iOS Feature List

[GameDevMich]

Greetings all. The recent news of UDK providing iOS support has brought me here. I've been involved in iPhone development since the beginning, so this is an exciting announcement. I have not used UDK extensively, but I do have some experience with it. I know this is only day one and documentation is still being worked on, but I'd like to ask about feature capabilities of UDK for iOS. Forgive me if any of these are covered in the docs and I just missed them.

For example, I see a few of the core ones available: ES 2 rendering, touch input, Game Center (nice), movie player, and a few others. I would like to find out if there is any way to access some of the other features of iOS for development:

Gestures: I checked out the MobileInputSystem docs (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MobileInputSystem.html) and got a good idea of how basic input works. Is there anyway to script reactions to pinch/zoom/rotate/etc?

UIKit - What kind of support is there for creating UIKit objects? Does the content pipeline allow for the loading of interface files created by the Interface Builder on a Mac?

Game Center Alternatives - Game Center is a great addition, but is there anyway too hook up other similar middleware such as OpenFeint? I've seen a lot of successful iPhone games support both.

GameKit - Pretty much a must if you want to get into iPhone specific scoring, networking, etc.

iAD - Kind of a big one here. Any additional source of revenue is good, so is there a way to hook into this from UDK? Also, am I correctly assuming that the royalty fee applies to ad revenue?

MediaPlayer - The only way to get access to the iPod library is using the MediaPlayer framework. Is this currently exposed so we can make use of a player's music library?

Other - Push Notifications and StoreKit.

This last question is on the topic of the interface (since I mentioned UIKit). I read speculation of UDK bringing Scaleform along for the ride to iOS. The mobile specific docs are still getting treatment and I have already parsed the iOS forum...so I'm not sure if this is confirmed. I know Flash is not allowed on iDevices, so how does the interface creation work for UDK iOS?

That's about it. All in all, this release is very exciting and I'm looking forward to getting some more hands on time...just need to resubscribe to my iPhone Developer account (just expired). Great work Epic. Looking forward to your reply.

[GameDevMich]

Still researching, but it looks like I got my answer regarding gestures in this thread (http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=754704). Still looking for answers on the rest

[Eric Muyser]

I'm interested in the MediaPlayer answer as well.

[Curious]

Gestures: I checked out the MobileInputSystem docs (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MobileInputSystem.html) and got a good idea of how basic input works. Is there anyway to script reactions to pinch/zoom/rotate/etc?

Yes, it is possible to gain access to pure touch data and do pretty much whatever you want with them through UnrealScript. The alternative would be to use two Kismet events to track various touches and then calculate an ingame response, but that would quickly become very nasty. The best way is to either script it or to create a custom sequence designed to do just that.



UIKit - What kind of support is there for creating UIKit objects? Does the content pipeline allow for the loading of interface files created by the Interface Builder on a Mac?

The short version - none. Basically, you use the engine to do everything and UI stuff basically relies directly on the canvas. No UIScenes, no UIKit, no Scaleform (yet.)



Game Center Alternatives - Game Center is a great addition, but is there anyway too hook up other similar middleware such as OpenFeint? I've seen a lot of successful iPhone games support both.

The short version - no. UDK can only gain access to Game Center through the developed online subsystems.



GameKit - Pretty much a must if you want to get into iPhone specific scoring, networking, etc.

The short version - you don't have access to GameKit. Well, not really... Check out the Game Center's multiplayer capability which is governed by the GKMatch object (part of the GameKit), it will allow a lobby-based-matcmaking multiplayer with up to 4 players. (http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/GameKit/Reference/GKMatch_Ref/Reference/Reference.html). Basically, what it means that it uses the GKMatch object, as you are probably aware of, it means you're stuck with Game Center for your multiplayer needs.



iAD - Kind of a big one here. Any additional source of revenue is good, so is there a way to hook into this from UDK? Also, am I correctly assuming that the royalty fee applies to ad revenue?

The short version - UDK doesn't employ iAd.



MediaPlayer - The only way to get access to the iPod library is using the MediaPlayer framework. Is this currently exposed so we can make use of a player's music library?

The short version - you can't tap into the player's music library. Only the integrated stuff is currently available. What is integrated, that's up to you to decide.



Other - Push Notifications and StoreKit.

Sorry, also a no from the UDK perspective.


This last question is on the topic of the interface (since I mentioned UIKit). I read speculation of UDK bringing Scaleform along for the ride to iOS. The mobile specific docs are still getting treatment and I have already parsed the iOS forum...so I'm not sure if this is confirmed. I know Flash is not allowed on iDevices, so how does the interface creation work for UDK iOS?

There is no access to either UIKit or UIScenes (which have been removed with the rise of the Scaleform on the UE platform), the only way to work out a user interface is basically direct canvas works, by employing various input zones which can be grouped and toggled as necessary.

Scaleform has announced that they are working on a solution for the iPhone </3 Flash situation, so we could look forward to Scaleform support in the coming months. If it doesn't piss off Apple or something.

And, also... Sorry if it seems harsh, but most of your questions are a no. However! This is written from a UDK developer's perspective. You can license the entire engine and get access to all the stuff we just crossed off and implement what you'd like. But that's going to cost you 350 thousand USDs. Undoubtedly, the situation will improve in the coming months. :D

When you are working with UDK iOS. Don't think iPhone, think Unreal/UDK. That said, forget about UIKit and every other comfort of OS X development. Here it's the editor and UnrealScript and your creative capability of faking stuff. :D

And yeah, welcome to the unreal world! Hope to see some of your work soon and hope this helps. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me. :D

[aZzy]

Curious: How do you know all this stuff about the UDK and iOS when it is merely a month old? Do you just read the UDN pages alot or something?

[Curious]

Curious: How do you know all this stuff about the UDK and iOS when it is merely a month old? Do you just read the UDN pages alot or something?

Actually, I know very little about it (but would love to learn), but I've been working with the iPhone since October 2008. But most of my attention was given to my hobby of pursuing realistic graphical/physical simulation and game programming (C/C++, Objective-C, DirectX, OGL (ES) ). So, UDK iOS came naturally as a case study for my own game engine which I've been studying to build and building for the past few years. :D

UDK iOS pretty much works like I imagined it to, the actual binary is prebuilt on the OS X, default paths are set and a pipeline has been established around it with the ES 2.0 comformed editor. And the UDN and the community are simply amazing, I am currently working on a webpage covering a lot of stuff I documented in a tutorialized way and hopefully I'll be able to share it with everyone soon. And with Epic's awesome documentation available to everyone, it's a true pleasure to work with such an engine and such a community. :D

It's awesome what people can do with this development kit, I love seeing creativity and helping people get their groove on. I'm just following the first rule of any community: "Give what you take!" :D

[Shykat_Games]

Most everything that Curious is mentioning was covered in the official Mobile pages. At no time does Curious say that things are a "no" forever. My guess is Epic will include iAd and StoreKit sooner then later as it is a direct avenue to more royalty. Scaleform seemed to have shown off Scaleform for Mobiles at CES, just wish someone covered it better. My guess is that sometime in the next 3 to 6 months we will Scaleform and the other things I mentioned. I need Scaleform and StoreKit, but if they didn't exist, I could "possibly" deal with using Canvas, and from my undertanding I can still do direct TCP communication, so I could have a server handle my purchases. I don't think I will have to do either of those things, and I have plenty of work to do before that, so I can wait :)

-E

[Curious]

I agree with Shykat on the topics of iAd and StoreKit concerning increasing both ours and Epic's revenue. Also, I would love to see an extension for inApp purchases, that would be extremely helpful as it is the tactic of everyone nowadays to release a small testing portion of the game for free and then allow users to unlock content for a designated price.

These are things I believe are currently at the top of Epic's priority list, besides correcting some smaller compatibility issues and accomodating the UnrealEd towards an ES 2.0 pipeline. More ways to offer something to the public equals more money in both our pockets.