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Unreal Engine

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Unreal Engine
Developer(s)Epic Games
Stable release
Build 39xx / November, 2008
Written inC++, UnrealScript
Operating systemCross-platform
Available inEnglish
TypeGame engine
Websitehttp://www.unrealtechnology.com

The Unreal Engine is a popular game engine developed by Epic Games. First illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal, it has been the basis of many games since, including Unreal Tournament, Turok, Mass Effect, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, America's Army, Red Steel, Gears of War, BioShock, Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror, Mirror's Edge and so forth. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of genres, including stealth (Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell), MMORPG (Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Lineage II) as well as RPGs with Mass Effect and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

With its core written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability, supporting a multitude of platforms including Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Mac OS X on personal computers and many video game consoles including the Dreamcast, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 though the latest version of the Unreal Engine, UE3, doesn't work on previous generation platforms. A great deal of the gameplay code is written in UnrealScript, a proprietary scripting language, and as such large parts of the gameplay can be modified without delving deep into the engine internals. Additionally, as with other middleware packages, the Unreal Engine also provides various tools to assist with content creation, both for designers and artists.

The latest release is the Unreal Engine 3, which is designed around Microsoft's DirectX 9 technology for 32/64-bit Windows and Xbox 360 platforms, DirectX 10 for 32/64-bit Windows Vista, and OpenGL for 32/64-bit Linux, Mac OS X and PlayStation 3.

Versions

Unreal Engine 1

Making its debut in 1998, the first generation Unreal Engine integrated rendering, collision detection, AI, visibility, networking and file system management into one complete engine. With the level of integration used, some trade-offs were necessary to maintain performance levels with the hardware that was available at the time. For example, Epic decided to use cylindrical collision detection over the IK collision detection system in an effort to maintain playable framerates on systems that were common at the time of its release. Internally, Epic used this engine for Unreal and Unreal Tournament.

File:Unreal Engine Comparison.jpg
A comparison of Unreal Engine 1, 2 and 3's rendering capabilities using the Malcolm model from Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal Tournament 3 side-by-side. It should be noted that while the last Malcolm is pre-rendered (as Malcolm is not playable in Unreal Tournament 3), characters in-game do have this level of detail.

Unreal Engine 2

The second version of the Unreal Engine made its debut with America's Army. This generation saw the core code and rendering engine completely re-written and the new UnrealEd 3 integrated. It also integrated the Karma physics SDK, which powered the Ragdoll physics in Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Championship. Many other engine elements were also updated, with improved assets and added support for the PlayStation 2, GameCube and the Xbox. Build UE2.5, an update, improved rendering performance and added vehicles physics, particle system editor for UnrealEd and 64-bit support in Unreal Tournament 2004. A specialized version of UE2.5 called UE2X, which was used for Unreal Championship 2, features optimizations specific to the first-generation Xbox. Sound effect EAX 3.0.

Unreal Engine 3

The third generation Unreal Engine was designed for DirectX 9/10 PCs, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.[1] Its renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows, and builds upon the tools available in previous versions of the engine. Unreal Engine 3 IPP (Integrated Partners Program) includes:

Epic has used this generation of the engine for Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War and an improved version for Gears of War 2. Midway Games has also used this generation of the engine for Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

Due to aggressive licensing, this current iteration has garnered a great deal of support from several big licensees, including Atari, Activision, Capcom, Disney, Konami, Koei, 2K Games, Midway, THQ, Ubisoft, Sega, Sony, Electronic Arts, Square Enix and more. UE3 has also seen adoption by many non-gaming projects including construction simulation and design, training simulation, driving simulation, virtual reality shopping malls, movie storyboards, continuity, pre-visual, etc., in spite of the fact that the toolset and source code are meant for games. At E3 2007, Sony announced a partnership with Epic with the objective of optimizing the Unreal Engine 3 for the PlayStation 3 hardware, which would affect the dozens of games and developers currently using it.

As of July 19, 2007, the Unreal Engine 3 is the subject of a lawsuit served to Epic from Silicon Knights. Denis Dyack, president of Silicon Knights alleged that the Unreal Engine 3 did not work as Epic promised and that certain features and support were not delivered in a timely manner. "..it seems pretty clear that Gears [of War] was built on the backs of the Unreal Engine licensees. We certainly stand by our allegations in the lawsuit that instead of using our licensing fees to develop and support the Unreal Engine 3, Epic used that money to build Gears," Dyack said. As such, Silicon Knights decided not to use the Unreal Engine for future games and instead, claim to have created its own at a large cost of time and money. Epic however, counter-sued Silicon Knights, claiming unrightful use of reverse engineered Unreal 3 technology in its new Silicon Knights engine.

  • According to Epic Games vice-president Mark Rein, an unnamed licensee is trying to port the Unreal Engine 3 to the Wii.[21]

At GDC 2008, Epic showed off several improvements to the Unreal Engine 3 design that includes the ability for far more characters on screen, more realistic water physics and soft-body physics (demonstrated at the show using a 'cube of meat'), massively more destructible environments, improved AI, and better lighting and shadow effects with more advanced shader routines. The revised Engine, referred to as Unreal Engine 3.25/5, debuted with Gears of War 2.

Unreal Engine 4

Mark Rein, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed on August 18 2005 that Unreal Engine 4 had been in development over the past two years.[22] The engine targets the next generation of consoles exclusively after the seventh generation. The only person to work on the Unreal Engine 4 core system design so far is Tim Sweeney, technical director and founder of Epic games.[23] However, at the 2006 GDC, Sweeney stated that development will not begin in earnest on the next version until some time in 2008. Sweeney has also predicted that the number of developers would be ramped up to three or four engineers by the end of 2008, and would be aimed predominantly at the next generation consoles rather than PCs.[24] Tim gave a talk at POPL06 sharing some of his thoughts on programming.[25] However, it was later confirmed by Mark Rein, the vice president of Epic Games that Unreal Engine 4 was coming to PC. Mark Rein also clarified what Tim Sweeney meant. "When Tim Sweeney was talking about Unreal Engine 4 ... he mentioned something along the lines of it being exclusively for the next generation of consoles… what he meant was, it won't run on this generation of consoles."

List of video games using Unreal engines

See also

References

  1. ^ Unreal Technology
  2. ^ Unreal Engine 3 integrates AGEIA PhysX processor support
  3. ^ News
  4. ^ Quazal Joins The Unreal(R) Engine 3 Integrated Partners Program // GamesIndustry.biz
  5. ^ http://www.fonix.com/fonix/recentNews2.php?id=3
  6. ^ Kynogon Joins Epic's Integrated Partners Program (IPP) for Unreal® Engine 3. // GamesIndustry.biz
  7. ^ Learn more about AI.implant for games on the editor website
  8. ^ Interactive Data Visualization Joins The Unreal(R) Engine 3 Integrated Partners Program // GamesIndustry.biz
  9. ^ http://www.pixelminegames.com/news.aspx?process=view_record&rid=23
  10. ^ http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21556
  11. ^ Video Game News, Video Game Coverage, Video Game Updates, PC Game News, PC Game Coverage - GameDaily
  12. ^ Allegorithmic |ProFX
  13. ^ Gamasutra - PhaseSpace Motion Capture Joins UE3 Partner Program
  14. ^ Gamasutra - GameSpy Joins Epic’s UE3 Integrated Partners Program
  15. ^ http://www.umbra.fi/Umbra-PR_2007-09-07_Epic.txt
  16. ^ Farid (2007-12-18). "Illuminate Labs Joins Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 Integrated Partners Program". Beyond3D.
  17. ^ Gamasutra - NaturalMotion's Morpheme Integrated Into Unreal Engine 3
  18. ^ "GameInfoWire - Scaleform and Epic Games announce Scaleform GFx integration for Unreal Engine 3". Gameinfowire.com. 2008-02-19.
  19. ^ http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/IntegratedPartnersProgram.html
  20. ^ http://www.audiokinetic.com/4105/audiokinetic-news-details.asp?news_id=92
  21. ^ Wii Unreal Engine 3 in Development
  22. ^ Houlihan, John. "Rein: We've been working on Unreal Engine 4 for two years". ComputerAndVideoGames.com. Future Publishing Limited. Retrieved 2005-08-19.
  23. ^ Houlihan, John (2005-09-20). "Interview: Mark Rein". ComputerAndVideoGames.com. Future Publishing Limited. Retrieved 2005-09-30.
  24. ^ Valich, Theo (2008-03-12). "Tim Sweeney, Part 3: Unreal Engine 4.0 aims at next-gen console war". TG Daily. Tigervision Media. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  25. ^ Sweeney, Tim. "The Next Mainstream Programming Language: A Game Developer's Perspective" (Powerpoint). Princeton University.
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