Autodesk Beast (a.k.a. PLEASE be in the next UDK)

Computron

[ame="youtube.com/watch?v=gl6ryY2UWMM"]youtube.com/watch?v=gl6ryY2UWMM[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3WjIJxsFDg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3WjIJxsFDg[/ame]

tristamus

Damn...very, very nice.

System

Beast wont be in any UDK release. Requires that you have access to the source C information of the engine. Plus this is a huge market for Autodesk.

Pretty awesome stuff though, we had a live showcase over at SCAD for BEAST and the other middleware products. The AI stuff is crazy and HIK is ridiculous. Autodesk middleware is awesome.

Beast calculates larger lightmaps the longer the light sits without moving. As you move it it calcs the lightmaps at smaller res, basically instantaneous GI. As opposed to Lightmass which you have to sit and wait for high res lightmaps. On the fly GI lighting essentially pretty fricken cool.

Computron

But are the results shipable or is it strictly previs? do rebake in lightmass later? is there any quility/feature difference?

System

Nope the result is shipable. This completely replaces lightmass, wait a few moments and you have full res 4k lightmaps or whatever your highest settings are.
As far as quality Im not sure, Medal of Honor used it on their most recent release. The main thing here was on the fly lighting, without waiting for a lightmass bake.


This was close to one of the images they showed us to pimp its ability.

Computron

Heavenly.

LoTekK

That is mental. I like that it's doing iterative bakes, coarse->fine, and that it prioritises the immediately-viewable area.

Brendan

I've used Beast before, and a simple version of it is also in Unity3 (pro version). Even that is bloody awesome, fantastic results and so fast. Now that it's quasi-realtime, I think the quality should sky-rocket. No more waiting over a quick snack for large levels to bake, and people tend to get more adventurous when the time it takes to fix mistakes is almost nothing.

Autodesk's best move was buying out IlluminateLabs, by far. (Though IlluminateLabs's worst move was being bought by Autodesk, they were lovely people!)


Does anyone know how this integrates with Turtle for Maya? That doesn't do the real-time thing, but it does do awesome bakes. Is there much need for it, considering Beast is handling environments?

Froyok

ChrisPerr wrote: »

Beast wont be in any UDK release. Requires that you have access to the source C information of the engine. Plus this is a huge market for Autodesk.

I agree whith you, but why they are using UDK for these videos ?

Anyway, it's impressive, but I prefer Enlighten which is in full realtime.

LoTekK

Froyok wrote: »

I agree whith you, but why they are using UDK for these videos ?

It's not UDK. It's the for-lots-of-money Unreal Engine 3 you license with full source. Biiig difference

Brendan

Froyok wrote: »

I agree whith you, but why they are using UDK for these videos ?

Anyway, it's impressive, but I prefer Enlighten which is in full realtime.

Beast was sorta born in UDK. DICE and Illuminate Labs had a history, with Mirror's Edge in UDK using Beast. IlluminateLabs was part of Epic Integrated Partner Program.


Also, it was UDK, Gamebryo or Unity. Nothing high-poly enough has been done in Unity and they're probably making Gamebryo jokes right now.

Froyok

LoTekK wrote: »

It's not UDK.

Well, look closely, the name of the Editor window is "Unreal Development Kit".

Bruno Afonseca

What I don't yet understand is how it blends GI with direct light. Is this sunlight realtime while the rest is baked?

LoTekK

Froyok wrote: »

Well, look closely, the name of the Editor window is "Unreal Development Kit".

Well shit. Just checked it, and yeah, you're right. I feel silly now

System

It also says Unreal Engine for Unreal Development Kit which is not what UDK actually says when you open it. Anyway Im positive you need UE3.

Not sure about dynamic light vs baked? According the interwebz characters are lit dynamically, so not sure.

Jesse Moody

Well the level they are showing is the stuff from Epic Citadel and the UT3 level (can't remember the name). So my guess it's modded UDK... Who knows...

Froyok

DM-Deck for the level.
I don't think Epic will integrate Beast in the UDK, there is no interest for developing lightmass if it's for using Beast later.

sprunghunt

Beast isn't much different to lightmass. It's still lightmap-based lighting.

medal of honour uses the geomerics lighting system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite_(game_engine)
http://www.geomerics.com/enlighten/

it's not the same as beast or lightmass - it's a completely realtime system for a start.

Jesse Moody

sprunghunt wrote: »

Beast isn't much different to lightmass. It's still lightmap-based lighting.

medal of honour uses the geomerics lighting system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite_(game_engine)
http://www.geomerics.com/enlighten/

it's not the same as beast or lightmass - it's a completely realtime system for a start.

Sprung.. you said Medal of Honor but you linked two things directly related to Battlefield 3.

I do believe Medal of Honor used beast from what I remember though...

e-freak

MoH used Beast for the Singleplayer and I guess they bought the integration of Dice (or at least some of the know-how), given that they integrated Beast for Mirrors Edge already as Lightmass wasn't available back then.

I know baking has some great advantages, especially considering mobile and web target platforms, but I've gotten really used to working entirely realtime in CryEngine (no self advertisment intended here) and I'd guess that Epic would probably target to get to entirely realtime as well, rather than sticking with Baking. I guess they'll keep Lightmass as the platform to render Lightmaps for low-spec systems but will go fully dynamic rather sooner than later.

Computron

Well, theres not reason you can't do a little of both, similar to unity.

odd_enough

Beast looks very nice, but it's also very pricey.

In addition to the cost of licensee status of UE3 (which is $325k, from what I remember), you must also purchase a license for the Beast middleware which, according the Autodesk rep I talked to, "is about $50K for the first sku then additional sku's are less. A typical 2 sku project with support ( ie: Xbox 360 & PS3) is about $70K.
Mobile, android, iOs and ipad, etc. is a bit less."

While Enlighten looks fantastic (I've been following its development since 2005, and am giddy that it is finally in games now), I'm also suspecting that it costs a good deal more than Beast. So beast looks like it could be a good compromise, and be usable on a wider range of hardware. Though I did hear some mention that Enlighten's lighting quality scales depending on your CPU power. So it could run fine on a core2 duo, just not with the quality you'd expect, and likewise, you'd get superior quality if you had a machine running dual 10-core Xeons. Not sure if that's true or not though.

sprunghunt

Jesse Moody wrote: »

Sprung.. you said Medal of Honor but you linked two things directly related to Battlefield 3.

I do believe Medal of Honor used beast from what I remember though...

Well I was partially right. As it says in the first link. DICE uses the frostbite engine. And this is what they used for MOH multiplayer. DICE didn't make the singleplayer and for some reason they used unreal instead of the frostbite engine.

o2car

sprunghunt wrote: »

Well I was partially right. As it says in the first link. DICE uses the frostbite engine. And this is what they used for MOH multiplayer. DICE didn't make the singleplayer and for some reason they used unreal instead of the frostbite engine.

Medal of Honor (2010) used Beast/Unreal 3 for singleplayer and Frostbite 1 without lighting middleware for Multiplayer. SP developed by EALA, MP developed by DICE.

Medal of Honor : Warfighter (2012) used Frostbite 2 with Geomerics Enlighten (Just like BF3). MoH : WF developed by EALA aka Danger Close. BF3 by DICE.