Geoff Keighley confirms Unreal Engine 4 reveal at E3: A full 30-minute GTTV special

[LeiterJakab]

I wasn't that excited at first for anything but the dynamic GI, but the editor and toolset looks amazing. I really can't describe how good it looks to me.

[sbetween]

They'll probably start providing kits for licensees soon (if they haven't already), but I don't think we'll actually see it for UDK before the first UE4 game release. Even Star Wars 1313 is using UE3, I don't think they'll want to release UE4 for the masses asap. Especially when they seem to be still in discussion with console manufacturers about next gen specs.

[Ompakim]

"it will come in 2 years"

Why are you all thinking like this? Watching the video made me think the new UDK looks quite ready already, I wouldn't doubt it will come until the end of the year, hell, might even be the june build for all we know.

Also, "next-gen" is already here with the Wii-U, which, as far as I know, will be released in the holidays, and the new UDK can clearly run on current PCs (GTX680), so I don't see why they would take so long to release it...

Well, Geoff Keighley actually said during the interviews that "2014 can't come fast enough for UE4", so I guess that's their targeted release.
Unless he was referring to something else, of course..

[ankangronto]

FYI, just because the build says 'UDK' doesn't mean there'll be a UDK release. Licensee builds using UE3 can easily say the same thing when the UDK project is built.

"ambershee, the shatterer of hopes"

[Amadeus]

I'm sure that the big licensees will get first dibs at this but I'm wondering if they're going to keep on releasing
new builds of the UDK for UE3.

Still in the process of self training (UDK + Blender) glad I didn't invest time with unreal script now.
Just need to dust of that C++ book that's been sitting on my shelf for a year!

[Spoof]

Well, Geoff Keighley actually said during the interviews that "2014 can't come fast enough for UE4", so I guess that's their targeted release.
Unless he was referring to something else, of course..

He may have been referring to the next console platform. In other words, "the engine is ready, where is the hardware?".

[Robbyh]

The ammount of negativity is getting boring to read.

If you think that the big licensees get the engine 2014 its kinda wierd.
The closest idea of a Next gen Console is around 2014. Im not talking about wii U since thats current Gen. The wii U is basicaly a xbox 360 with a tablet. Atleast from the Quality of the games produced for it and what their targeting it for.

Now if the date is 2014 wich is a guestimation, and considering its quite Logical to assume even a earlyer release than that. Since lets face it. Xbox 720 is talked about already and some insider leaks are out if u can google info, Playstation orbis is in dev and so on..
If we take 2014 as the date, and even 2015.
Wouldnt it be logical that the developers need a engine to work with if they wanna target release date titles , wich is what epic wants.

now the logical thing is that games take time to develop. A next gen title may take even longer than 2 years standard industry dev time ( some have longer, some have smaller, but this is the "normal" ).
When you think about that, then you look att the video showing off UE4 / UDK UE4. And you think of the time to create a next gen game ( longer, better, higher res, more quality ).
What would be the logical target date to release it ? Considering their brave enough to show it publicaly now and its probably release value ( even in a beta phase ).

Id say personaly 2012 ( mid - late ) or 2013 early. So that devs can get their hands on it, Learn it ( another time consuming thing ) and learn the new and improved things.

If you think 2014 is the release date of this engine id say your out of ur weeboz. But its possible. just more likely to get released early next year or late this year.
But i think that the UDK version wont be released until a few years later sadly as was the thing with UDK and UE3.
More or less because industry people want to have a more early hands on than us peasants.

[ambershee]

It's possible that some developers are already working with early UE4 builds, or are preparing to. I wouldn't expect a UDK build until the engine and tools are relatively stable however. In the case of UE3, this didn't happen until after UT3 shipped, whose editor still had some pretty nasty and difficult to avoid crash bugs. When we'll actually see a UDK release, who knows - but I wouldn't expect to see it before we see Epic ship a game.

"ambershee, the shatterer of hopes"

I should get that printed on a t-shirt.

[Derp]

FYI, just because the build says 'UDK' doesn't mean there'll be a UDK release. Licensee builds using UE3 can easily say the same thing when the UDK project is built.

A moderator has already quoted that there will be a UDK version of UE4. They also state (somewhere in the video) about the potential of high school-ers, students etc. when given technology like UE...

[ankangronto]

The ammount of negativity is getting boring to read.

If you think that the big licensees get the engine 2014 its kinda wierd.
The closest idea of a Next gen Console is around 2014. Im not talking about wii U since thats current Gen. The wii U is basicaly a xbox 360 with a tablet. Atleast from the Quality of the games produced for it and what their targeting it for.

Now if the date is 2014 wich is a guestimation, and considering its quite Logical to assume even a earlyer release than that. Since lets face it. Xbox 720 is talked about already and some insider leaks are out if u can google info, Playstation orbis is in dev and so on..
If we take 2014 as the date, and even 2015.
Wouldnt it be logical that the developers need a engine to work with if they wanna target release date titles , wich is what epic wants.

now the logical thing is that games take time to develop. A next gen title may take even longer than 2 years standard industry dev time ( some have longer, some have smaller, but this is the "normal" ).
When you think about that, then you look att the video showing off UE4 / UDK UE4. And you think of the time to create a next gen game ( longer, better, higher res, more quality ).
What would be the logical target date to release it ? Considering their brave enough to show it publicaly now and its probably release value ( even in a beta phase ).

Id say personaly 2012 ( mid - late ) or 2013 early. So that devs can get their hands on it, Learn it ( another time consuming thing ) and learn the new and improved things.

If you think 2014 is the release date of this engine id say your out of ur weeboz. But its possible. just more likely to get released early next year or late this year.
But i think that the UDK version wont be released until a few years later sadly as was the thing with UDK and UE3.
More or less because industry people want to have a more early hands on than us peasants.

An argument to why they should release UDK at the same time as the license is that the more ppl that use it = more people to hire from that already knows the engine and better community support.

[Henrik]

I should get that printed on a t-shirt.

Before I saw his, I was going to suggest "Ambershee: Peeing in peoples cornflakes since Sep 2006".

Assumptions are being made all over the spectrum depending on our backgrounds it seems, those of us who have been with the engine for several generations know how Epic historically releases things each new engine generation. This is however, the first time a "UDK" has existed during the birth of a new engine generation. The whole concept of UDK was a gamble, but one they are no doubt winning on, and now the question is whether it will pay for them to give us this tech sooner than later or if that would just be a headache. I feel, somewhat like Ambershee, that they wouldnt release the UE4 UDK before they at least themselves shipped a game with it, and then there has to be adequate documentation or they will have buttload of people with a product that they have no idea what to do with.

[systemic]

A moderator has already quoted that there will be a UDK version of UE4. They also state (somewhere in the video) about the potential of high school-ers, students etc. when given technology like UE...

Correct. UDK will eventually get UE4, but my guess is we won't see it for around 18 - 24 months.

Also, I love that new Kismet interface. Darker schemes is so much easier to look at for long periods of time... Epic cares about my eyes! :') Ahwwwww.

I was SO excited to see him talk about how the artist was able to just 'draw in a graph' how the spaceship bobbed up and down, instead of having to code a mathematical formula. That is the most exciting thing about UE4 to me, the graphics are just a nice extra. The fact that we'll be able to create so much faster [through Kismet2 and the lack of light building] is the truly appealing thing and what I consider UE4's main selling point. Think about it... long development cycles are the death of success when it comes to video games. When the money runs out, compromises get made and games that shouldn't have, suck because the devs didn't have the time they should have to spend polishing. If you can tell a development team you can shorten their dev cycle by 20%... sit back and watch the waves of money sweep you away.

Keep it up, Epic!

[NickP]

Mike Capps mentioned in an interview with Develop Magazine last year that they're seriously considering supporting indies a lot sooner this time around. Here are a few excerpts:

There was no Unreal Development Kit even four years ago, and I think it’s been real successful in getting people used to our technology.
Should we have done that from day one with UE3? Yeah, maybe.

I’m not sure if we’re going to do it straight away with Unreal Engine 4, but if you look at what we do now with UE3... we could have done that before and we didn’t spend much time on it. How much that will figure into Unreal Engine 4 is up to us.

I would like to have a vertical solution – for our tech to be useful for mobile projects and triple-A projects. In the past few years I think we’ve learned a lot about our technology and how it works for indie studios. How our tech works for iPhone games, for high-end triple-A studios and for a couple of guys who make a cool UDK game over the summer.

We’re going to apply all these lessons we’ve learned with Unreal Engine 4, and I think you’re going to see a lot of difference with UE3 within the first six months from launch.

And the other thing I’ll call out; I want Unreal Engine 4 to be ready far earlier than UE3 was; not a year after the consoles are released. I think a year from a console’s launch is perfectly fine for releasing a game, but not for releasing new tech. We need to be there day one or very early. That’s my primary focus.
For us as a game-maker, we aren’t keen on shipping games day one because there’s not much of an install-base, or at least not one as big as it’s going to be. But with engines, that’s a different story. We want to deliver our tech as early as possible even though our first big marquee game might not be on there for twelve or even twenty-four months from a console’s launch.

[iniside]

FYI, just because the build says 'UDK' doesn't mean there'll be a UDK release. Licensee builds using UE3 can easily say the same thing when the UDK project is built.

Yes but look at it from other perspective. What's better way to polish you software than giving it to thousands of free beta testers ?

Anyway. I'm pretty sure we will get it sooner than later, but not this year. Next year is possible.

[ambershee]

"Sooner" isn't much of a statement. UE3 was revealed in 2003/2004, and it took until 2009 to become UDK. Epic shipped Gears in 2006 (editor very unstable) and UT3 in 2007 (editor largely stable).

[darthviper107]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they release an UE4 UDK some time this year. It's to their advantage to get people using it and experienced in it so that more developers would want to use the engine in the next generation. Not only that but examples of work from people can also demonstrate the features which can further get developers on board.

[Sweex]

hey guys check this picture! Is this UDK used in presentation?

[ambershee]

It says 'UDK' because it is not the editor for a specific game project. It doesn't imply a pending UDK release.

[Derp]

"Sooner" isn't much of a statement. UE3 was revealed in 2003/2004, and it took until 2009 to become UDK. Epic shipped Gears in 2006 (editor very unstable) and UT3 in 2007 (editor largely stable).

Again, that was UE3. They were taking a gamble and the results were good, why would they now wait 2-3 years after unveiling UE4 to release a UDK version?

[weephun]

It says 'UDK' because it is not the editor for a specific game project. It doesn't imply a pending UDK release.

Ambershee is correct. As I've stated before we have confirmed that Epic will release a UE4 UDK down the road however there isn't a time-frame for it yet.

[Sweex]

Ambershee is correct. As I've stated before we have confirmed that Epic will release a UE4 UDK down the road however there isn't a time-frame for it yet.

Thank you! I was watching that video for about 10th time, I just can't get enough of it, and saw the title so I thought maybe it is UDK

[awakeningfromobliv]

You just won't be able to play games like this soon, probably not even late next year when new consoles launch.

As likely as it is that we're getting a new Xbox and PlayStation in late 2013, we probably won't even be playing UE4 games then.

"We anticipate quite a few people shipping titles early in the lifespan of the next generation of consoles using UE3 and then using UE4 for their next project," Willard says.

How Unreal Engine 4 Will Change The Next Games You Play

During the previous transition, relatively early games such as BioShock used Unreal Engine 2 modified with parts of 3. Willard doesn't think that'll happen this time. "The architectural changes from 3 to 4 are greater than those from 2 to 3. But I can certainly see quite a few developers deciding mid-development to shift their focus from current to next generation and it makes sense to just stay with [UE3], do higher resolution textures, increase their polygon budget, increase the number of characters on screen and things like that…"

So, really, don't hold your breath for the first UE4 title.

"I'm sure everyone wants to know when they'll want to see the first UE4 game, but we don't have an answer for that. We don't know when we're going to ship anything we're working on for it. We don't know when our licensees will. And we don't make any restrictions. If a licensee finishes their game first, that's happened before."[/COLOR]

last paragraph.
http://kotaku.com/5916859/how-unreal...games-you-play

The UE4 demo is running on PC, specifically an Intel Core i7 processor with an NVIDIA GTX680 and 16GB of RAM - what Epic terms a standard development box.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...nreal-engine-4

[MonsOlympus]

I was SO excited to see him talk about how the artist was able to just 'draw in a graph' how the spaceship bobbed up and down, instead of having to code a mathematical formula.

Not to be picky but a graph represents a mathematical formula, I wont deny its easier to draw a graph but without understanding the underlying formula you could get yourself into trouble when things get more complex.

[JessieG]

They said in the new Game Informer that they intend to get the UDK version for this out much sooner than they did for the UE3 version. Excited.

Well, not very excited about having to get a new graphics card, but what can ya do.

[staticman]

They said in the new Game Informer that they intend to get the UDK version for this out much sooner than they did for the UE3 version. Excited.

Sweet, but now it's a question of how soon.

[Jaiggon]

I've some observations

#1) "Soon" is such a relative time frame generally anything from 2 weeks - 2 years (this probably applies to sooner as well)
#2) UDK is a "Beta-Build" of software this means among a multitude of things that it can change A.K.A. is ue4 compatible needing only some back-end code adaptation to base and editor (ui, kismet, etc) parts.
#3) June may be a bit early in speculation for UE4 to arrive to Udk due to probably wanting some "professional grade" release of a game like perhaps a cross over UT4 featuring gears and bulletstorm persona s(?).
#4) But than again this is EPIC.

[JessieG]

Not to be picky but a graph represents a mathematical formula, I wont deny its easier to draw a graph but without understanding the underlying formula you could get yourself into trouble when things get more complex.

I think the excitement is more so for the ability to focus on just that one aspect of it as opposed to having to code the behavior, worry about syntax, compiling, etc. It's just a lot more straight forward to get basic movements of characters in quickly without fumbling around with code.

[RPGSI]

Ambershee is correct. As I've stated before we have confirmed that Epic will release a UE4 UDK down the road however there isn't a time-frame for it yet.

WELL MAN THIS IS MY FIRST AND ONLY POST ! AND I COME HERE JUST TO SAY ALOUD THIS !


IF EPIC RELEASES UDK 4 SOONER ! THE SOONER THE BETTER FOR THE COMPANY ACHIEVEMENTS !

Let me put simply on a very real worldwide commercial perspective as this :

- IT WILL BE ALOT MORE EASY FOR THE COMPANY TO INPUT ITS VISION FORCING IT ON THE MARKET
- BECAUSE HAVING LOT ( A HUGE BIG AMOUNT ) OF INDIES GETTING OUT OF UDK3 & CRYENGINE TO UDK 4
- - AND DELIVERING IN THEIR INDI GAMES THINGS WITH BETTER GRAPHICS THAN MOST OF THE GAMES "PROFESSIONALS ARE DOING"
- - - THE PROFESSIONAL INDUSTRY COMPANIES WILL FELL ASHAMED AND WILL HAVE TO MAKE THE BIG JUMP IN INCLUDING UDK 4 IN THEIR PIPELINE.
- - - - EXPECIALY AS EVERYONE IS HAVING IT AND WORKING WITH IT IN HOME WORLDWIDE

SO ITS REAALY URGENT FOR THE EPIC AS COMPANY TO RELEASE THE "CRACKEN" THAN WILL BE UDK4

- If released UDK 4 as soon as possible There will be a big Smashing gigantic wave of UDK4 users worldwide Leaving all other game development tools and coming to UDK4 . Which that wave will drag down all big companies ships that even from high seas will look amazed to what comon people can do here at the epic shores...

- Especially if released now even as beta / It will not Give Time to Other Companies Not so easy or well developed as UDK Engines as CRYENGINE / AND LUMINOUS to Grow ...


A NEXT BIG STEP ALSO IS TO EPIC DELIVER IN UDK A ASSET AND GAME STORE AS UNITY GOT ...
( http://unity3d.com/union/developers http://unity3d.com/unity/asset-store/ That was the only dam secret of that sily unity engine day to night success )

PLEASE KNOW THAT !

- ALLOWING EXTENSIONS AND ASSETS TO BE SELL FROM INDIES TO INDIVIDUAL PROFESSIONALS TO SELL EACHOTHERS ASSETS & EVEN WHOLE LEVELS TO THE INDUSTRY TO UDK4 FORMATS / MAKING THAT WAY UDK4 / NOT JUST A INDY SRINE BUT ALSO A PROFESSIONAL INDY EARNING POWERHOUSE CONNECTING THAT WAT TRU THE UDK4 ASSETS & GAMES STORE / THE WANABES THE DEVELOPERS AND THE INDIES / TO THE PRODUCTION OF A COMMERCIAL INTERNATIONAL MARKET WERE TRU THAT STORE EPIC COULD EARN EVERY 5% OF ALL USERS SOLD GAMES & PRODUCTS ! Which will put even Epic to Earn From The very first Day The UDK4 ASSETS STORE IS RELEASED !


Now UDK3 - Was not a success as it should because of all this: You did not Connect The Indies to the professional Making Money Market TO A ASSETS GAMES & PLUGINS STORE ( As some others did ) .

- MAKE THAT UDK4 ASSETS STORE ( EVEN ON A ROUGH BETA ) BUT AS SOON AS YOU ALL CAN .
- AND RELEASE UDK4 AS SOON AS POSSIBLE TO MAKE IT A STANDARD WORLDWIDE !


WITH UDK$ ASSETS & GAME STORE & UDK4 ENGINE BETA RELEASE !

You will be Pushing Us and Worldwide companies and All worldwide game dev users To use and abuse and even Earn right now Some out of it !


Dont Let other GameDevelopment Companies Reach the Worldwide levels of people you can reach ( and you only at that level ) right now !

RELEASE UDK 4 ENGINE - AND UDK ASSETS & GAMES STORE - AS FAST AND FURIOUS YOU CAN PLEASE !

EPIC PEOPLE ! DO IT ! RIGHT NOW !

Thank you for listen .

Ruben Ismael
/ RPGSI STUDIO / THE SOULSSHINE-ONLINE PRODUCTION TEAM ADMIN

[Chosker]

WELL MAN THIS IS MY FIRST AND ONLY POST ! AND I COME HERE JUST TO SAY ALOUD THIS !

IF EPIC RELEASES UDK 4 SOONER ! THE SOONER THE BETTER FOR THE COMPANY ACHIEVEMENTS !

[...]

EPIC PEOPLE ! DO IT ! RIGHT NOW !

sure, that'll teach them. do another one of those speeches and they just might release it next month... fast and extra furious

[darthviper107]

Settle down...

A few points

-big game studios don't care if indie games are using UE4
-purpose of UDK isn't for small companies to have access to the engine (mostly). It's so that more users will use the engine. This means companies have people they can hire that already know how to use the engine and so they are more likely to get a license of Unreal Engine.
-an asset store isn't really necessary. For most people it would be useless (most content wouldn't be useful for a project) and it doesn't actually help Epic in any way. Instead they would have to manage the thing and that would be a pain.

[JessieG]

Also, with constant updates to the UDK, little to no backwards compatibility would limit an Asset store to carrying only models and textures, no packages, materials, etc. it just sounds like a big headache all around for Epic, especially considering a majority of UDK users make their own models anyway.

[Kenchu]

UE4 looks amazing. I hope Epic will say when they're planning on releasing UE4 UDK asap. Doesn't feel right starting a new project in UE3 knowing UE4 might lie around the corner. It's totally okay if it's years away, I just want to know.

[ankangronto]

Ambershee is correct. As I've stated before we have confirmed that Epic will release a UE4 UDK down the road however there isn't a time-frame for it yet.

Its great that its confirmed, however what most people is interested in now is obviously "When?", do you think the time will be measured in months or years? As you might imagine we are all very excited about getting our hands on these tools.

[awakeningfromobliv]

I would like to see a NON COMMERCIAL BETA version of UE4 UDK so for the people who want a job at a studio would be more knowledgeable, and therefor be more employable right from the beginning.
And for the Indie crowd they could be working on there game while waiting for the final version, instead of waiting a year or two before they even get to learn the new engine.

[systemic]

Not to be picky but a graph represents a mathematical formula, I wont deny its easier to draw a graph but without understanding the underlying formula you could get yourself into trouble when things get more complex.

Absolutely - that's a good point. This new '2D graph' tool won't replace all mathematical formulas, but it should be sufficient the majority of the time. Complex derivatives or multidimensional vectors, for example, would still need to be entered 'by hand'.

[systemic]

UE4 looks amazing. I hope Epic will say when they're planning on releasing UE4 UDK asap. Doesn't feel right starting a new project in UE3 knowing UE4 might lie around the corner. It's totally okay if it's years away, I just want to know.

I'm in a similar situation, several months into the development of a project I expect to take around three years. I've been keeping my ears close to all the UE4 news I can get, because I don't want to invest my time in areas that I'll have to completely redo. I know that UE4 will be available long before my project is finished, so there's no sense in writing any unrealscript, until we know more about UE4's alternative. That said, I might just end up rebuilding the entire project from scratch in UE4, anyway.

Worst case scenario, even if UE4 UDK is completely, absurdly, radically different than our current iteration of UDK, I wouldn't expect it would take THAT long to transfer a project over. I don't expect assets will be handled much differently than they are now, so if all your project pieces are created, systematically moving them over to a newer version might be tedious, but not deathly so. Materials, also, I wouldn't expect major changes to. Who knows, though, maybe Epic will give us an import feature in UE4 that will convert a lot of basic UE3 project file information over?

[JessieG]

Absolutely - that's a good point. This new '2D graph' tool won't replace all mathematical formulas, but it should be sufficient the majority of the time. Complex derivatives or multidimensional vectors, for example, would still need to be entered 'by hand'.

Well in the walkthrough they have the tool that can find specific functions in a class and take you straight to it, so it's obvious that the Blueprints and kismet 2 aren't the only means of scripting, but the whole point is for more options for artists so that the programmers can focus on the bigger picture and more difficult scripts. The Blueprint handles the up and down movement, but code is still probably used for specific interactions and functions.

Like they said, artists can get wheels spinning, parts moving, etc. so programmers can focus on the more important functions.

[ankangronto]

I'm in a similar situation, several months into the development of a project I expect to take around three years. I've been keeping my ears close to all the UE4 news I can get, because I don't want to invest my time in areas that I'll have to completely redo. I know that UE4 will be available long before my project is finished, so there's no sense in writing any unrealscript, until we know more about UE4's alternative. That said, I might just end up rebuilding the entire project from scratch in UE4, anyway.

Worst case scenario, even if UE4 UDK is completely, absurdly, radically different than our current iteration of UDK, I wouldn't expect it would take THAT long to transfer a project over. I don't expect assets will be handled much differently than they are now, so if all your project pieces are created, systematically moving them over to a newer version might be tedious, but not deathly so. Materials, also, I wouldn't expect major changes to. Who knows, though, maybe Epic will give us an import feature in UE4 that will convert a lot of basic UE3 project file information over?

I'm on the same boat as you, maybe do some very small games that dosnt take that long to make and then start with our "real" projects once ue4 UDK is released?

[darthviper107]

I'm in a similar situation, several months into the development of a project I expect to take around three years. I've been keeping my ears close to all the UE4 news I can get, because I don't want to invest my time in areas that I'll have to completely redo. I know that UE4 will be available long before my project is finished, so there's no sense in writing any unrealscript, until we know more about UE4's alternative. That said, I might just end up rebuilding the entire project from scratch in UE4, anyway.

Worst case scenario, even if UE4 UDK is completely, absurdly, radically different than our current iteration of UDK, I wouldn't expect it would take THAT long to transfer a project over. I don't expect assets will be handled much differently than they are now, so if all your project pieces are created, systematically moving them over to a newer version might be tedious, but not deathly so. Materials, also, I wouldn't expect major changes to. Who knows, though, maybe Epic will give us an import feature in UE4 that will convert a lot of basic UE3 project file information over?

I think actual content will be pretty easy to move over. But if you've been creating unrealscript for your game then you would have to completely change it for UE4

[systemic]

-an asset store isn't really necessary. For most people it would be useless (most content wouldn't be useful for a project) and it doesn't actually help Epic in any way. Instead they would have to manage the thing and that would be a pain.

You're right, in order for an asset store to be useful, Epic would have to do it differently from every asset store I've ever seen and even then, I'm not sure it's worth it for them. However, if they did it 'the right way', it could be really awesome for small teams using UDK. The 'right way', though, means a team of [Epic] artists building a massive library of non-stylized, generic objects that could be used in a variety of situations, ideally with multiple material options for each object.

If I could, for example, purchase a drinking glass prop and choose from multiple materials (created specifically for that mesh), that saves me a [precious] hour on an object that's not really very important, anyway - that's a big win for me.

That said, I don't think it would ever be financially viable for Epic to invest in such a product. If they did, I imagine we would start to see a number of UDK projects looking 'too similar' and that something I'm sure Epic does not want to see.