internet, through the beautiful image of "another self" virtual characters, breaking through the restrictions of Internet socialization, so that physical distance, appearance and dressing up are no longer social obstacles, have more free expression and social space, and create more possibilities.
For example, in the context of the epidemic, many students cannot attend the graduation ceremony at the school site, and the cloud graduation ceremony will become a good solution. In addition, there are online virtual classes, cloud conferences, cloud interviews, and the emergence of "self-avatars" will really bring us together across spaces.
It can be seen that the 3D rendering interaction function is the basic need of graphical social networking, so Super QQ Show sacrifices the application volume in order to achieve such a function. The Unreal 4 game engine powers virtualized, high-quality 3D image representations, enabling them to get better, more refined models and more vivid physics.
There is reason to believe that the character virtualization of the super QQ show will be the beginning of all new social models.
At that time in the future, can people still remember that QQ was originally just a chat software?
However, if Tencent can add a service optional function to QQ, it is also a better solution for the vast majority of users...