Voice, can it be done with UDK without dll bind?

[BloodReyvyn]

Well, the title really does say it all.

I know that there has been a lot of desire for VOIP, and I believe that the general consensus was that it could only be done via DLL binding.

With the past updates, has this changed or not, and if not, can we ever expect this to change?

Since there is voice chat already implemented in pretty much every Unreal Engine 3 Game I have played to date, I am also curious as to why they would scrap such a desirable feature, but that's getting off-topic...


I only ask because I am starting to rapidly hit many limitations with the UDK, sadly. I really want to keep using the engine, but after months of looking around at other engines that DO have VOIP (among many other things like fully dynamic light, massive multiplayer capability, very large maps...), I am really on the fence of either trying to "patchwork" this project together in UDK or bite the bullet and purchase a new engine license.

[UnspoiledWalnut]

Not that I'm aware of. Not exactly hard to do though, I wouldn't consider the lack of VOIP a very big hurdle. Large maps can be done via level streaming (no idea if that works on multiplayer though, I've been meaning to look into that at some point), and MMO capability is going to be a ***** with almost any engine regardless. I wouldn't want fully dynamic lights in an MMO anyway.

[elmuerte]

UE3 doesn't come with builtin VoIP functionality, but it does expose for handling VoIP through it's OnlineGameServices. For PS3 and XBox360 that means UE3 has VoIP out of the box. On PC this depends on the OnlineGameServices implementation which is used.
I'm not completely sure about this, but there is a chance the steamworks implementation of OnlineGameServices provides VoIP functionality.

[BloodReyvyn]

Thanks guys.

Yeah, walnut, I also would like to know if Streaming Levels work in Multi-player.

The project I am working on isn't necessarily an MMO per-se, but it would require multiple persons to join a single, instanced game.

Basically, the Voice Integration that I am looking for would require the person's voice to be routed to their character, to simulate them talking through their character, with attenuation and all of that applied.

I have a different engine that I have tried a bunch of things on and within an hour yesterday, I already had this feature finished without a hitch.

Also, I have fully dynamic lighting finished with far more visible tri's at a frame rate of 85. Whereas a simpler map in UDK with the same meshes and far more optimization gives me a max FPS of 45.

Don't get me wrong, I love the UDK, but it seems like it's still lacking a few things.

[eAlex79]

If the other one is better, use it instead of talking about it?

[UnspoiledWalnut]

Yeah you can have 64 people per game instance I believe. I'm working with it right now, I'll tell you if I can get it to work. Not sure why you couldn't, but the server coding might not intended for it. I don't know how I'm going to test it for online stuff right now since the server I have isn't working right, but I'll play around a bit more and see if I need to find a new engine.

[BloodReyvyn]

If the other one is better, use it instead of talking about it?

If you don't have anything relative to the discussion, stay the **** out of my thread? Never said it was better, just that UDK is lacking a few things.

I am using UDK for 2 projects. For a shooter, it works great. For an open-world RPG type game, not so much. Unless you like designing 9+ levels for every visible piece of your level (streaming seems GREAT for scripted, single-route single player, perhaps not so much for open world multi).

@Walnut: If you do get it working, let me know just how much of a pain it was? I am going to keep stress-testing both engines to see which is more likely to be better for the project.

UDK still works best for my shooter game tests though.

[eAlex79]

Yea sure. lol I will from now on