So in my last thrilling blog I discussed a game engine called Unity (
for anyone who didn't read it or was just too lazy or didn't care you
can find it right
here)
which is (at least in my opinion) one of the easiest and most user
friendly engines to use. So I decided to discuss another engine for this
blog, that engine is the Unreal Engine.
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| Source: http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/13/132775/2231753-image_unreal_engine_4_19497_2539_0022.jpg |
What is The Unreal Engine?
Developed by Epic Games in 1998 for
the first-person game Unreal, The Unreal Engine is a game engine that is
a powerhouse in the gaming industry. The engine while initially
developed for first-person shooters has been successfully used in other
genres, from stealth, MMORPGs and other RPGs. Since the Unreal Engine is
written the C++ coding language it features a high degree of
portability and is a tool used by many game developers in today's
industry.
The engine provides an editor interface for
building game worlds and placing characters, a content browser for
organizing and importing assets and a system for visual scripting called
"Blueprints". It is available as a complete program and as uncompiled
source code. This allows developers to easily do modifications of core
features as well as allows for custom programming.
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| Source: http://www.itsartmag.com/features/UnrealEngine4-featdemo/1.jpg |
Supported Platforms
- Windows PC
- Mac
- IOS (iPhone/iPad)
- Android
- Xbox One
- PlayStation 4
Versions
Currently there are four iterations of the Unreal Engine, each with there own licenses.
Version 1
The 1st iteration of the Unreal Engine, which made its
debut in 1998's first-person shooter, Unreal, with its modular engine
architecture and the inclusion of a scripting language became one of the
most popular engine in the market. The engine integrated rendering,
collision detection, AI, visibility, networking, scripting, and file
system management as well as provided an advanced software rasterizer
and a hardware-accelerated rendering path using the Glide API.
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| Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/65/Unreal-GlideVoodoo1flyby.jpg |
Version 2
With the release of America's Army in 2002 came the
second version of the Unreal Engine, which saw the core code and
rendering engine completely re-written. In addition, the engine's
physics system was powered by the ragdoll physics which was found in
Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Championship. Along with upgrades to
other aspects of the engine, Unreal Engine 2 now added support for the
Game Cube and the Xbox.
There was the 2.5 version
update to the engine which improved rendering performance and includes a
vehicle physics, a particle editor and a 64-bit support systems.
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| Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Killing_Floor_Biohazard1.jpg |
Version 3
In 2004 Epic Games release its 3rd iteration of their
Unreal Game engine which broke away from Unreal Engine 2's
fixed-function pipeline with the introduction of fully programmable
shader hardware. The next version brought changes to it's rendering
engine by providing support for a gamma-correct high-dynamic range
renderer. Unlike its previous iteration, the Unreal Engine 3 expected
that all content was in both high- and low-resolution and baked normal
maps for run-time as well as using OpenGL for multiple platform
support. The new renderer supported advanced techniques such as HDRR,
per-pixel lighting and dynamic shadows as well as updating many of the
tools found in previous versions. The Unreal Engine 3 had some of the
most significant updates to the engine to date, some updates including
global illumination capabilities, soft body dynamics and large crowd
simulation among others.
Due to the Unreal Engine 3's
restriction on publishing and selling games to the engine's licenses,
Epic Games released a free version of UE3's Software Development Kit to
the general public. Game developers were able to sell their games by
paying an initial fee of $99 and 25% royalty on revenue above $50,000.
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| Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/The_Ball_-_Screenshot_08.jpg |
Version 4
The 4th and current iteration of the Unreal engine
began development in 2008, and planned to feature real-time global
illumination using voxel cone tracing which would eliminate pre-computed
lighting. However in the 2012 release, that feature was replaced with a
similar but less computationally-expensive algorithm because of
performance concerns on the next-gen consoles. UE4 also included new
developer features that reduced iteration time and allows programmers to
update C++ code while the engine is running. In addition, UE4
introduced a successor to UE3's kismet, called Blueprint, which is a
visual scripting system that allows for rapid development of game logic
without the use of coding.
Along with the 4th version
of the Unreal Engine Epic Games launched the Unreal Engine Market place
that allowed the engine's subscribers to buy and sell community-created
content. In addition, they released a variety of asset packs including
full-scale environments, props, characters, sounds, materials, animated
meshes, prefab C++ code and a number other asset types as free demos and
tutorials on the new marketplace. Furthermore, Epic Games released the
Unreal Engine 4 for free to schools and universities for students in
accredited video game development, computer science, art, architecture,
simulation and visualization programs.
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| Source: http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/unrealengine4-820x420.jpg |
For More Information on the Unreal Engine:
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