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June UDK Beta released

Oniram
polycounter lvl 17
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Oniram polycounter lvl 17
HOLY CRAP THIS LOOKS AWESOME!

http://udk.com/news-beta-jun2011

June 2011 UDK Beta Upgrade Notes

New Foliage Editor

  • Quickly paint instanced foliage and decoration using the new foliage system.
    June_image001.jpg
  • Meshes and settings to be used by the foliage painting tool can be set up in the foliage editor, which is enabled through the Foliage Mode button in the toolbox.
  • Foliage instance types can specify a landscape layer name for weighting. If you set this, foliage panted on landscape will have its density modulated by the weight of the specified layer.
  • Foliage painting can now be used for altitude-based painting as well.
Map Templates

  • New map templates let you immediately configure lighting for day, night, dawn or sunset.
  • Simply drag the appropriate thumbnail from the Unreal Content Browser into a level to populate settings and achieve the desired lighting effect.
  • Map templates are fully customizable, too!
    June_image001_0001.png
Mobile Workflow and Lighting Improvements

  • Lighting is now easier to implement for PC and mobile games.
    • Dominant lights are now baked into light maps for mobile.
    • Light shafts can now be activated on light mapped lights.
    • Gamma correction for mobile is now supported, providing the ability to have a consistent look across platforms.
    • This is a forward-looking feature and currently only has acceptable performance on iPad 2.
      June_clip_image001_0002.png
      The scene on the right has gamma correction enabled.
  • UDK now ships with one single editor and game content tree for both PC games and mobile games!
    • Share gameplay logic and assets between PC and mobile more easily.
    • New in-editor mobile preview mode: Preview your PC level with mobile features instantly with a simple tool bar toggle.
    June_clip_image005.png

  • Mobile Previewer now has presets for iPad 2.This is a new option in the drop-down menu.
  • There is a new 'Always Optimize Content for Mobile' editor preference, which forces PVRTC compression and flattening, providing high-quality textures when previewing on mobile devices.
  • A guide to migrating mobile projects from previous versions of UDK to the June UDK Beta is available now as well.
Simplygon Static Mesh Reduction

  • Simplygon is used to automatically generate game-ready Level of Detail models (LODs) for a specific pixel resolution.
    • Simplygon uses a proprietary mesh reduction method that retains geometrical LOD integrity and visual quality of LOD switching, producing AutoLODs that can directly be used inside triple-A games.
    • Unreal Engine 3 leverages Simplygon to provide high-quality mesh reduction without having to leave the Unreal Editor.
    • Developers can quickly simplify meshes, generate LODs, and immediately see the results in their maps.
    June_clip_image006.jpg
    The mesh has been reduced with a quality setting of 50%, resulting in similar looking geometry with a much lower triangle count.
Unreal Kismet Debugger

  • It is now possible to visualize Kismet node activation, set breakpoints that pause execution when nodes are activated, and step through sequences while running PIE!
    • With this brand new Kismet debugger, you can:
    • Visualize the flow of your Kismet sequence while your game is running.
    • Debug issues where nodes are being activated in the wrong order, not at the right time, not at all, or too much.
    • Step through your sequences one frame at a time and set breakpoints.
  • The Kismet debugger controls are located in the Kismet toolbar.
    June_clip_image001_0001.jpg
  • These features can help identify exactly what parts of a sequence are currently executing in your game and for what reasons.
    June_clip_image002_0000.png
    [*]Enabling the Kismet Debugger is done through the Enable Kismet Debugging button in the main editor toolbar.

    Profiling, Performance, and Memory Improvements

    • Major memory and performance optimizations ship with the June UDK Beta.
    • The STAT UNITGRAPH command provides easy in-game visualization of performance data, making problem areas easy to detect during play.
      June_clip_image009.png
    • Gameplay Profiler improvements include:
      • You can now see time spent in native cycle counter scopes on the game thread.
      • Data types are color-coded, so it’s easy to distinguish levels, actors, script functions, and so on.
      • The Gameplay Profiler can now display an asset associated with an actor or component.
      June_clip_image002_0001.png
    Unreal Landscape

    • Unreal Landscape now supports decals, which makes it possible to add dynamic effects such as tire tracks or footsteps to surfaces.
    • Landscape now has a custom texture brush that enables you to control the shape of the brush using a texture. Paint layer weights, noise, etc. with a brush of any shape.
      clip_image011.png
    • A preview of the texture in use is now displayed with brush settings.
      June_clip_image002_0002.png
    Additional Improvements

    • The Height Fog shader has been optimized.
    • Editor Preferences have been moved to the main menu bar for easy access!
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