Miloš Darjuš
Unreal engine1, 2, 3 comparison
The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, first illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, MMORPGs and RPGs. With its core written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability and is a tool used by many game developers today.
The latest release is the UE3, designed for Microsoft's DirectX 9 (for Windows and Xbox 360), DirectX 10 (for Windows Vista) and DirectX 11 (for Windows 7 and later), OpenGL for Mac OS X, PlayStation 3, Wii U, iOS, Android, and Stage 3D for Adobe Flash Player 11.
· Unreal Engine 1 Making its debut in 1998, the first generation Unreal Engine integrated rendering, collision detection, AI, visibility, networking, scripting and file system management into one complete engine. Unreal Engine 1 provided an advanced software rasterizer and a hardware-accelerated rendering path using the Glide API, specifically developed for 3dfx GPUs, and was updated for OpenGL and Direct3D. Large parts of the game were implemented in a custom scripting language called UnrealScript. The initial network performance was also very poor when compared to its biggest competitor, Quake 2. Internally, Epic used this engine for Unreal and Unreal Tournament. The release of Unreal Tournament marked great strides in both network performance and Direct3D & OpenGL support.
The engine became very popular due to the modular engine architecture and the inclusion of a scripting language which made it easy to mod, including total conversions like Tactical Ops. For instance, a developer was able to replace the original renderer from UE1 with a DirectX 10 renderer in 2009
The latest release is the UE3, designed for Microsoft's DirectX 9 (for Windows and Xbox 360), DirectX 10 (for Windows Vista) and DirectX 11 (for Windows 7 and later), OpenGL for Mac OS X, PlayStation 3, Wii U, iOS, Android, and Stage 3D for Adobe Flash Player 11.
· Unreal Engine 1 Making its debut in 1998, the first generation Unreal Engine integrated rendering, collision detection, AI, visibility, networking, scripting and file system management into one complete engine. Unreal Engine 1 provided an advanced software rasterizer and a hardware-accelerated rendering path using the Glide API, specifically developed for 3dfx GPUs, and was updated for OpenGL and Direct3D. Large parts of the game were implemented in a custom scripting language called UnrealScript. The initial network performance was also very poor when compared to its biggest competitor, Quake 2. Internally, Epic used this engine for Unreal and Unreal Tournament. The release of Unreal Tournament marked great strides in both network performance and Direct3D & OpenGL support.
The engine became very popular due to the modular engine architecture and the inclusion of a scripting language which made it easy to mod, including total conversions like Tactical Ops. For instance, a developer was able to replace the original renderer from UE1 with a DirectX 10 renderer in 2009
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· Unreal Engine 2
The second version made its debut in 2002 with America's Army. This generation saw the core code and rendering engine completely re-written. In addition, it featured UnrealEd 2, which debuted with the previous generation of the engine and was shortly followed later by UnrealEd 3, along with the Karma physics SDK. This physics engine powered the ragdoll physics in Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Championship. Other engine elements were also updated, with improved assets as well as adding support for the GameCube and the Xbox. Support for the PlayStation 2 console was previously added in UE1. UE2.5, an update to the original version of UE2, improved rendering performance and added vehicles physics, a particle system editor for UnrealEd and 64-bit support in Unreal Tournament 2004. A specialized version of UE2.5 called UE2X was used for Unreal Championship 2 on the original Xbox platform. It featured optimizations specific to that console. EAX 3.0 is also supported for sound. On March 24, 2011, Ubisoft Montreal revealed that UE2.5 was successfully running on the Nintendo 3DS.
The second version made its debut in 2002 with America's Army. This generation saw the core code and rendering engine completely re-written. In addition, it featured UnrealEd 2, which debuted with the previous generation of the engine and was shortly followed later by UnrealEd 3, along with the Karma physics SDK. This physics engine powered the ragdoll physics in Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Championship. Other engine elements were also updated, with improved assets as well as adding support for the GameCube and the Xbox. Support for the PlayStation 2 console was previously added in UE1. UE2.5, an update to the original version of UE2, improved rendering performance and added vehicles physics, a particle system editor for UnrealEd and 64-bit support in Unreal Tournament 2004. A specialized version of UE2.5 called UE2X was used for Unreal Championship 2 on the original Xbox platform. It featured optimizations specific to that console. EAX 3.0 is also supported for sound. On March 24, 2011, Ubisoft Montreal revealed that UE2.5 was successfully running on the Nintendo 3DS.
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· Unreal Engine 3
The third and current generation of the Unreal Engine (UE3) is designed for DirectX (versions 9-11 for Windows and Xbox 360), as well as systems using OpenGL, including the PlayStation 3, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Stage 3D for Adobe Flash Player 11, PlayStation Vita and Wii U. Its renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows. It also builds on the tools available in previous versions. In October 2011, the engine was ported to support Adobe Flash Player 11 through the Stage 3D hardware-accelerated APIs. Epic has used this version of the engine for their in-house games. Aggressive licensing of this iteration has garnered a great deal of support from many prominent licensees. Epic has announced that Unreal Engine 3 runs on both Windows 8 and Windows RT.
The third and current generation of the Unreal Engine (UE3) is designed for DirectX (versions 9-11 for Windows and Xbox 360), as well as systems using OpenGL, including the PlayStation 3, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Stage 3D for Adobe Flash Player 11, PlayStation Vita and Wii U. Its renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows. It also builds on the tools available in previous versions. In October 2011, the engine was ported to support Adobe Flash Player 11 through the Stage 3D hardware-accelerated APIs. Epic has used this version of the engine for their in-house games. Aggressive licensing of this iteration has garnered a great deal of support from many prominent licensees. Epic has announced that Unreal Engine 3 runs on both Windows 8 and Windows RT.
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· Unreal Engine 4 On August 18, 2005, Mark Rein, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed that Unreal Engine 4 had been in development since 2003. Until mid-2008, development was exclusively by Tim Sweeney, technical director and founder of Epic Games. The engine targets the eighth generation of PC hardware and consoles.
In February 2012, Mark Rein said "people are going to be shocked later this year when they see Unreal Engine 4". Unreal Engine 4 was unveiled to limited attendees at the 2012 Game Developers Conference, and video of the engine being demonstrated by developer Alan "Talisman" Willard was released to the public on June 7, 2012 via GameTrailers TV. This demo was created on a PC with a Geforce GTX 580 and can be run on a PC with a Geforce GTX 680.
One of the major features of UE4 is real-time global illumination using voxel cone tracing, eliminating the need for pre-computed lighting. UE4 also features new developer features to reduce iteration time and allow direct updating of C++ code. New features of the debugger for "Kismet" (a visual scripting engine that debuted in UE3) allow developers to directly visualize code while testing. The developer can then jump to the source code and edit it in Visual Studio. Elements in the game can be clicked on directly to more easily change the game world. This also ultimately results in less of a divide between technical artist, a designer and a programmer. The result is a reduced time to compile code and allows game creators to tweak settings in real time.
In February 2012, Mark Rein said "people are going to be shocked later this year when they see Unreal Engine 4". Unreal Engine 4 was unveiled to limited attendees at the 2012 Game Developers Conference, and video of the engine being demonstrated by developer Alan "Talisman" Willard was released to the public on June 7, 2012 via GameTrailers TV. This demo was created on a PC with a Geforce GTX 580 and can be run on a PC with a Geforce GTX 680.
One of the major features of UE4 is real-time global illumination using voxel cone tracing, eliminating the need for pre-computed lighting. UE4 also features new developer features to reduce iteration time and allow direct updating of C++ code. New features of the debugger for "Kismet" (a visual scripting engine that debuted in UE3) allow developers to directly visualize code while testing. The developer can then jump to the source code and edit it in Visual Studio. Elements in the game can be clicked on directly to more easily change the game world. This also ultimately results in less of a divide between technical artist, a designer and a programmer. The result is a reduced time to compile code and allows game creators to tweak settings in real time.
Game modeling using engine
"In older engines, if you wanted to change the relationship between your weapon damage and how long it'll take to kill a creature, you may spend a couple of days iterating, but if you have to spend a lot of time waiting for a build every time, you're talking one change, waiting 15 minutes for the compile to complete, and then play the game, get to the point where you can test it, test it, exit the game, change, compile…now, since all of that can be done very quickly within the tools, it's ‘Make the change, play, when it compiles, finish, shoot the guy, and then escape, make the change, play.. the iteration time is down to 30 seconds instead of 15 minutes. Our ability to kind of roll through and see how the game is playing out is much faster.".