What I don't understand is that Epic showcased an amazing demo (elemental) using svogi and it ran pretty smoothly - even though it may have been 30fps but killzone 4 was made to run at 30fps.
Actually, now I understand it - Epic made a marketing decision - they knew that majority of gamers would not have gtx680 cards. However, this should not be an excuse because they explicitly stated that their engine was highly scalable (i.e. reducing the voxel resolution and number of cones traced).
What about the version of the engine that they provided to developers early on? I'm pretty sure that I recall a few months ago that games like Daylight were using svogi. I hope that they didn't force developers with an early build of the engine to reconstruct their games using a later build with svogi removed because of commercial reasons.
What I don't understand is that Epic showcased an amazing demo (elemental) using svogi and it ran pretty smoothly - even though it may have been 30fps but killzone 4 was made to run at 30fps.
Actually, now I understand it - Epic made a marketing decision - they knew that majority of gamers would not have gtx680 cards. However, this should not be an excuse because they explicitly stated that their engine was highly scalable (i.e. reducing the voxel resolution and number of cones traced).
I would expect a SVOGI approach to still need very high end PC graphics cards in 2-3 years. The method has difficulty scaling to large levels while maintaining quality. We were pushing the limits in the GDC 2012 Elemental demo, and that was not that large of an area. A lot of bad voxel artifacts show up if you can't get enough resolution, which is why the method doesn't scale down well.
We can always resurrect SVOGI in that time period if it becomes feasible. But we didn't want to keep it around in the meantime, because unused features rot and create a big maintenance burden. Basically, the more features you have, the harder it is to add new features.
At least UE4 supports DX10, I wont have to get a new graphics card right away.
It will?
I hope it's true, I don't have a DX11 card, and the DX9 material memory limitations really bite you in the ass sometimes.
Also, on a related note, since they switched to Deferred Rendering, did they scrap the material editor? Looking at the videos again, after the latest revelation, I'm hoping people still can create their own materials, it would suck if I had to choose between CE3 or UE4 and both of them gave the same limitation in that regard.
I hope it's true, I don't have a DX11 card, and the DX9 material memory limitations really bite you in the ass sometimes.
Also, on a related note, since they switched to Deferred Rendering, did they scrap the material editor? Looking at the videos again, after the latest revelation, I'm hoping people still can create their own materials, it would suck if I had to choose between CE3 or UE4 and both of them gave the same limitation in that regard.
Atm UE4 only supports DX10 and DX11 hardware on PC (either through OpenGL or DirectX11 APIs). This may change in the future, but the UE4 renderer is solidly targeted toward a DX11 feature set (compute shaders, scatter writes, tessellation).
I hope they keep it, they do love their node based programming, so I can't see them killing it unless they have to.
Also, on a related note, since they switched to Deferred Rendering, did they scrap the material editor?
Wait what? Why would that be the case? That's a pretty significant chunk of the Unreal power that will go away. Why would they get rid of material editing?
They haven't got rid of it, instead they improved it:
The main improvements for material layering in UE4 are the new physically based material inputs, and the material attributes struct. Materials now provide physically based attributes like BaseColor, Metallic, Roughness instead of the old DiffuseColor, SpecularColor, SpecularPower. The old attributes did not blend well, when you were blending between material layers. The material attributes struct makes it convenient to make material functions that implement a layer.
Even if they keep the node-based editor around, as far as I know, and I may very well be wrong, you won't have access to a light vector and you won't be able to create your own custom lighting models anymore...
Even if they keep the node-based editor around, as far as I know, and I may very well be wrong, you won't have access to a light vector and you won't be able to create your own custom lighting models anymore...
That's the tradeoff with deferred rendering, the materials have to fit into a certain "box" so that it can be stored in the G-buffer and be deferred.
That's the tradeoff with deferred rendering, the materials have to fit into a certain "box" so that it can be stored in the G-buffer and be deferred.
Right... But I assume as long as they've implemented all the different models themselves we won't be needing much tinkering in there anyways, right?...
Right... But I assume as long as they've implemented all the different models themselves we won't be needing much tinkering in there anyways, right?...
A hybrid Render'er would be interesting too...
That's one the cons of Deferred shading is that your limited in material variety.
That would suck. We'll have to see I guess--I've too have heard the same that Ark said, that deferred shading can limit the shader variety--but I was under the impression that it could still DO anything forward rendering could, but just that you couldn't do multiple *different* kinds of base-shading at once...so yeah, you may be stuck with the phong base for everything.
Course, even that limit could go away in the future in theory, as the pixel instruction limits lift they could include multiple base-paths for each pixel, right? That'd probably be awhile though.
Also I think you still could have access to a light vector node--but it would probably be tied only to the single DominantPointLight closest, or to a single Dominant-Directional "sunlight", or something like that.
Dunno about the custom lighting input though--seems like that would be something they'd maybe have to sacrifice.
Cryengine seems to handle it well, it does allow different material types, but then again afaik it uses Deferred Lighting/Light Pre-Pass over full-on Deferred Shading.
I'm probably oversimplifying, but I *think* you could still do some stuff if you had:
1 - access to source (and thus could change the lighting model algorithm from phong to something custom) and then it would be for the entire scene/world/game/etc
2 - did something crazy that was still based off of the regular lighting/shading model: for example, the sphere-mapping stuff where you take an image of a lit-sphere and apply that to the surface normal (ala Zbrush shaders) is still doable (I think).
3 - did something in the post process chain, like the Borderlands outlines and such.
But who knows! Epic could still preserve some of this functionality somewhere... I'm really eager to tinker with this...but fear its gonna be a long time before I work somewhere with a license or they release a Udk-ified UE4.
Cool, thanks for the share I have not seen this one.
Does anyone know when the public can get there hands on it? I heard a rumour that the UDK4 will be released along with the first launch title. I really hope so.
I heard a talk by someone from EPIC towards the end of last year and the UDK version of Unreal 4 was planned for around this summer. Did say things could change though.
I heard a talk by someone from EPIC towards the end of last year and the UDK version of Unreal 4 was planned for around this summer. Did say things could change though.
This is definitely not true. No no no hahahaha...no.
Guys, calm down, spreading rumors isn't going to help anyone, if you want to 'really' know when an engine is coming down, just wait for an official response, no need to play guess games.
Other then that, UE3 was shown at around 2004, UT3 came out in 2007, and UDK came out in 2009/2010, so you most likely are going to have to wait another 4/5 years based upon history if they intend to keep the same timing transitions.
We have UE4 here and it feels like there's still a few rough corners polish. So
I wouldn't count on it coming out anytime soon.
But that's just my opinion.
We have UE4 here and it feels like there's still a few rough corners polish. So
I wouldn't count on it coming out anytime soon.
But that's just my opinion.
Anything you can tell us? I would be very interested in hearing about their lighting.
We have UE4 here and it feels like there's still a few rough corners polish. So
I wouldn't count on it coming out anytime soon.
But that's just my opinion.
man-- lucky guy. The closest I got to Unreal Engine 4 was at their GDC booth this year, it was nice seeing folks showing the studio demo in real time UI -
We have UE4 here and it feels like there's still a few rough corners polish. So
I wouldn't count on it coming out anytime soon.
But that's just my opinion.
I second this, as currently working with UE4 at our studio. Much time needed before much can be said further.
Other then that, UE3 was shown at around 2004, UT3 came out in 2007, and UDK came out in 2009/2010, so you most likely are going to have to wait another 4/5 years based upon history if they intend to keep the same timing transitions.
It won't be that long. I wouldn't be surprised if we see it before the end of the year (but I wouldn't also be surprised if it appeared next year, it's got a long way to go).
UE1 wasn't in a very usable shape in 96-97 either (software rendering inconsistencies and a complete lack of blending functions), UE2 much less so in 2000-01 (broken collision). UE4 being just 'rough' so early on is a good thing and I don't think it's anything to worry about right now.
Epic typically ships a title to show off their latest game engine. I think when Fortnite is dated for release you'll see a public version of UE4 available shortly afterward.
Fortnite seemed to be developed around features of UE4 that have now been scrapped, I wouldn't be surprised if it was delayed.
What features were those? The only one I know of that got scrapped was SVOGI, but did we ever find out if it was scrapped completely or just for consoles?
Yeah I was talking about the lighting, fortnite was going to have a dynamic day and night cycle, but they UE4 switched backed to baked lighting solution. SVOGI has been put away according to Epic forum posts, but they talked about how easy it is to switch between lighting solutions in the engine.
NDA makes sense nowadays, but it's kinda concerning towards people who are thirsty for UE tech info. Funny thing, I can only guess about the features UE4 is capable of, and those who're under NDA wouldn't even comment my delusions to prove me wrong just because of effin' NDA!
I've brought together many features from other gaming engines of different genres just to list things UE4 needs the most:
smooth motion blur (inspired by Gran Turismo 5 & 6, which is a lot more natural than current UE3's 'skinning' tech);
indirect shadows for dynamic actors (imperfect shadow maps or other stuff, which is greatly showcased in The Last of Us);
accurate area lighting with area shadows and area specular (I assume Epic is doing this via IES Light Profiles but I can be wrong, because of not knowing whether if IES LP are dynamic or not);
contact-hardening shadows (as seen in Bioshock Infinite or Batman AC, because neither Infiltrator nor Elemental demos show any kind of penumbra shadows);
temporal glare (imitating human eye behavior rather than camera one)...
May be there're many more things I forgot to add. I'm just too curious of future UE4 announcements, especially now when engine have won 'Best Engine' award at the Develop Awards. There was also a walkthrough on Infiltrator in Making Games Magazine, which I can't order, sadly.
Well, of course it does - we've had real time lighting solutions since the original Unreal Engine . The key differences this time are that the renderer is deferred, meaning moving light sources are pretty cheap, but it now lacks a dynamic global illumination solver and would have to use something like lightmass to bake it statically.
Replies
Actually, now I understand it - Epic made a marketing decision - they knew that majority of gamers would not have gtx680 cards. However, this should not be an excuse because they explicitly stated that their engine was highly scalable (i.e. reducing the voxel resolution and number of cones traced).
What about the version of the engine that they provided to developers early on? I'm pretty sure that I recall a few months ago that games like Daylight were using svogi. I hope that they didn't force developers with an early build of the engine to reconstruct their games using a later build with svogi removed because of commercial reasons.
Running "smoothly", I'm not quite sure :
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/950908-UE4-will-use-Lightmass-for-its-lighting-system!?p=31295115&viewfull=1#post31295115
I hope it's true, I don't have a DX11 card, and the DX9 material memory limitations really bite you in the ass sometimes.
Also, on a related note, since they switched to Deferred Rendering, did they scrap the material editor? Looking at the videos again, after the latest revelation, I'm hoping people still can create their own materials, it would suck if I had to choose between CE3 or UE4 and both of them gave the same limitation in that regard.
I hope they keep it, they do love their node based programming, so I can't see them killing it unless they have to.
Wait what? Why would that be the case? That's a pretty significant chunk of the Unreal power that will go away. Why would they get rid of material editing?
Screen Space reflections?...
That's the tradeoff with deferred rendering, the materials have to fit into a certain "box" so that it can be stored in the G-buffer and be deferred.
Yea, in UDK DX11 sub-surface scattering materials work like that.
Edit: Scratch that, I don't know if it's sss materials or what.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DeferredShadingDX11.html
Right... But I assume as long as they've implemented all the different models themselves we won't be needing much tinkering in there anyways, right?...
A hybrid Render'er would be interesting too...
That's one the cons of Deferred shading is that your limited in material variety.
Course, even that limit could go away in the future in theory, as the pixel instruction limits lift they could include multiple base-paths for each pixel, right? That'd probably be awhile though.
Also I think you still could have access to a light vector node--but it would probably be tied only to the single DominantPointLight closest, or to a single Dominant-Directional "sunlight", or something like that.
Dunno about the custom lighting input though--seems like that would be something they'd maybe have to sacrifice.
SO MANY QUESTIONSSSSS!!!!!
Or is it that whatever it is you do come up with, will get applied to the entire scene equally?
I'm guessing it's more the latter in that your more or less limited to in the shading models you can use at any onetime.
1 - access to source (and thus could change the lighting model algorithm from phong to something custom) and then it would be for the entire scene/world/game/etc
2 - did something crazy that was still based off of the regular lighting/shading model: for example, the sphere-mapping stuff where you take an image of a lit-sphere and apply that to the surface normal (ala Zbrush shaders) is still doable (I think).
3 - did something in the post process chain, like the Borderlands outlines and such.
But who knows! Epic could still preserve some of this functionality somewhere... I'm really eager to tinker with this...but fear its gonna be a long time before I work somewhere with a license or they release a Udk-ified UE4.
Cool, thanks for the share I have not seen this one.
Does anyone know when the public can get there hands on it? I heard a rumour that the UDK4 will be released along with the first launch title. I really hope so.
This is definitely not true. No no no hahahaha...no.
Other then that, UE3 was shown at around 2004, UT3 came out in 2007, and UDK came out in 2009/2010, so you most likely are going to have to wait another 4/5 years based upon history if they intend to keep the same timing transitions.
I wouldn't count on it coming out anytime soon.
But that's just my opinion.
Anything you can tell us? I would be very interested in hearing about their lighting.
man-- lucky guy. The closest I got to Unreal Engine 4 was at their GDC booth this year, it was nice seeing folks showing the studio demo in real time UI -
I second this, as currently working with UE4 at our studio. Much time needed before much can be said further.
I third this. Working with it here fairly chunky.
A ok fair enough, was back in November so I guess lots of things changed since then.
It won't be that long. I wouldn't be surprised if we see it before the end of the year (but I wouldn't also be surprised if it appeared next year, it's got a long way to go).
UE4 needs to be in a state where it can ship games this year, so you'd kind of hope it;s becoming stable.
What features were those? The only one I know of that got scrapped was SVOGI, but did we ever find out if it was scrapped completely or just for consoles?
Some more info here:
http://www.dsogaming.com/news/epic-games-tim-sweeney-explains-lack-of-svogi-in-unreal-engine-4/
NDA makes sense nowadays, but it's kinda concerning towards people who are thirsty for UE tech info. Funny thing, I can only guess about the features UE4 is capable of, and those who're under NDA wouldn't even comment my delusions to prove me wrong just because of effin' NDA!
I've brought together many features from other gaming engines of different genres just to list things UE4 needs the most:
smooth motion blur (inspired by Gran Turismo 5 & 6, which is a lot more natural than current UE3's 'skinning' tech);
indirect shadows for dynamic actors (imperfect shadow maps or other stuff, which is greatly showcased in The Last of Us);
accurate area lighting with area shadows and area specular (I assume Epic is doing this via IES Light Profiles but I can be wrong, because of not knowing whether if IES LP are dynamic or not);
contact-hardening shadows (as seen in Bioshock Infinite or Batman AC, because neither Infiltrator nor Elemental demos show any kind of penumbra shadows);
temporal glare (imitating human eye behavior rather than camera one)...
May be there're many more things I forgot to add. I'm just too curious of future UE4 announcements, especially now when engine have won 'Best Engine' award at the Develop Awards. There was also a walkthrough on Infiltrator in Making Games Magazine, which I can't order, sadly.
Well, of course it does - we've had real time lighting solutions since the original Unreal Engine