Unreal Engine 3 Trailer Shows Off Latest Additions

by Chris Faylor, Apr 02, 2009 8:27am PDT

Related Topics – xbox 360, Trailer, PlayStation 3, Unreal Engine, PC, GDC 09, Epic

After demonstrating the latest additions to its multi-platform Unreal Engine 3 at Game Developers Conference, Epic has released a video to showcase said features.

The additions include a content browser for artists to easily find game assets, the multi-purpose Unreal Master Control Program architecture that allows users to track various online play statistics, and a new lighting feature dubbed "Unreal Lightmass."

Utilized by Epic and various other developers for games such as Gears of War 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum, Unreal Engine 3 runs on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

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15 Threads | 89 Comments

#37

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By: byorn x Show Full Post

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I wonder when we will get a new PC game with an updated version of the engine to play around with.

I am hoping for a Gears 2 PC announcement at E3 this year, but I am not certain all of the changes in the video are making it in.

Apr 02, 2009 10:07am PDT

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I wonder when we will get a new PC game with an updated version of the engine to play around with. I ... : byorn
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- Gears 2 PC will not happen. Cliffy B said it, not that Cliffy B does anything important at epic. He sits ... : coolbreezr
- I'm curious about this too. I think it's really unfortunate that there isn't a good single-player PC firs... : Chris Remo

#73

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By: UMG x Show Full Post

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According to this, Unrela 3 still has all it's old features, so if modders want to use them it's there for them
http://news.bigdownload.com/tag/unreal-lightmass/

That said, lightmass looks amazing.

Apr 02, 2009 4:02pm PDT

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According to this, Unrela 3 still has all it's old features, so if modders want to use them it's there fo... : UMG
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  I saw it at GDC and it is pretty cool for an integrated tool, but it's still a click and pray GI solution... : Fred Garvin
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    Shouldn't anyone using this set up a render farm for it anyway, though? : SpaecKow
    - Not always. A start up dev might have the license paid for by a pub, but not enough to run a full fledged... : Fred Garvin

#7

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By: st4rdog x Show Full Post

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I don't get why they show these videos.

The next game Epic release won't have any of these features. All we'll get is 3rd party devs using a hodgepodge of some of these features and their own custom ones, like Bioshock etc did.

Unreal Tournament 3 was one of the ugliest games in a long time and so is Gears of War. No dynamic shadows or anything.

Apr 02, 2009 8:51am PDT

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I don't get why they show these videos. The next game Epic release won't have any of these features. A... : st4rdog
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 7 replies.

#5

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By: TickHeadDog x Show Full Post

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Lightmass = Beast, a 3rd party GI solution. Yeah pretty, but it's lightmaps. What is this, 1996? Time to go realtime lighting already.

Apr 02, 2009 8:45am PDT

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Lightmass = Beast, a 3rd party GI solution. Yeah pretty, but it's lightmaps. What is this, 1996? Ti... : TickHeadDog
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 47 replies.

#82

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By: gyokuro x Show Full Post

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MCP lol nice tip of the hat to Tron

Apr 02, 2009 8:59pm PDT

MCP lol nice tip of the hat to Tron : gyokuro

#49

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By: code-e255 x Show Full Post

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Wtf is that Unreal Master Content feature, the one which shows some sort of "heatmap" of the level overlay? Does that show expected choke-points on team-based levels, or does it show movement frequency based on actually collected statistics? Very interesting stuff.

Apr 02, 2009 10:43am PDT

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Wtf is that Unreal Master Content feature, the one which shows some sort of "heatmap" of the level overla... : code-e255
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  These sort of telemetry maps can be tuned to show various things, like: Time spent in areas, weapons fire... : eonix
  - That's pretty awesome. I'd imagine those visualizations to be quite helpful in fine-tuning the layout of ... : code-e255
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    Yeah, they used stuff like this a lot in making Halo 3. It lead them to make e.g. the ledges in the first... : node
    - If only they paired this with facial/emotion recognition Bungie would've been able to see where players w... : PlayfulPuppy
- It's used in some Source games made by Valve. It shows where people are killed. : raxtor

#67

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By: cell9song x Show Full Post

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forget this , lets get to work on a nice updated version of XMP Epic

Apr 02, 2009 2:52pm PDT

forget this , lets get to work on a nice updated version of XMP Epic : cell9song

#11

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By: Snipergen x Show Full Post

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I use the unreal ED from UT3, will this get updated?

Apr 02, 2009 8:59am PDT

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I use the unreal ED from UT3, will this get updated? : Snipergen
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- I don't know, this is more aimed at those that have licensed the actual Unreal Engine 3 technology. : Chris Faylor
- Nope, too bad because it would make a great showcase of the Unreal Engine Tech. : dangerdoggie

#64

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By: SladeZero x Show Full Post

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Oddly enough, the first thing that stuck out was the music. It's from Unreal Championship 2. Makes me sad we'll probably never see another one.

Apr 02, 2009 1:38pm PDT

Oddly enough, the first thing that stuck out was the music. It's from Unreal Championship 2. Makes me s... : SladeZero

#61

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By: okellyc x Show Full Post

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unreal ed is just amazing, been a few years from when i last used it, looks all spiffy now

Apr 02, 2009 12:45pm PDT

unreal ed is just amazing, been a few years from when i last used it, looks all spiffy now : okellyc

#3

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By: f1kt1t1ous x Show Full Post

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This looks absolutely amazing, I mean just for workflow and efficiency alone it will help devs by leaps and bounds. Really stunning stuff Epic is doing here, helping all the licensees with amazing new technology.. This should help bring us better, cooler, smoother, polished games faster and way better lookin too with Lightmass and all that fantastic color-bleeding and such. Just jaw-droppingly gorgeous.. Epic has done it again..

Apr 02, 2009 8:41am PDT

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This looks absolutely amazing, I mean just for workflow and efficiency alone it will help devs by leaps a... : f1kt1t1ous
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- yeah these tools look really impressive. I think I see why the unreal engine is used by so many devs. All... : Modulus
- The tools look really damn useful, and that lighting looked amazing. I pretty much couldn't care less how... : node

#1

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By: Jobos x Show Full Post

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Do current Unreal Engine 3 developers get these additions for free? Is this a whole new engine that must be bought, or do they simply buy the upgrade?

Apr 02, 2009 8:38am PDT

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Do current Unreal Engine 3 developers get these additions for free? Is this a whole new engine that must... : Jobos
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 6 replies.

#17

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By: SpaecKow x Show Full Post

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Baked in global illumination huh? Cool. That always seemed like a fairly intuitive next step once lightmaps got high resolution enough to be able to take proper advantage of it. Hope the texture memory budget can afford it!

Apr 02, 2009 9:18am PDT

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Baked in global illumination huh? Cool. That always seemed like a fairly intuitive next step once lightma... : SpaecKow
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- If it could afford the lightmaps before, it can afford the same lightmaps with better data now. There sho... : kungfusquirrel
- Beast's been doing this for Unreal 3 for awhile now. : eonix

#24

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By: mrwolf710 x Show Full Post

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They can use Unreal to light m(y)ass anytime. Yeehaw!

Apr 02, 2009 9:34am PDT

They can use Unreal to light m(y)ass anytime. Yeehaw! : mrwolf710

#2

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By: quadalupeupe x Show Full Post

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When playing Gears 2 I noticed the environments were still square, not very roundish other than character models and there weren't very many small objects in the game, lots of large empty areas

like if i walked into an office type environment in the game, there's a prison or detention type area in the game with some creepy crawly creatures there and the offices lacked detail for smaller objects, they seemed really empty or even the first hospital stage

Apr 02, 2009 8:41am PDT

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When playing Gears 2 I noticed the environments were still square, not very roundish other than character... : quadalupeupe
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- Yeah there's not much in the way of small physics-enabled objects to kick around or shoot in the world of... : f1kt1t1ous

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