From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unreal technology redirects here. For science or technology which is beyond reality, see science fiction.

The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games. First illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal, it has been the basis of many games since, including Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, Turok, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, America's Army, Red Steel, Gears of War, BioShock, BioShock 2, Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror, Mirror's Edge, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Section 8, and so forth. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of genres, including stealth (Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell), MMORPG (Vanguard: Saga of Heroes) as well as RPGs with Mass Effect, The Last Remnant, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

With its core written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability, and it is a tool used by many game developers today, supporting a multitude of platforms including Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and Mac OS X on personal computers and many video game consoles including the Dreamcast, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 though the latest version of the Unreal Engine, UE3, does not work on previous generation platforms. A great deal of the gameplay code can be written in UnrealScript, a proprietary scripting language, and as such, large parts of the gameplay can be modified without delving deep into the engine internals. Additionally, as with other middleware packages, the Unreal Engine also provides various tools to assist with content creation, both for designers and artists.

The latest release is the Unreal Engine 3, which is designed around Microsoft's DirectX 9 technology for 32/64-bit Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7 and Xbox 360 platforms, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 for 32/64-bit Windows Vista/Windows 7, and OpenGL for 32/64-bit Linux, Mac OS X and PlayStation 3.

Versions

Unreal Engine 1

Making its debut in 1998, the first generation Unreal Engine integrated rendering, collision detection, AI, visibility, networking and file system management into one complete engine. Some trade-offs were necessary to maintain performance levels with the hardware that was available at the time. For example, Epic decided to use "cylindrical collision detection" over the "IK collision detection" system in an effort to maintain playable framerates on systems that were common at the time of its release. Internally, Epic used this engine for Unreal and Unreal Tournament.^[3]

A comparison of Unreal Engine 1, 2 and 3's rendering capabilities using the Malcolm model from Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal Tournament 3 side-by-side.

Unreal Engine 1 used the Glide API, specifically developed for 3dfx GPUs^[4], instead of OpenGL. Probably the biggest reason for its popularity was that the engine architecture and the inclusion of a scripting language made it easy to mod it.^[5][6] One other improvement of Unreal compared to the previous generation of engines was its networking technology, which greatly improved the scalability of the engine on multiplayer. Unreal was also the first to use a real Client-server model in the engine architecture.^[7]

Unreal Engine 2

The second version of the Unreal Engine made its debut with America's Army. This generation saw the core code and rendering engine completely re-written and the new UnrealEd 3 integrated. It also integrated the Karma physics SDK, which powered the ragdoll physics in Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Championship. Many other engine elements were also updated, with improved assets and added support for the PlayStation 2, GameCube and the Xbox. Build UE2.5, an update, improved rendering performance and added vehicles physics, particle system editor for UnrealEd and 64-bit support in Unreal Tournament 2004. A specialized version of UE2.5 called UE2X, which was used for Unreal Championship 2, features optimizations specific to the first-generation Xbox. EAX 3.0 is also supported for sound.

Unreal Engine 3

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this section if you can. (May 2008)

The third generation Unreal Engine (UE3) was designed for DirectX 9/10 PCs, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.^[8] Its renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows, and builds upon the tools available in previous versions of the engine.

Epic Games announced at GDC 2009 some improvements made to the Unreal Engine 3. These included^[9]

• High-quality static lighting with next-generation effects, such as soft shadows with accurate penumbrae, diffuse and specular inter-reflection and color bleeding
• The ability to add fracture effects to static meshes to simulate destructible environments
• soft-body physics
• Simulation of large crowds.

Epic has used this version of the engine for their in-house games Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War and an improved version for Gears of War 2. Due to aggressive licensing, this current iteration has garnered a great deal of support from several big licensees, including Atari, Activision, Capcom, Disney, Konami, Koei, 2K Games, Midway Games, THQ, Ubisoft, Sega, Sony, Electronic Arts, Square Enix, 3D Realms and more.

In addition to the game industry, UE3 has also seen adoption by many non-gaming projects including construction simulation and design, driving simulation, virtual reality shopping malls and film storyboards^{[citation needed]}

On December 2009, Epic demoed UE3 running on Apple's 3rd generation iPod touch. They said that this will also support iPhone 3GS, and also an unknown mobile platform which has been revealed to be the webOS at CES 2010.^[10] It's been revealed so far to be something on Nvidia's Tegra platform, and also Palm's webOS running PowerVR's powerful SGX chip.

Unreal Development Kit (UDK)

While the Unreal Engine 3 has been quite open for modders to tinker around with, the ability to publish and sell games made using UE3 was restricted to licensees of the engine. However, on November 2009, Epic released a free version of their engine, called the Unreal Developer Kit(UDK) that is available to the general public. According to the current EULA, game makers can sell their games by paying Epic a lump-sum of $99 at the outset, and 25% of all revenue above $5000.^[11]

Future version/release: Unreal Engine 4

Mark Rein, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed on August 18, 2005 that Unreal Engine 4 had been in development since 2003.^[12] The engine targets the next generation of PC hardware and consoles after the seventh generation. The only person to work on the Unreal Engine 4 core system design so far is Tim Sweeney, technical director and founder of Epic Games.^[13] However, at the 2006 GDC, Tim Sweeney stated that development would not begin in earnest on the next version until some time in 2008. Sweeney has also predicted that the number of developers would be ramped up to three or four engineers by the end of 2008, and would be aimed predominantly at the next generation consoles rather than PCs.^[14] Tim gave a speech at POPL06 sharing some of his thoughts on programming.^[15] However, it was later confirmed by Mark Rein, the vice president of Epic Games that Unreal Engine 4 was coming to PC. Mark Rein also clarified what Tim Sweeney meant. "When Tim Sweeney was talking about Unreal Engine 4 ... he mentioned something along the lines of it being exclusively for the next generation of consoles… what he meant was, it won't run on this generation of consoles." Due to the engine's focus on next generation consoles, Michael Capps, President of Epic Games, indicated that the engine should be ready around 2012.^[16]

List of video games using Unreal Engines

See also

• Game engine
• Unreal, the original game
• UnrealScript, the scripting language used in Unreal Engine
• UnrealEd, the Unreal level editor
• List of game engines

References

External links

• The official Unreal Developer Network documenting the Unreal Engine
• Unreal Technology
• Unreal Engine 1 Features
• Unreal Engine 2 & 2X
• Unreal Development Kit
• Unreal on-line tutorials

From StrategyWiki, the free strategy guide and walkthrough wiki

The Unreal Engine is a popular game engine developed by Epic Games. First illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal, it has been the basis of many games since, including Unreal Tournament, Turok, Mass Effect, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, America's Army, Red Steel, Gears of War, BioShock, Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror, Mirror's Edge and so forth. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully utilized in a variety of genres, including stealth (Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell), MMORPG (Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Lineage II) as well as RPGs with Mass Effect and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

With its core written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability, supporting a multitude of platforms including Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Mac OS X on personal computers and many video game consoles including the Dreamcast, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 though the latest version of the Unreal Engine, UE3, doesn't work on previous generation platforms. A great deal of the gameplay code is written in UnrealScript, a proprietary scripting language, and as such large parts of the gameplay can be modified without delving deep into the engine internals. Additionally, as with other middleware packages, the Unreal Engine also provides various tools to assist with content creation, both for designers and artists.

The latest release is the Unreal Engine 3, which is designed around Microsoft's DirectX 9 technology for 32/64-bit Windows and Xbox 360 platforms, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 for 32/64-bit Windows Vista, and OpenGL for 32/64-bit Linux, Mac OS X and PlayStation 3.

Unreal Engine 1

Making its debut in 1998, the first generation Unreal Engine integrated rendering, collision detection, AI, visibility, networking and file system management into one complete engine. With the level of integration used, some trade-offs were necessary to maintain performance levels with the hardware that was available at the time. For example, Epic Games decided to use cylindrical collision detection over the IK collision detection system in an effort to maintain playable framerates on systems that were common at the time of its release. Internally, Epic used this engine for Unreal and Unreal Tournament.

This is the only engine that supports the software renderer. Subsequent engines require a 3D accelerator, which are now included on modern graphics cards.

This engine experiences technical issues on modern systems, particularly with fast, multi-core, or variable-speed processors. To resolve this issue, you may need to add -cpuspeed=xxx to the command line of Unreal Engine 1 games, where xxx is the CPU speed of the processor.

Unreal Engine 2

The second version of the Unreal Engine made its debut with America's Army. This generation saw the core code and rendering engine completely re-written and the new UnrealEd 3 integrated. It also integrated the Karma physics SDK, which powered the Ragdoll physics in Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Championship. Many other engine elements were also updated, with improved assets and added support for the PlayStation 2, GameCube and the Xbox. Build UE2.5, an update, improved rendering performance and added vehicles physics, particle system editor for UnrealEd and 64-bit support in Unreal Tournament 2004. A specialized version of UE2.5 called UE2X, which was used for Unreal Championship 2, features optimizations specific to the first-generation Xbox. Sound effect EAX 3.0.

Unreal Engine 3

The third generation Unreal Engine was designed for DirectX 9/10/11 PCs, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Its renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows, and builds upon the tools available in previous versions of the engine. Unreal Engine 3 IPP (Integrated Partners Program) includes:

Epic has used this generation of the engine for Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War and an improved version for Gears of War 2. Midway Games has also used this generation of the engine for Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

Due to aggressive licensing, this current iteration has garnered a great deal of support from several big licensees, including Atari, Activision, Capcom, Konami, Sega, Sony, Electronic Arts, Square Enix and more. UE3 has also seen adoption by many non-gaming projects in spite of the fact that the toolset and source code are meant for games. At E3 2007, Sony announced a partnership with Epic with the objective of optimizing the Unreal Engine 3 for the PlayStation 3 hardware, which would affect the dozens of games and developers currently using it.

According to Epic Games vice-president Mark Rein, an unnamed licensee is trying to port the Unreal Engine 3 to the Wii.

At GDC 2008, Epic showed off several improvements to the Unreal Engine 3 design that includes the ability for far more characters on screen, more realistic water physics and soft-body physics (demonstrated at the show using a "cube of meat"), massively more destructible environments, improved AI, and better lighting and shadow effects with more advanced shader routines. The revised Engine, referred to as Unreal Engine 3.25/5, debuted with Gears of War 2.

Unreal Engine 4

Mark Rein, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed on August 18, 2005 that Unreal Engine 4 had been in development over the prior two years. The engine targets the next generation of consoles exclusively after the seventh generation. The only person to work on the Unreal Engine 4 core system design so far is Tim Sweeney, technical director and founder of Epic games. However, at the 2006 GDC, Sweeney stated that development will not begin in earnest on the next version until some time in 2008. Sweeney has also predicted that the number of developers would be ramped up to three or four engineers by the end of 2008, and would be aimed predominantly at the next generation consoles rather than PCs. Tim gave a talk at POPL06 sharing some of his thoughts on programming. However, it was later confirmed by Mark Rein, that Unreal Engine 4 was coming to PC. Mark Rein also clarified what Tim Sweeney meant.

"When Tim Sweeney was talking about Unreal Engine 4 ... he mentioned something along the lines of it being exclusively for the next generation of consoles… what he meant was, it won't run on this generation of consoles."

From Wikia Gaming, your source for walkthroughs, games, guides, and more!

Unreal Engine 3 is a game development framework for next-generation consoles and DirectX9-equipped PC's, providing the array of core technologies, content creation tools, and support infrastructure.

External Links

Unreal Engine 3 official page

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