unreal-engine posts

This is a trailer that is not particularly designed for consumers. Rather, it's a showcase of all the fancy fresh features in the 2011 update to Unreal Engine 3. While most of the terminology goes straight over our heads, the trailer is quite stunning looking. Beautiful shadows, excellent textures, and details such as finely-done hair all leap out at us. So while it might not be interesting to try and learn all the technical jargon backing the new engine iteration, it's definitely pleasing to look at all of it in action.

Download Unreal Engine 3 2011 Features Trailer
Check out all Unreal Development Kit downloads
Check out all Unreal Engine 3 downloads

After seeing the screenshots for Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 tech demo made for GDC 2011, we couldn't wait to see the whole thing. Thankfully we now have the video made from the live tech demo for all to see, showing off how a certain Samaritan helps someone out in a near future version of Washington DC.

Keep in mind that the trailer, which you can check out after the jump, was not a pre-rendered CGI clip made in a server farm but ran in real time on a real PC (although a very powerful one) at Epic Games' booth during GDC 2011. The clip was cool enough that we are hoping that the Samaritan is the basis for an actual game and not just a tech demo.

Unreal Engine 3 got a new tech demo that was shown at GDC 2011 this week at Epic Games' booth. The level of detail and visual effects in the demo was pretty staggering, according to reports, and a trailer showing off the demo will be released next week.

But most PCs currently wouldn't be able to run the live demo well, according to PC Gamer. The GDC 2011 build was running on a PC with three Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 graphics cards installed. Epic Games' VP Mark Rein stated, "Maybe the next Nvidia graphics card bump means we can use two, we don't need three. And maybe the next bump means we can use just one. And the next bump after that means that we can use the mid-range card."

The point of the GDC 2011 Unreal Engine 3 demo was to show the press and game developers what might be possible for game graphics in the next few years with Rein stating, "This is our proposal for what the next big generational leap of gaming should be." Those features include things like water puddles on the ground that reflect neon signs or highly detailed facial textures for characters or clothing that realistically flaps via hardware physics. Rein stated that this year's demo took 12 people two months to complete, adding that Epic Games puts in "tens of millions of dollars into these R&D experiments."

As we reported earlier this week Unreal Engine 3 and UDK users will soon get an update that adds DirectX 11 graphical features into the latest build.

The Ball is close to rolling its way to hard drive. This week publisher Tripwire Interactive announced that the first person puzzle-action game from developer Teotl Studios will be released on October 26. It's the first commercial PC game that will be released that was developed via Epic Games' Unreal Development Kit, the "free" version of Unreal Engine 3.

Pre-orders for the $19.99 game will begin on October 18 via Steam. People who pre-order The Ball and also own Tripwire's zombie shooter Killing Floor will be rewarded with a nice extra. The hero from The Ball will get to also be a playable character in Killing Floor.

Epic Games continues to stay busy by selling licenses to third party developers for Unreal Engine 3-based games. Today the company announced their latest licensing deal for its game development tools. Korean-based developer Anipark will use the engine for two separate game products.

One of the games will be a MMORPG title but details about that game have not been revealed. The other project is a casual online baseball game that's based on the official Korea Baseball Organization. Anipark has already developed a previous online casual baseball game title called MaguMagu and this new game will apparently be a sequel to that original title.

Even though Epic Games continues to sell its latest game graphics technology Unreal Engine 3 to third party developers, its previous Unreal Engine 2.5 also continues to get customers.BioShock and its sequel are based on Unreal Engine 2.5 and 2009's surprise hit Killing Floor is also based on the older version.

This week Unreal Engine 2.5 got another license as the Korean based NHNGames announced they will use the engine as the basis for their latest free-to-play shooter Battle Territory (BATTERY). The game, which takes place in a near-future Earth, will go into beta testing in Korea later this month and will officially launch in the second half of this year. We suspect the game will find its way to US shores before too long via NHN USA's ijji.com portal.

We haven't heard much from Epic Games lately. But is there a big announcement coming from the Unreal-Unreal Tournament-Gears of War developer? On Thursday, people who checked out Epic Games' forums saw this image above. However that image was taken down pretty quickly and it seems message threads about said image have been deleted from the message board.

What is it? Is it an announcement of a new Unreal game that got leaked before it should have? Perhaps an all new Epic Games project? Maybe even someone hacking into the forums and posting an image that means nothing? Even a news post about this image on the fan site Beyond Unreal was taken down (although the message board post is still there). We've emailed Epic to try to get a comment on just what might be going on.

Update: Our sister site Joystiq claims through their unnamed sources that the big announcement that might be tied into this image could be a version of Unreal Engine 3 priced so that regular consumers can purchase and use it. Meanwhile BeyondUnreal has now deleted the message board post where we got this image.

With GDC now just a week away, the announcements of what will be shown at the annual conference in San Fransisco will be coming in fast and furious. Today Epic Games announced that a number of new features that will be added to their Unreal Engine 3 tech will be shown for the first time at GDC.

Among the new additions will be Unreal Lightmass which will add "high-quality static lighting with next-generation effects, such as: soft shadows with accurate penumbrae; diffuse and specular interreflection; and color bleeding." Another new feature is a content browser and search feature that will allow artists and designers to find content for their games quicker.

In a bit of a reference to the movie Tron, Epic Games plans to add the new Unreal Master Control Program (MCP) which will add a "high-reliability online service architecture supporting announcements, settings management, online population tracking, and data collection for hardware, profile, and game stats."

[via email press release]

Did you know that there were awards given out for game middleware software? Yep, we didn't know that either. However, Game Developer magazine has just announced the winners of their Front Line Awards that honor the software that game developers use to make their game titles.

This year the awards named the Unreal Engine to their hall of fame. Epic Games' game graphics engine has gone through three major incarnations and has been used for hundreds of games and applications over the years. Here is the complete list of award winners:

Hall of Fame: Unreal Engine/Epic Games

Art Tool: Photoshop CS3/Adobe

Audio Tool: FMOD/Firelight Technologies Pty, Ltd

Middleware: Havok Physics/Havok

Engine: Torque Game Engine Advanced 1.7.1/GarageGames

Programming Tool: Visual Studio 2008/ Microsoft

Book: "The Art of Game Design' by Jesse Schell/ Elsevier

We won't go over the issues Midway has had over the past year. We have covered them extensively. However, the publisher's line-up for the future already looks better, at least according to the creative director for Midway's upcoming action-driving game Wheelman.

Videogamer.com spoke with Midway's Simon Woodroffe who stated, "I just saw a demo of a new Midway game that's in development. I can't tell you too much about it, but they've been on it for three months and it looks as good if not better than Gears 2." He later added, "Midway have got a really cool game, not the one I'm talking about but another one, a really cool game coming out of Chicago using the shared technology. It's probably not due until 2010, and the same goes for the one I'm talking about." The shared technology is of course Epic's Unreal Engine which has been used by Midway for a lot of their past and future titles.