Unreal Engine
Encyclopedia
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, MMORPG
s and RPG
s. 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 and 11 (for Windows Vista
and later), OpenGL
for Linux
, Mac OS X
, PlayStation 3
, iOS and Android, and Stage 3D for Adobe Flash Player 11.
, 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.
, 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. 3DFX's fall from the top spot in 3D acceleration caused Epic to add support for D3D and OpenGL. Initially the performance of the new APIs was awful when compared to that of Glide. 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 D3D & OGL support.
Unreal Engine 1 used the Glide API
, specifically developed for 3dfx GPUs, and was updated for OpenGL
and Direct3D
. Probably the biggest reason for its popularity was that the engine architecture and the inclusion of a scripting language
made it easy to mod
. 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.
. This generation saw the core code and rendering engine completely re-written. In addition, it featured the new UnrealEd 2
, which was followed later by UnrealEd 3, which was later integrated along with the Karma physics SDK. This SDK was what 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. For other platforms, these optimizations were not introduced until UE3. 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
.
(versions 9-11 for Windows and Xbox 360), as well as systems using OpenGL
, including the PlayStation 3, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS and Android. 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 is 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 current iteration has garnered a great deal of support from several big licensees.
, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed on August 18, 2005 that Unreal Engine 4 had been in development since 2003. 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 up to that point was Tim Sweeney
, technical director and founder of Epic Games. However, at the 2006 Game Developers Conference
, Tim Sweeney stated that development would not begin in earnest on the next version until some time in 2008.
Sweeney gave a speech at PoPL06 (the Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages) that described aspects of how the Unreal Engine 3 worked at the time and "what we would like to write" in future. He predicted the next generation of games consoles would arrive in 2009, at which time game designers would work with CPUs that had 20 or more cores, 80 or more hardware threads and more than a teraflop
of computing power.
In March 2008, Sweeney predicted that the number of developers working on Unreal Engine 4 would be ramped up to three or four engineers by the end of that year, and implied that it would be aimed predominantly at the next generation of consoles rather than PCs However, Rein later confirmed Unreal Engine 4 was coming to PC first, and clarified that 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 its focus on the next console generation, Michael Capps, President of Epic Games, indicated that Unreal Engine 4 should be ready between 2012 and 2018.
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
developed by Epic Games
Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc., also known as Epic and formerly Epic MegaGames, is an American video game development company based in Cary, North Carolina. Its most recent success has been the Gears of War series of games, although it is also known for its Unreal Engine technology. It is the parent company of...
, first illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
game Unreal
Unreal
Unreal is a first-person shooter video game developed by Epic MegaGames and Digital Extremes and published by GT Interactive in May 1998...
. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
s and RPG
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
s. With its core written in C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
, 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
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's DirectX 9
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
(for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
), DirectX 10 and 11 (for Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
and later), OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
for Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, iOS and Android, and Stage 3D for Adobe Flash Player 11.
Background
A great deal of the gameplay code can be written in UnrealScriptUnrealScript
UnrealScript is the scripting language of the Unreal Engine and is used for authoring game code and gameplay events....
, 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
Middleware
Middleware is computer software that connects software components or people and their applications. The software consists of a set of services that allows multiple processes running on one or more machines to interact...
packages, the Unreal Engine also provides various tools to assist with content creation, both for designers and artists.
Unreal Engine 1
Making its debut in 1998, the first generation Unreal Engine integrated renderingRendering (computer graphics)
Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
, collision detection
Collision detection
Collision detection typically refers to the computational problem of detecting the intersection of two or more objects. While the topic is most often associated with its use in video games and other physical simulations, it also has applications in robotics...
, AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
, visibility, networking and file system
File system
A file system is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the...
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
Inverse kinematics
Inverse kinematics is a subdomain of kinematics, which is of particular interest in robotics and computer animation. In contrast to forward kinematics, which calculates the position of a body after a series of motions, inverse kinematics calculates the motions necessary to achieve a desired...
collision detection" system in an effort to maintain playable framerates on systems that were common at the time of its release. 3DFX's fall from the top spot in 3D acceleration caused Epic to add support for D3D and OpenGL. Initially the performance of the new APIs was awful when compared to that of Glide. The initial network performance was also very poor when compared to its biggest competitor, Quake 2. Internally, Epic used this engine for Unreal
Unreal
Unreal is a first-person shooter video game developed by Epic MegaGames and Digital Extremes and published by GT Interactive in May 1998...
and Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament is a futuristic first-person shooter video game co-developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. It was published in 1999 by GT Interactive. Retrospectively, the game has also been referred to as UT99 or UT Classic to differentiate it from its numbered sequels...
. The release of Unreal Tournament marked great strides in both network performance and D3D & OGL support.
Glide API
Glide is a 3D graphics API developed by 3dfx Interactive for their Voodoo Graphics 3D accelerator cards. Although it originally started as a proprietary API, it was later open sourced by 3dfx. It was dedicated to gaming performance, supporting geometry and texture mapping primarily, in data...
, specifically developed for 3dfx GPUs, and was updated for OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
and Direct3D
Direct3D
Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface . Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems , and for other platforms through the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems...
. Probably the biggest reason for its popularity was that the engine architecture and the inclusion of a scripting language
UnrealScript
UnrealScript is the scripting language of the Unreal Engine and is used for authoring game code and gameplay events....
made it easy to mod
Modding
Modding is a slang expression that is derived from the verb "modify". Modding refers to the act of modifying a piece of hardware or software or anything else for that matter, to perform a function not originally conceived or intended by the designer...
. One other improvement of Unreal compared to the previous generation of engines was its networking technology
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
, 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.
Unreal Engine 2
The second version made its debut in 2002 with America's ArmyAmerica's Army
America's Army is a series of video games and other media developed by the United States Army and released as a global public relations initiative to help with recruitment. America's Army was conceived by Colonel Casey Wardynski and is managed by the U.S...
. This generation saw the core code and rendering engine completely re-written. In addition, it featured the new UnrealEd 2
UnrealEd
UnrealEd is the level editor used to create levels for Unreal. It was also used for other games based on the Unreal engine, such as Deus Ex and Lineage II, although it has changed along with the engine for later games...
, which was followed later by UnrealEd 3, which was later integrated along with the Karma physics SDK. This SDK was what powered the ragdoll physics
Ragdoll physics
In computer physics engines, ragdoll physics is a type of procedural animation that is often used as a replacement for traditional static death animations.-Introduction:Early video games used manually-created animations for characters' death sequences...
in Unreal Tournament 2003
Unreal Tournament 2003
Unreal Tournament 2003 or UT2003 is a first-person shooter video game designed mainly for multiplayer gaming. The game is part of the Unreal franchise's series of games, and is a sequel to Unreal Tournament ....
and Unreal Championship
Unreal Championship
Unreal Championship is a first-person shooter video game co-developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. It was published by Infogrames and released on November 12, 2002, for the Xbox. Unreal Championship is essentially a console version game of the PC-based Unreal Tournament 2003, developed...
. 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
UnrealEd
UnrealEd is the level editor used to create levels for Unreal. It was also used for other games based on the Unreal engine, such as Deus Ex and Lineage II, although it has changed along with the engine for later games...
and 64-bit support in Unreal Tournament 2004
Unreal Tournament 2004
Unreal Tournament 2004, also known as UT2K4 and UT2004, is a futuristic first-person shooter computer game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes...
. 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. For other platforms, these optimizations were not introduced until UE3. EAX 3.0 is also supported for sound.
On March 24, 2011, Ubisoft
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. is a major French video game publisher and developer, with headquarters in Montreuil, France. The company has a worldwide presence with 25 studios in 17 countries and subsidiaries in 26 countries....
Montreal revealed that UE2.5 was successfully running on the Nintendo 3DS
Nintendo 3DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo. The autostereoscopic device is able to project stereoscopic 3D effects without the use of 3D glasses or any additional accessories. The Nintendo 3DS features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS series software, including Nintendo DSi software...
.
Unreal Engine 3
The third generation of the Unreal Engine (UE3) is designed for DirectXDirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
(versions 9-11 for Windows and Xbox 360), as well as systems using OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
, including the PlayStation 3, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS and Android. Its renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR
High dynamic range rendering
In 3D computer graphics, high dynamic range rendering , also known as high dynamic range lighting, is the rendering of computer graphics scenes by using lighting calculations done in a larger dynamic range. This allows preservation of details that may be lost due to limiting contrast ratios...
, per-pixel lighting
Per-pixel lighting
In computer graphics, per-pixel lighting is commonly used to refer to a set of methods for computing illumination at each rendered pixel of an image...
and dynamic shadows. It also builds on the tools available in previous versions. In October 2011, the engine is 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 current iteration has garnered a great deal of support from several big licensees.
Unreal Engine 4
Mark ReinMark Rein
Mark Rein may refer to:*Mark Rein , Menshevik journalist*Mark Rein Software executive-See also:*Mark Rein·Hagen Game designer...
, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed on August 18, 2005 that Unreal Engine 4 had been in development since 2003. The engine targets the next generation of PC hardware and consoles after the seventh generation
History of video game consoles (seventh generation)
In the history of video games, the seventh generation of consoles is the current generation , and includes consoles released since late by Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony...
. The only person to work on the Unreal Engine 4 core system design up to that point was Tim Sweeney
Tim Sweeney (game developer)
Tim Sweeney, born in 1970, is a computer game programmer and the founder of Epic Games, being best known for his work on ZZT and the Unreal Engine....
, technical director and founder of Epic Games. However, at the 2006 Game Developers Conference
Game Developers Conference
The Game Developers Conference is the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers, focusing on learning, inspiration, and networking...
, Tim Sweeney stated that development would not begin in earnest on the next version until some time in 2008.
Sweeney gave a speech at PoPL06 (the Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages) that described aspects of how the Unreal Engine 3 worked at the time and "what we would like to write" in future. He predicted the next generation of games consoles would arrive in 2009, at which time game designers would work with CPUs that had 20 or more cores, 80 or more hardware threads and more than a teraflop
FLOPS
In computing, FLOPS is a measure of a computer's performance, especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating-point calculations, similar to the older, simpler, instructions per second...
of computing power.
In March 2008, Sweeney predicted that the number of developers working on Unreal Engine 4 would be ramped up to three or four engineers by the end of that year, and implied that it would be aimed predominantly at the next generation of consoles rather than PCs However, Rein later confirmed Unreal Engine 4 was coming to PC first, and clarified that 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 its focus on the next console generation, Michael Capps, President of Epic Games, indicated that Unreal Engine 4 should be ready between 2012 and 2018.
See also
- UnrealUnrealUnreal is a first-person shooter video game developed by Epic MegaGames and Digital Extremes and published by GT Interactive in May 1998...
, the original game featuring the engine - UnrealScriptUnrealScriptUnrealScript is the scripting language of the Unreal Engine and is used for authoring game code and gameplay events....
, the scripting language used in Unreal Engine - UnrealEdUnrealEdUnrealEd is the level editor used to create levels for Unreal. It was also used for other games based on the Unreal engine, such as Deus Ex and Lineage II, although it has changed along with the engine for later games...
, the Unreal level editor - Game engineGame engineA game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
- List of game engines
- Video game development
- Darkworks#TriOviz for Games Technology