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Unreal Engine 4

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  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    Andreas wrote: »
    Ever heard of Havok? Plugs right into Unreal.

    It doesn't really just 'plug in', it takes quite a bit of work to integrate an alternative physics engine, since UE3 is already pretty reliant on PhysX.

    I suspect UE4 is largely reliant on APEX, although I'd imagine GPU particles would use an alternative as required for console platforms.
  • JordanW
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    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    iniside wrote: »
    But I'm 98% sure all of these things are build around APEX.

    I can't comment on specific things but I wouldn't assume too much.
  • okkun
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    okkun polycounter lvl 18
    ok, so it's 2012. Can we have sorted transparency now?
  • Leodido
    You artists can complain all you want, as a programmer I'm quite stocked about this. Can't wait to test this shit and see more!
  • Joshua Stubbles
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    Joshua Stubbles polycounter lvl 19
    okkun wrote: »
    ok, so it's 2012. Can we have sorted transparency now?

    QFT. Better transparency support would be great.
  • Leodido
    This article was posted on Facebook and some subject are taken more in detail: http://gameindustry.about.com/od/trends/a/Unreal-Engine-4-First-Look.htm

    Highlights for me:

    Lighting
    One of the most important developments in Unreal Engine 4 is the use of a system where all lighting is dynamic. Every light, shadow, and bounce. By doing this, it will no longer be necessary to spend time time waiting for lighting to rebuild, and it removes the guesswork of fine-tuning level lighting.

    Particles
    UE4 looks to change that significantly with a drastically-improved GPU-augmented particle system. The system is capable of simulating over a million particles (compared to previous-generation's hundreds, at best), and is designed to allow real-time design interaction, as well as vector fields.

    Kismet
    Unreal Kismet is being evolved to a far more powerful system. Epic claims that you will be able to create a mod entirely using the updated visual scripting system. The next generation of Kismet now allows for scripting of object behaviors, as well as the previous functionality for levels. [...] For those wishing to customize further, programmers can click on a property and edit the C++ code directly, with no rebuild time required.

    Unrealscript/C++
    In the past, gameplay code existed in UnrealScript. UnrealScript is the scripting language which forms the core of current community mods, and much of the gameplay code of all previous Unreal Engine titles.

    However, UnrealScript is being removed.

    In its place, the engine will be 100% C++, and highly optimized. DLLs will still be supported on PC, but this is a significant change for almost every Unreal developer operating today, whether hobbyist or professional. This may have some very interesting ramifications in their development community.
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    okkun wrote: »
    ok, so it's 2012. Can we have sorted transparency now?

    WANT!
  • aivanov
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    aivanov polycounter lvl 5
    So supposedly Kismet is getting beefed up. Will be interesting to see if it'll truly allow making custom gameplay.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    yeah sorted transparency would be way up top somewhere on my list of dream features!
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    aivanov wrote: »
    So supposedly Kismet is getting beefed up. Will be interesting to see if it'll truly allow making custom gameplay.

    Indeed, especially as that's the current claim with Kismet in UDK (which is a complete fallacy given that even the Jazz demo had custom nodes written specifically for it!)
  • Alberto Rdrgz
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    Alberto Rdrgz polycounter lvl 9
    okkun wrote: »
    ok, so it's 2012. Can we have sorted transparency now?

    YES! :poly118:
  • imbueFX
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    imbueFX polycounter lvl 5
    I'm really excited for this (naturally for the particle side of things). I'm curious though as to how much functionality we'll lose with materials when using GPU particles. A million particles is nice, but I always believed the power of VFX in UDK lies in the incredible customization & freedom we have with our materials.
  • Bigjohn
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    Bigjohn polycounter lvl 11
    That stuff about Kismet sounds incredible to me.

    If I'm understanding it right, it means we could do a small game-play demo without programmers at all. Using Kismet for the same functionality we currently get from Unrealscript.
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    It's correct - however you'll be working at near the kind of level that UnrealScripters used to; defining vars and functions, and dictating overall flow.
  • Bigjohn
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    Bigjohn polycounter lvl 11
    That's fine. I did that stuff anyway. It just sounds like this is way more accessible. I'm so excited about that.
  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    In the past, gameplay code existed in UnrealScript. UnrealScript is the scripting language which forms the core of current community mods, and much of the gameplay code of all previous Unreal Engine titles.

    However, UnrealScript is being removed.

    In its place, the engine will be 100% C++, and highly optimized. DLLs will still be supported on PC, but this is a significant change for almost every Unreal developer operating today, whether hobbyist or professional. This may have some very interesting ramifications in their development community.

    And Eat 3D staffers and purchasers of their UnrealScript DVD's collectively swear. :/
    Not to mention the tens of thousands more that have spent time learning the language. C++ in mind-bendingly tricky, surely this is going to annoy most people?
  • iniside
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    iniside polycounter lvl 6
    C++ is not hard language. Really. It's some urban legend created by Java programmers.

    Or I should say it this way. Every language is hard if you delving into it's tricks and hacks. And you do it eventually.
    For gameplay coding ? No in the long run I think C++ backed with framework and libraries will far better than US.
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    C++ isn't horrific - but it is way more open to people writing hideous, abusive code than UnrealScript is, and pointers take some getting used to. All-in-all though it's more beneficial in the long run, even if I am somewhat attached to UnrealScript (heck, I made my career out of that language).
    Bigjohn wrote: »
    That's fine. I did that stuff anyway. It just sounds like this is way more accessible. I'm so excited about that.

    Then it'll probably suit you just fine :)
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    okkun wrote: »
    ok, so it's 2012. Can we have sorted transparency now?
    I think we should start small...like say, Colonizing the Moon or something.
  • MikeF
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    MikeF polycounter lvl 19
    okkun wrote: »
    ok, so it's 2012. Can we have sorted transparency now?

    This is something i've never fully understood, from realtime engine to 3d app, i dont know of any program that has proper transparency sorting, is there some sort of deep seeded limitation with how geometry is rendered that this is such an issue? Seems like this should have been solved many years ago
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    It's possible, it's just expensive. When you have 100 opaque objects, you just find and deal with the one which is in front. When you have 100 translucent objects, you have to put 100 objects in order, then deal with each of them in turn. I don't know if there are any particularly elegant solutions for that kind of thing yet.
  • aivanov
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    aivanov polycounter lvl 5
    Surprising then that nobody has seen fit to make a bundle by creating some adequately-competent middleware.
  • JordanW
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    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    aivanov wrote: »
    Surprising then that nobody has seen fit to make a bundle by creating some adequately-competent middleware.

    That's the thing, it's not just a matter of people not wanting the problem solved or someone not putting the time into it. Sorting translucency 100% correctly hasn't been fast enough in the past. Meaning you could do it, it's just slow.

    It's a really complex problem. For example, say you sort correctly, and now you want to do DOF. Fast traditional DOF methods are done in a deferred way, you take a final image and blur it based on depth, but translucency mucks all that up: You have a pixel on the screen that represents multiple depths in your final image, but your Z buffer can only contain one depth so what do you do? Something is getting blurred incorrectly. Do you blur your Translucency separately? if so you have to decide how many layers you want to do, and then you have to composite it somehow back into your scene. It's easy sometimes to be like "Why doesn't this just work" but it really is a deep problem.
  • Xoliul
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    Xoliul polycounter lvl 14
    Well any chance for that new order-independant translucency that AMD presented a year or two ago ? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjylP1q5BpU"]AMD DX11 Demo - Mecha in HD @ OCWORKBENCH - YouTube[/ame]
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    JordanW wrote: »
    It's easy sometimes to be like "Why doesn't this just work" but it really is a deep problem.

    I totally agree but I feel like I would personally rather see a new engine that deals with this deep issue rather than adding features like tessellation or fancy dof and particle effects.
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    It's not like noone is trying to solve the issue - there has been a huge amout of research both academically and industrially to find a neat solution to the problem. The caveat is that to date, noone has really found a particularly viable solution suitable for use in a game - although people are getting close (but their techniques often have flaws).
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    Wait, I was under the impression that DX11 had extra setting for Trans, or was I mistaken?
  • JordanW
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    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    Xoliul wrote: »
    Well any chance for that new order-independant translucency that AMD presented a year or two ago ? AMD DX11 Demo - Mecha in HD @ OCWORKBENCH - YouTube


    Usually these single feature demos show off something that is absolutely only viable with the current hardware at the time. Which means while it's great research doesn't always fit within a full rendering package(performance wise).

    I also should make it clear that I'm not saying this problem won't be solved or become better, I just wanted to shed some light on how complex of a problem translucency is.
  • Leodido
    I think the change to full C++ coding does quite make sense, isn't C++ the industry standard (or at least was)? I know recently it's starting to change but I guess nearly all coders in the gaming industry have some experience with it.
  • eld
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    eld polycounter lvl 18
    Leodido wrote: »
    I think the change to full C++ coding does quite make sense, isn't C++ the industry standard (or at least was)? I know recently it's starting to change but I guess nearly all coders in the gaming industry have some experience with it.

    It is, but it's far from being the industry standard when it comes to gameplay programming.
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    Yes, but it being in C++ means that there's nothing stopping a studio from implementing whichever scritping language they prefer on top of it without much difficulty :)
  • iniside
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    iniside polycounter lvl 6
    eld wrote: »
    It is, but it's far from being the industry standard when it comes to gameplay programming.
    Ok. What is industruy standard when it come to >>gameplay<< programming ?
    Lua, Python, C#, Java, Perl ?

    Guys. You should realize that language itself is mererly a bunch of words that have meaning defined by compiler.
    What makes or don't languague approperiate for coding gameplay is framework around it. In this case UE4 librariers build around it.

    C++ will prove much better. For everyone in long run.

    It's good they abandoned Unreal Script. Now they can focus on developing more engine focused tools. Yes. Even for programmers around industry standard.
    Yeah I'd like they would choose D for example as I like it semantics better than C++, but you can't have everything.
  • Abdullah
    So with dynamic lighting no more 2nd UV channel for light map is needed? J

    Also, is it going to be for all? Or for big developers only?
  • illo
    If I am reading this right, you can edit c++ code, not recompile, and have it work in game? What is this sorcery?
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    It's been possible for years. You have always been able to fiddle values in memory while applications have been running - there is also the concept of 'just in time' compilation :)
  • Computron
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    Computron polycounter lvl 7
    I've been doing a bit of research into Realtime Global Illumination. It's Kinda a hobby of mine, reading various white papers and watching tech demos even if I can't really understand too much of the technical programming aspects. :poly122: (Maybe someday!)

    I got a feeling that UE4 is using Geomeric's Enlighten for their realtime radiosity lighting based on a lot of their GDC 2012 videos using UDK and their deep integration into the engine. Although I guess Autodesk/Illuminate-Labs Beast is the same way, but those guys aren't dooing the same thing, e.g. realtime/runtime GI.


    Anyway, if it is Enlighten or something similar, I hope it doesn't take as much manual setup and preprocessing as their 'Maya plugin workflow' video suggests. I guess it still produces better results than Cry3's LPVs, and is faster and more realistically achievable than voxel cone tracing, even in it's current form.

    I am hoping that UE4 will be able to get some sharper/higher-res GI than the really low-frequency broad GI that Enlighten appears to produce in realtime, or that they at least couple it with some good Screen Space Directional Occlusion to fill in those details:
    Enlighten Realtime Preview GI:
    hLO01.jpg

    VS.

    Baked GI (Also done with Enlighten!):
    lOa2q.jpg


    Either way, I CANT WAIT to get my hands on some Real-time GI tech. Crysis 2's was fun to play with to say the least. :) :thumbup:
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    That baked GI looks nice, you can easily see why AO is needed in textures when comparing those screen shots. I'll be nice when we can just let the lighting do all the work.
  • Sandro
    You can have broad wash of low-frequency GI pass and use SSAO for contact shadows, no need to spend computing power on very accurate GI solution which will be lost in dirt and grime anyways :D
  • Computron
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    Computron polycounter lvl 7
    There's a reason they decided to go with this wide open desert scene. Try this with an indoor scene and you will see why you also need the high and medium frequency GI. BF3 didn't really sell me on the indoor environments because of this.

    I also wish they had glossy reflections and indirect specular.

    Compare this to the video I posted earlier with voxel cone tracing and prepare to have your jaw drop.
  • Sandro
    Yeah I checked that voxel cone tracing vid. Looks impressive on sponza atrium , but does not hold up at all on last (complex) scene. Result seems to be rather splotchy, unpredictable and full of artifacts.

    That's why I'd rather have simple, approximated color bleeding that I can use as a tool instead of half-working GI solution that tries to take over everything and leaves me with artifacts to deal with.

    It's true that interior scenes are lot trickier and subtler, but nothing couple of carefully placed additional lights can't deal with. You can't expect to place only window light and have clean, aesthetically pleasing lighting solution at a fraction of second anyways.
  • iniside
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    iniside polycounter lvl 6
    Computron wrote: »
    There's a reason they decided to go with this wide open desert scene. Try this with an indoor scene and you will see why you also need the high and medium frequency GI. BF3 didn't really sell me on the indoor environments because of this.

    I also wish they had glossy reflections and indirect specular.

    Compare this to the video I posted earlier with voxel cone tracing and prepare to have your jaw drop.

    On other hand I didn't haave time to watch every corner while shooting people ;p.
    It's still good trade off compilation vs real-time.
  • planaria
    Sandro wrote: »
    You can't expect to place only window light and have clean, aesthetically pleasing lighting solution at a fraction of second anyways.

    hmm, why not? ive been expecting this for a while.
  • Money
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    Money polycounter lvl 8
    It looks that Spike TV will premiere engine during E3 (pic is for Eastern time).

    lnsdt.png
  • StaticTheFox
    Money wrote: »
    It looks that Spike TV will premiere engine during E3 (pic is for Eastern time).

    lnsdt.png

    Seems kinda weird for it to be at 1 AM eastern.
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    So E3 is is now called 'Engine' or something, I think this is about the 5th time I hear a company has nothing to show 'new' to the crowd, but has a surprise for game development.

    It's almost as if GD's don't want to make games and are release tools so everyone else does the job for them...
  • Money
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    Money polycounter lvl 8
    Seems kinda weird for it to be at 1 AM eastern.

    I think that's the standard time slot for gametrailers episode on Spike TV. Not sure if there's a live stream on Gametrailers site too, but they always post full episodes few hours later anyway.

    Some info about the episode:
    Q: Are we going to see a full reveal of Unreal Engine 4?

    Geoff: Yes, we will be unveiling Unreal Engine 4 during E3 week on Spike. I went down to Epic and filmed with Cliff, Tim Sweeney and the whole crew. Full half-hour special on the engine and tech.

    Q: F-yes. Hopefully it will be a treat for people more into the development side and the gritty details, not just the "Those graphics are so graphic!". But I guess all that info will come out sooner rather than later anyway. :)

    Geoff: For sure, we are showing off the editor and a lot of the tech. Very in depth, glad to hear you are excited!
    And new logo:

    logoelkry.jpg
  • yodude87
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    yodude87 polycounter lvl 5
    Money wrote: »
    And new logo:

    logoelkry.jpg

    beautiful!
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Sandro wrote: »
    You can have broad wash of low-frequency GI pass and use SSAO for contact shadows, no need to spend computing power on very accurate GI solution which will be lost in dirt and grime anyways :D

    The current implementation of SSAO in games bugs me. It shows up in direct lighting when it should only show up in shadows/overcast areas, but nothing that involves direct lighting. That and it can make uses of low polycounts and transparent planes look bad. Every glass clump in skyrim gets a black shadow under it with SSAO turned on, I'm sure there's probably a way to fix it, but that really annoys me XD building look a lot better, but it doesn't help too much with the landscape.
  • Snefer
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    Snefer polycounter lvl 16
    ZacD wrote: »
    The current implementation of SSAO in games bugs me. It shows up in direct lighting when it should only show up in shadows/overcast areas, but nothing that involves direct lighting.

    Actually plenty of games have that implemented in their SSAO.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    I'd like to see comparison screenshots :D I figured any deferred render solution should be able to easily fix it. But as far as udk goes, there's no "fix"
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