UDK Powered by Unreal Engine 4?

[ironbelly]

Just a quick question for the devs but I've read that epic will be revealing UE4 this year although the article didn't necessarily say they would be releasing it. Is UDK going to transition fairly quickly to UE4 or will we stay with UE3 for a while after UE4 is released?

[NickP]

I just heard the news about an hour ago myself. Very exciting! However, I don't expect UE4 to release anytime soon. I don't recall if it was Tim, Mark, or Mike, but I remember one of them stating in a recent interview that the biggest mistakes they made with UE3 were:

1) Not releasing something like UDK sooner
2) Not having UE3 ready in time for PS3/Xbox 360 launch.

They went on to say that they are trying their best to change that with UE4. They want to announce it sooner rather than later and get tools into developer's hands (this doesn't necessarily mean UDK) early so there can be UE4-based games when the next console generation launches.

With that said, I'm very excited for the official announcement. They always make a big announcement at GDC about the future of Unreal Engine, so I'm hoping UE4 is this year's announcement. If not, it's likely they'll wait until E3 or later. Either way, I am super stoked about this. I'm looking forward to the next generation tools more than anything else. Just for fun, I'm going to take a stab at some predictions.

March 2012 Epic announces and reveals Unreal Engine 4 at GDC, gives licensees preview/vertical slice of the new tools
April 2012 Unreal Development Kit leaves beta, sees final major upgrade as Epic shifts focus to UE4 + leaves a small support team for UDK
June 2012 First UE4-based games announced at E3 2012
November 2012 UDK developers get a preview/vertical slice of the new tools
March 2013 Epic opens the floodgates, announces UDK for UE4 (UDK 2? Maybe no name change? Who knows! I do think it will be a separate product though, for legacy purposes)

Again, I'm no analyst; these are just for kicks. Anyone else want to make some predictions?

[Crusha K. Rool]

I can't really think of any feature that could really "shock people" and is major enough to really justify a version milestone change that would end the UDK beta. They may feel free to prove me wrong here.
Maybe it will be a milestone from a console point of view, but PC gamers are always technically ahead of the latest console generation, thus it might not blast us all that much away as expected.

We have simply come to a point where graphics are nearly photo-realistic. If it's just yet another graphics update to lay the bar higher, I would be quite disappointed. I think milestones like Half-Life to Half-Life 2 are not possible anymore.

[darthviper107]

I think mainly there should be much improvement in the tools used to create things. We're getting to the point where our ability to make content doesn't match that technical capabilities we have.

[iniside]

I see that feature very easily. Realtime all the time. Get rid of prebaked lighting in pipeline. That would be huge change in Unreal Engine.

[seenooh]

I find it hard a little to predict since we don't really know what the next console generation specs are, and that is the main basis for defining the new features. As for the tools, I don't think we're going to see something significant because I feel that Epic tends to integrate 3rd party tools rather than innovating.

[ambershee]

I think milestones like Half-Life to Half-Life 2 are not possible anymore.

This was never a milestone, it seems the only reason people remember it as such is because of Valve's marketing; there were plenty of games with fantastic narratives and all the features HL2 was famous for, years before Half-Life 2 (Noone Lives Forever predated it by four to five years, as an example, and a sequel followed before Half-Life 2 too).

[shuriken88]

Sounds pretty exciting! I'm trying to stop my mouth from watering, but its hard you see.

Anyway, I'm hoping some of the new features will look a little something like this:-

-True Dynamic Lighting/Shadows, for every 3D object currently rendered on screen (In terms of atmosphere & immersion, theres NOTHING more important IMHO). And more advanced use of Dynamic shadows, such as an arbitrary number of shadows cast depending on the number of light sources hitting any given object.

-Particle and other effects which can cast dymanic shadows, and react to light all the time. For example, a light beam, or lasers, ONLY being revealed through plumes of smoke, mist or couds of dust (just like in real life). It would probably be easy for Epic to "fake" the "lasers/beams through smoke" effect (not that I condone fakery LOL)

-Dynamic mesh splitting/cutting. A technique which has been seen in older games. Apparently Afro-Samurai is one of them. The BEST implementation of this technique seems to be Konami's "Free-Cutting" system which is being incorporated into the new Metal Gear Solid. Lets see if Epic can give their own answer to such an amazing game mechanic.

-Support for truely massive enviroments. Even though maps like GTA-San Andreas is fairly small when compared to the Elder Scrolls games, its still the biggest GTA map, and one of the biggest console game maps ever made, and it was FAR more interesting than Oblivion or Fallouts worlds, since it wasn't 100% modular. Similar to the ridiculously huge size of the True Crime: LA enviroment, (around 10 years ago) which could take more than 10 minutes to completely traverse, when travelling at full speed in a sports car. Absolutely HUGE, but sadly it just looked crap and boring.

-More competitive graphical capabilities. I know that the Unreal Engine has been on top of the game since Unreal 1 came out. Its been VERY hard to compete with, and so many developers have used it, almost to the point where things get a bit silly, particularly with UE3 (it was UE overkill IMO). Anyway, after seeing exemplary videos such as Samaritan, I'm hoping that Epics claims of all of that being true realtime gameplay dont fall through. Imagine if the new UE was not only the king of gameplay and intuitive development like it has been so far, but ALSO the king of visuals and physics (which is a crown Cryengine wears well I think)

-Truely destructable enviroments (not the quirky unstable method thats currently used in UE and some other engines). Imagine being on the 50th floor of a skyscraper. Suddenly you hear screams and explosions, you look outside into the open-world city map, and see tanks and bombers destroying everything. You realise that you only have a short amount of time to get out of there alive (think 9/11, from the eyes of those inside the towers, but even worse). Suddenly you feel the building moving, shifting to the side. All the loose objects like wheeled desks, chairs, printers, people etc are swayed by the force of inertia. The building is LITERALLY crumbling around you. You could try to escape by rushing through the corridors full of terrified people and other obstacles, but what if the ceiling collapses on you, or the floor gives way, or a shell smashes directly into the part of the building your in? Anything could happen because its TRUELY dynamic destruction using state of the art physics and mesh cutting, its a matter of luck, courage and wits. If you had a parachute, you could smash a window and jump out, hoping you were high enough for the parachute to break your fall before you reach the ground, or that part of the building doesn't fall into you on your way down, destroying the parachute and ending your story. You could just sit there and wait to see how the building is destroyed a few times, because remember, this is TRUE dynamics, so things will NEVER be the same as the last time. This can happen to ANY of the buildings in the city, which all have interiors to explore.

-Maximum online players increased to somewhere around 300 players in games, even console games. This is a pretty crazy thing to expect, I know, but if it was possible with a software hack for GTA: San Andreas nearly a decade ago, then I think it should also be possible for Epic now, who are at the forefront of gaming technology. I would regularly play San-Andreas Multiplayer back in the day, and get involved in HUGE gang-wars of 50-vs-50 players, or sometimes every man for himself, between upto 300 players. You'd have all sorts of different things going on, such as races, deathmatches, landgrabs, UT-Assualt style objective based games, or just doing whatever you want. Even Rockstar was unable to do better than a group of hackers, since their official multiplayer for GTA-4 had a pretty pitiful max player count of 16, but they compensated for the "emptiness" by creating localised gametypes which brought all the players together.

Thats all I can think of for now.

[ironbelly]

I can't really think of any feature that could really "shock people" and is major enough to really justify a version milestone change that would end the UDK beta. They may feel free to prove me wrong here.
Maybe it will be a milestone from a console point of view, but PC gamers are always technically ahead of the latest console generation, thus it might not blast us all that much away as expected.

We have simply come to a point where graphics are nearly photo-realistic. If it's just yet another graphics update to lay the bar higher, I would be quite disappointed. I think milestones like Half-Life to Half-Life 2 are not possible anymore.

I tend to feel the same there but I am certanily hoping that the imaginations of the brightest minds at epic outstrip ours and they have some amazing things up their sleeves, there's still a decent ways to go graphically before it is completely photorealistic too.. I think you are right though that we aren't going to see anything that is going to 'shock' the general public but I think we are very likely to see stuff that is going to shock the development world. Hell some of the advancements in UDK over the past 6 months were shocking in their own right and I think that's where the biggest innovation is giong to lie in their new technology, on the development side of things. That's what gets me really excited because the more the engine can empower the developers the more and more us developers can take these dream ideas that up until now had been fantasy and start making them happen.

[tegleg]

i hope if it does come to udk they make it less restrictive, that would be a pleasant shock for us all.
for example things like allowing us to write our own plugins like an unmentionable engine, theres only so far you can go with an 'unreal tournament mod'.
this would trully open it up to all posibilities of game design and help lift the restrictions without having to fork out hundereds of thousands for the full engine.
better graphics doesnt necessarily make better games, just look at mafia2, looks amazing but the game itself is boring to play.

cant wait to see what they do with it, its guna be ace!

[NickP]

An interesting piece of information worth noting: Unreal Engine 4 has been in development since 2003; nearly as long as Unreal Engine 3. Makes me wonder if it will be something dramatically different, whereas UE3 was an iterative improvement over UE2.

[WedgeBob]

Yeah, I really loved everything that UE3 had to offer thus far. Certainly going to see what UE4 has over this. I'll just wait and see what we can expect.

[tigerija]

I think that UE4 might focus even more on mobile platforms and consoles.
Since mobile games market is spreading really fast.

[ironbelly]

I think that UE4 might focus even more on mobile platforms and consoles.
Since mobile games market is spreading really fast.

That's a good point.. It's so easy to just assume UE4 is just giong to be everything that UE3 is but bigger and better with prettier graphics and better physics when in fact it might be a shift further away from this mindset and learning how to do a lot more with a lot less. Of course we should be seenig the next gen consoles coming out in the next year or two and I would imagine Epic, more so than most others, would be on the cutting edge of developing technology that is ready to take advantage of the very specific hardware going into these new consoles.

But on top of all that, yes, the mobile and casual markets are monstrous and we've seen huge strides made by UE3/UDK into these markets in 2011 so it makes sense that they are going to go where the most future growth is and that is mobile hands down.

[as2onish]

I disagree with the statement that graphics are near photo-realistic. They are great. Fantastic even, but they have a long long way to go before being anything close to photo-realistic and still a long way to meet offline rendering. There is a lot of physics based rendering both at the macro and micro scale that could significantly improve visual quality. As well as things like more dynamic physics, environments, fluids, etc.

Now that being said I'm not sure we will see any of breathtaking leaps in UE4. I see UE3 transitioning to the goto for mobile platforms (IOS, Android, VITA, etc), which with each generation will soon surpass Xbox360/PS3 quality and start heading for DX11 PC territory. UE4 will take the high-end of next gen consoles and PCs. There was a lot of talk about the many multi-core potential for the next consoles. I'm not really sure we will see it, they will certainly have many cores, but 100+ or GPGPU for non-gfx purposes is yet to be seen. I'm not sure if the consoles will be ready to make the leap to a totally new gfx style like semi-raytraced, REYES, or micro-polygon rendering techniques. Those are where the "wow" leaps will likely take place. Maybe, but its a close call. Obviously its going to look better but I'm more curious if it will just be a new render on top of similar content and more importantly coding tools, or if something more fundamental will change about the engines workings to spread logic and gameplay as well as gfx across many cores.

Interesting times no matter what. Super curious to see the engine. Timeline wise I expect a GDC reveal, hopefully more than just behind closed doors. At the very least a Samaritan-type demo. I doubt we see a UDK4 until at least one UE4 AAA title ships, probably on a next gen console. Also curious to see if Epic ships the first UE4 game. CliffyB hinted that he/someone in epic is designing a game with PC as the primary platform so there is the off chance we see a UE4 PC game before the next gen consoles even hit.

Really interesting times either way. Great blogs out there on the future of gfx for those interested.

[ambershee]

^ What he said. For the record, Epic also didn't ship the first UE3 game either, nor the first one with an editor.

[WedgeBob]

Let's not forget that we were fortunate enough to have the editor along with PC versions of UT3 and GoW, so we should give Epic credit for warming us up for UDK with those. Not to mention that those certainly were the best two games I could have ever written levels for, and I'm not just kissing up. Heck, I loved UnrealEd better than I liked Duke 3D's Build engine, if you can believe that (just don't let the guys over at Duke4.net know that).

Anywho, I'd love to see what games we can expect UE4 to be unleashed in. Can't wait to see what 2012/2013 will bring from Epic...this should be interesting to see what happens.

[lordevilpoptart]

The two biggest features that would tickle me pink....change it to more of a game building enviornment...rather than just an engine...what would be snazzy...allowing unreal engine..or udk..to in a sence act as client/server all built in....to explain...say im project leader..i install the engine as the "server" side....and my team the client side....this would set up a virtual network..with this you could....render farm, multiple people working in the world at the same time....multiple scripters editing....also add a "white board" feature where you couldassign tasks and brainstorm..

[lilyrichard]

Really nice discussion.
thank's for sharing information.

[iniside]

I doubt we see a UDK4 until at least one UE4 AAA title ships, probably on a next gen console.

I think, UDK based on UE4 will come as soon as UE4 will be ready to use by external developers.

This make most sense. What's better way to attract new people ?

[ambershee]

I wouldn't expect it would be ready that soon. They won't make it available to non-licensees until it's fairly stable (UE3 wasn't for a while after - not really until Epic shipped UT3).

[iniside]

That's why I said ready for external developers. Maybe I should add "that can't have access to C++ source" ;p.

[sconfoy1]

if you read the top left corner of the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VitLy...1&feature=plcp
you will read gdc12_demo unreal editor udk (64bit/dx11) at 5.09 pretty close to proof if you ask me

[reinrag]

@sconfoy
yeah but UDK does not mean give UE4 to non licensees first, it means Unreal Development Kit,

[Slowman]

Well folks, as I see it if you get a "UDK UE4" verson, the probabilltys are...
...You maybe able to use the "UE4 editor" with a single core cpu, but...
but will most likely be UNABLE to run it in "play mode", unless you have at least a quadcore cpu in your PC!!!
...of corse I maybe wrong, but sinse its supose to be a "multicore" software if I am lucky it will run, maybe crowl on my dualcore!!! :/

[alvarofer0021]

i really hope they have more enfasis in open worlds

if they do that then UE4 is going to be my sweet.sweeet baby :P

[darthviper107]

There's nothing about UDK that stops you from making open worlds already, only the map size which isn't really a problem

[RonnieG]

i could have sworn that i saw a article about a conversation with tim and he stated unreal engine 4 would be released in 2014?

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Unrea...s-224248.shtml

but then i read this ealier,, and it states 2013

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/27/ep...onsole-launch/


so which is it?

[sconfoy1]

@slowman, most modern laptops ship with a dual core cpu, and many of them have four or six cores, so unless your outdated, and i mean pre 2007 desktop, you should be able to run the games made on it. if you are outdated, you probably shouldnt be developing graphically intensive games in the first place, sorry, but its the truth

[JessieG]

@slowman, most modern laptops ship with a dual core cpu, and many of them have four or six cores, so unless your outdated, and i mean pre 2007 desktop, you should be able to run the games made on it. if you are outdated, you probably shouldnt be developing graphically intensive games in the first place, sorry, but its the truth

Sort of like trying to start a camp fire with some twigs and a piece of flint when someone is standing next to you with a blowtorch.

[XilenceX]

i could have sworn that i saw a article about a conversation with tim and he stated unreal engine 4 would be released in 2014?

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Unrea...s-224248.shtml

but then i read this ealier,, and it states 2013

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/27/ep...onsole-launch/


so which is it?

Epic Games wrote on their website and said in a Podcast that Fortnite is comming 2013. As it runs on UE4 this also means we will see UE4 in 2013. The question is just whether or not it will come with an *UDK*.

[reinrag]

Epic Games wrote on their website and said in a Podcast that Fortnite is comming 2013. As it runs on UE4 this also means we will see UE4 in 2013. The question is just whether or not it will come with an *UDK*.

No it means that a game made with UE4 will get released, the engine itself might get released after, it's not because Epic publish a game in 2013 with UE4, that they will give licensing options for it in 2013, it also does not mean that it will get released as a "UDK" in 2013, maybe in 2015 or 2014 the engine itself will get released and companies will be able to get a license,

[ambershee]

I'm pretty sure UE4 can already be licensed - but other than that, Fortnite is coming in 2013, so it is possible we'll see a 'UDK' not too long after that (2014?), dependant on how stable the tools are by then.