Unreal Engine 4
polycounter lvl 14
I'm not sure if anybody else has heard, but I saw this on the Unreal Engine Facebook page. What do you guys think? is this for this gen as well? or a set up for next?
http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/720663/unreal-engine-4-to-be-revealed-in-2012-according-to-epics-mark-rein/
http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/720663/unreal-engine-4-to-be-revealed-in-2012-according-to-epics-mark-rein/
Replies
I'd be surprised if it ran on current gen console hardware. I'd also be surprised if it was all that different from UE3, or if it gave you any sense for what the next gen consoles will be like. There will be a lot of assumptions built in, and it will run on experimental hardware. Expect it to be a beefed up UE3, with a cool demo. They'll do behind closed doors demos at GDC, then put the video up online after GDC.
We don't even have proper access to Mips and LOD's for textures in the engine, let alone cubemaps, I really doubt they should even be thinking about this when we can do Mip levels in Max at DX9 level.
..what are you even talking about? ^^
I bet GDC it will be shown off behind closed doors or E3.
I guess well have to wait and see what happens.
Well if the samaritan demo was any indication, they are focusing on next gen and dx 11 with the new engine. Its supposedly built from the ground up and not an expansion on udk or unreal 3. Tessellation + Reflections + Film Effects +
Subsurface Scattering + Better AA + Deferred rendering + glossy reflections + stuff we haven't seen yet, hopefully. I wonder if they are throwing light baking completely out the window, I kinda hope so, and I'm also wondering if they are doing any megatexture features like in rage for terrain. Maybe we will so some cyrsis like real time GI.
Tightly integrated and friendly cross development with Max/Maya! ( opportunities to iterate at the very first stages of dcc content authoring. )
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/stevenr/project_skyline_at_siggraph
Also Visa versa!
would be aweome if integration would allow for, custom Maya python solutions Like IK blending for character navigation of unique terrain. ( perhaps even leveraging my 12 years of previous dev libraries and aging talents ) :poly136:
Watching project Skyline examples of tight Maya UDK intergration has me as giddy as a little schoolgirl. ( I really wished art to engine never died! I think during Maya 2.5 - 3 ish? I still have some early promotional cd-Roms if anyone is interested in some ancient Mayan artifacts ).
I will likely fo my body more harm ( inadvertantly spazing, or holding my breath till I pass out ) If they do not follow up with Project Skyline at GDC 2013 )
Some fundamentals in the engine have changed; you'll already notice tiny snippets of the 'Kismet 2' libraries have fallen into UDK as minor references. Although I do not know yet if it is the case, I'm expecting to see a more library driven approach (such as runtime hot-switchable DLLs), which may suggest that UnrealScript may be wholly deprecated.
Other than the above speculation (and this is speculation), I'm contractually obliged not to say what I already do know.
Your kidding, right?
no new console tech to prepare for just what we currently have with slightly more power behind it, since it seems the new xbox and PS will be based on what is considered to be fairly old tech that is already being used in the average computer.
Crytek's dynamic lighting has issues - it's fiendishly performance hungry for a start, and seems to exponentially deteriorate with increasing number of light sources. Their shadowing on the other hand is pretty sharp. Lightmaps in UDK under Dx9 are essential, especially on console hardware, as the lighting is forward-rendered (like CryEngine) and costly. Under Dx11 it's deferred and signficantly better until you start using shader lights, then it's back to forward rendered again (but how many of you use shaders on lights?)
Seriously... What are you talking about?
Thats just wishful thinking though and I really doubt they will attempt to address the api access and script execution speed issues
If they were to take some cues from Unity (and they had it available to everybody, like UDK) I would LooOoOOoOOoOove to be able to make browser builds.
Im not sure i follow you there. Why not both? ^^
I really hope they have better single player support (from scratch) and improved the AI.
I also hope they have it in full real time so that we don't have to build lighting or
brushes.
And have them already in udk
deferred rendering has already been in full use, and flashy looking vertex blending is easily done on shader model 2.0.
Nothing harsh, people discuss things.
There's no point in immunizing epic against criticism in any way, even if it might be unfounded at some points, it's mainly just speculation going on.
Discusser's gonna discuss.
Cheers
I guess you could have both, I was just thinking about how limiting of a material editor the cryengine 3 has (compared to udk), and I've heard its a lot more expensive to have a fancy shader in a differed engine.
I think lightmaps are still going to be around for a few generations. You can't quite get the same amount of detail and lighting complexity with realtime compared to offline baking as well as being cheaper.
-ah gotcha
I've been noticing this in the snow scene I recently started. In areas where it's just snow over a fairly flat surface the lightmaps give it some strange reflections that make it look like certain parts are iced over which is cool.
EDIT: And just as I post that UDK starts lighting my shit super dark for no reason.
I'm talking about the unintuitive way a MaterialInstance and Materials themselves, are setup, not really Kismet or Artists friendly at all if you want external access for certain real-time modifications.
So that if you want to use LOD's and Bias's of a texture for say SSS because you don't have access to DX11 and want to custom tailor your own stuff, ceramic and metal light bleeding, it's next to impossible, not mention if you do a little HLSL which requires certain nodes, you're later on unable to access them through any instance.
Also, considering your able to do ALL this in Viewports for modeling packages like Blender, Max and Maya, at DX9 level, I find it strange the way all this was dropped and introduced only in DX10, but you had to know some HLSL to access certain functions.
But now that DX10 was dropped, and DX11 is the only other renderer they have, it really leaved me peeved out on just how much of the 'basic' stuff which should be readily accessible to people is closed off and so limited, even if one buys the engine, unless they have a programmer who knows C on their hands, chances of you getting back much of the closes stuff it still hard.
My hopes is that UE4's entire shader systems kinks are worked out and made more transparent. Seriously, accessing something as simple as LOD's of a 512px texture shouldn't be a hidden feature, especially for Cubemaps.
Secondly I don't see how you can sit there complaining about UDK Vs DCC apps like Maya and Max, its apples to oranges. How about comparing UDK to other "Game Engines" and then tell me how inflexible it's material system is.
I hope in the new UDK they address alot of the issues and other people have, but those features aren't there probably because few people want or need to use them.
So I should say everything is fine and move along, that's it? Not ask for improvement in a certain area or be ticked off about it?
Are there other things they could fix? Yes, but isn't everything important to someone, so why should one thing be worth less then the other? Looking back, I don't see where I implied the UDK engine was a less then able engine, or that other things didn't need a spruce, hell, I think my Kismet comment alone is easily translatable to other areas on how unexposed it is sometimes.
Also, I cannot reference other engines because everyone has a hissy fit when I do, you can't even use the name of a certain Anglo-Nordic-Turk engine or one that has a developers name as that of a rolling numbered cube with some frosting on it, on Epic's site for comparison or even ask if such features exist since you topic or post will get a nice lockdown.
The reason I reference Max and Maya instead is because Max and Maya are poor in term of viewport bling, you have to pull every single trick in the book to get them look and nice and have an acceptable performance, as opposed to UDK which is super optimized and refined, yet you can have better definition of your material if you wish in the prior as opposed to the latter, which is awkward to say the least.
Also, considering we're well past the prime of using Specular all alone as the highlight of a model instead of a proper Cubemap which represents the roughness of a material, I would say this isn't a very narrowed down point at all, if anything that should be the next step in proper graphical fidelity which every bloody engines and their stockholders like screaming out of their slabbing man-tits.
The gist of it is simple; If someone is going to tout their engine as 'next-gen', they better bring stuff which have been available for ages now in laggy DCC viewports for a while now, because if I wanted soft bouncing tit physics, I would buy a really fat cat.
Getting changes and features into UE3 from the UDK forums can be done - and has been done several times before. It just needs to be done objectively.