udk
Latest
Watch bodies turn to gibs in the next Unreal Tournament
Ostensibly a developer's diary, this two and a half-minute vignette is more notable for being your first public opportunity to see team deathmatch play out in Epic Games' upcoming Unreal Tournament. So far, things look appropriately explosive. [Image: Epic Games]
Leaderboard: Do you play around with game development tools?
For some reason that I can't quite fathom, I now have the Unreal Development Kit installed on my computer. I'm certainly no developer, nor would I make much of a designer I'm afraid, but something nonetheless compelled me to download the toolset and muck about with its documentation and various tutorials. Call it curiosity, or boredom, or whatever you like, really, but there it is. What about you, Massively readers? Do you play around with game development tools (assuming that you're not really a developer), or does your obsession only extend to finished games? Let us know after the cut. Ever wish that you could put to rest a long-standing MMO debate once and for all? Then welcome to the battle royal of Massively's Leaderboard, where two sides enter the pit o' judgment -- and only one leaves. Vote to make your opinion known, and see whether your choice tops the Leaderboard!
Oculus Rift dev kit includes access to free Oculus version of Unreal Development Kit
To help Oculus Rift developer kit owners develop things, Oculus will give a custom version of the Unreal Development Kit to everyone who has purchased the VR goggles. It will be released through the Oculus Developer Center in April. The UDK will include a VR-enhanced version of the Epic Citadel demo.Even if you don't have an Oculus, you'll be able to develop games for its stereoscopic display, as all full source licensees of Unreal Engine 3 will be provided with code to integrate Oculus support into UE3. Oculus is now part of Epic's "UE3 Integrated Partners Program." Of course, if you're developing for Oculus without an Oculus, we don't know how you'll test the 3D. Perhaps scoot two monitors right up into your face?
Epic Citadel and other 'development showcases' for Oculus Rift available with dev kits in March
The impressive Epic Citadel demo we got to explore using Oculus Rift's incredible virtual reality development kit will ship alongside the headset this March, the company tells Engadget. "Any content you can load into UDK [Unreal Development Kit] and Unity, you can load and explore with the Oculus dev kit," we were told, in addition to the Citadel confirmation. And beyond that, Oculus is providing, "development showcases" alongside the dev kits, though it's unclear exactly what that means. We'll no doubt hear more about said showcases as we draw closer to the headset's March dev kit launch.
RealD tech heightens 3D programming on Unreal Engine 3
Epic is broadening Unreal Engine 3's stereoscopic 3D capabilities, with RealD technology now available to any users in Epic's paid licensing program and to users of the Unreal Development Kit, the free version of the Unreal Engine 3 toolkit. The RealD update is included in today's May 2012 UDK Beta download.RealD allows developers to render PC and console games in stereoscopic 3D, with camera separation and 3D depth effects rendered in real-time, among other features. The first Unreal Engine 3 title to use RealD is Seamless Entertainment's SOL: Exodus, which received an update on Steam today to include 3D effects.Unreal Engine 3 first received stereoscopic 3D capabilities in 2010 with TriOviz. TriOviz was used in Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition, Arkham City, Thor: God of Thunder and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.RealD is used in many other high-profile 3D endeavors, including films such as The Avengers, and the forthcoming titles Prometheus and The Amazing Spider-Man.
C&C: Renegade remake Renegade X: Black Dawn deploys tomorrow
Here at Joystiq, we pride ourselves on being inside your mind, knowing what it wants, knowing what it thinks. We're like a somewhat creepier, less linguistic Babel Fish. The one thing your brain has been demanding is an updated version of 2002's Command & Conquer: Renegade.We'd like to bring to your attention Renengade X: Black Dawn, a "spiritual successor" created by fans at Totem Arts. Tomorrow, the group will release the full single-player "mini-campaign," which was built in the Unreal Development Kit, and later Totem Arts plans to release a new multiplayer installment using the UDK.In its current form, Renegade X is an updated version of the original game's multiplayer, made in Unreal Tournament 3, and has been playable for some time. If you want to partake, you'll need to own a copy of Unreal Tournament 3 with the latest updates.Or, you know, just wait a day.[Thanks, ssjChris!]
Unreal Engine 3 comes to Mac OS X, courtesy of September UDK release
A scant four years after announcing Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 were coming to Mac OS X, Epic has finally renewed its enthusiasm for the Mac with the announcement of native Unreal Engine 3 support, courtesy of the free-to-use Unreal Development Kit. "Every UDK game's potential user base has increased dramatically yet again," the announcement reads, promising a previews of the engine's Mac OS support in the September 2011 UDK release. Considering Epic's high-profile support of Apple's Mac OS X-derived mobile operating system iOS, not to mention consistent Mac support from developers like Valve and Blizzard, Epic's entry in the space is hardly unexpected. But Mac support from Unreal Engine should extend far beyond Epic's own games; as one of the most popular development environments in existence, today's announcement (coupled with viable markets like Steam and the Mac OS App Store) should help UE-based developers reach an entirely new audience.
NVIDIA Kal-El reference tablet hands-on (video)
As if showing up in two of the first four reference devices for Windows on ARM wasn't enough of an achievement for NVIDIA's quad-core Kal-El superchip, it decided to visit us in person here at Computex to demonstrate its splendid graphical prowess. Running Android 3.1 on a 10-inch, 1280 x 800 screen, it gave us a first-hand look at the Glow Ball demo that wowed us in video form just a couple of days ago. What we saw on the dev tablet before us was no less impressive; lighting was being rendered in real time and scattered over a multiplicity of surfaces, while the cloth simulation was, to use a terrible pun, silky smooth. NVIDIA also ran us through a sightseeing tour of the Unreal Development Kit and Lost Planet 2, noting that the PC game took only a couple of months to port over to work on the Kal-El architecture. Unfortunately, no new details were forthcoming about when Kal-El devices might be coming or what developers we should expect to see coding games and other content to exploit the platform's evidently mighty capabilities. For now, we'll just have to sate ourselves with the video after the break. %Gallery-125085%
Mark Rein: Unreal Development Kit 'eventually' coming to Android
Budding Android developers looking to utilize Epic's free Unreal Development Kit know it's still in the works for the platform. Of course, that's not to say the Unreal Engine itself isn't being used on Android -- Dungeon Defenders is perhaps the most visible Unreal Engine 3-powered game on the mobile OS, though a recent deal between Epic and Gameloft ensures that won't be the case for long. Companies can currently license UE3 code to develop Android games, though Epic VP Mark Rein told Gamasutra that "UDK is a totally different story." "It'd be difficult for anybody right now to make a game with UDK and ship it on Android, because Unreal is for making high-end, high-quality-content games," Rein said, adding, "most of them are pretty large, because you can make a large game with it." Thus, Google's current 50mb limit for apps is kind of a problem, though it's one Epic and Google are looking to resolve. "UDK will come eventually to Android, and Google is going to solve that problem," Rein assured. "We know they're working on it, but we don't know the release date and we don't know when it will get into the hands of all the different vendors with all the different phones."
Epic to show new Unreal Engine 3 updates at GDC, raises UDK royalty-free threshold to $50K
Next week, Epic Games will once again premiere the latest build of Unreal Engine 3 at GDC, a showing-off that's become pretty much tradition for the North Carolina-based studio. In its announcement, Epic promises behind-closed-doors demonstrations of the new tech every half-hour during the conference for "licensees, partners, prospective customers and the media." Additionally, Epic plans to hold free training sessions for Unreal Engine 3 licensees, covering topics such as "content creation best practices" and "rapid prototyping with Unreal Kismet." Making your Unreal characters look like they have cars strapped to their torsos apparently won't be covered. In a separate announcement, Epic notified UDK licensees that the royalty-free threshhold has been raised tenfold from $5,000 to $50,000 -- meaning Unreal developers don't pay royalities to Epic on the first $50K in (wholesale) revenue generated from their UDK-built games. That's pretty epic.
UDK out for iOS, Epic demonstrates with Jazz Jackrabbit [update: video!]
The December update for the Unreal Development Kit is available, adding support for development of iOS games in Unreal Engine 3. To help you get started, the latest version includes the full source code for Epic Citadel (along with another new castle map), so you can figure out how those impressive medieval landscapes came to be. To further prove what's possible with the engine, Epic put together a technically impressive twin-stick shooter starring none other than Jazz Jackrabbit, star of Cliff Bleszinski's 1994 side-scroller of the same name. Check out screenshots of this proof-of-concept game in our gallery. Epic told Joystiq that it's currently just a demonstration; the company doesn't have plans to release it. [Update: There's now a tutorial video featuring the Jazz Jackrabbit game, and a "sizzle" video for UDK, after the break.]%Gallery-111515%
Unreal Engine 3 dev kit adding iOS support tomorrow, Infinity Blade clones coming Friday
The Unreal Engine 3 already made a quite spectacular debut on iOS with Epic Games' own Infinity Blade, but the company's decided it's time to finally stop teasing and give us the software to really play with it. Tomorrow's planned update to the UDK will deliver iOS support, meaning that all the fancy tools that helped make Infinity Blade such a blindingly gorgeous game will be at your fingertips should you be feeling creative. Licensing for the Engine is free for testing and non-commercial use, but you'll have to pay $99 if you want to sell anything you produce with it, to be followed by a 25 percent slice of your earnings beyond $5,000 and, of course, Apple's 30 percent cut of whatever's left. That might not sound like the best business plan in the world, but consider that Infinity Blade is estimated to have racked up over $1.5 million in sales already -- we're sure there'll be enough change left for ice cream even after Epic and Apple have had their share.
Unreal Development Kit getting iOS support this week
Don't just sit there and marvel at Infinity Blade's Unreal-powered splendor on your phone -- imitate it! In just a few days, budding iOS developers will be able to conjure up some of that visual voodoo of their own using the Unreal Development Kit. Currently free for non-commercial use, UDK will be updated this Thursday, December 16, to add iOS support to the tools suite, reports The Wall Street Journal. Epic's VP and co-founder, Mark Rein, also confirmed the date via Twitter. Of course, those professionals looking to use the UDK for commercial purposes must factor in the $99 licensing fee paid to Epic, as well as 25 percent of royalties (after the first $5,000 in sales) from sales of any Unreal-developed titles. Add in Apple's 30-percent cut and, uh-huh, your "get rich quick" scheme is starting to get a little expensive ...
Unreal Engine 3 overview video touts new visual effects
Directional light shafts, color grading and cascaded shadow maps may seem like gobbledygook to most of us, but to developers, they're important. At least Epic thinks these terms for Unreal Engine 3 features are important enough to use as selling points. Just past the break, you can check out a new video demonstration of the tech. Additionally, Epic has released a new beta version of its free Unreal Engine 3 UDK today, now featuring an additional map and "many improvements to the Unreal Editor." If you'd like to grab it, head on over to the official site.
Fan-made Duke Nukem 3D remake green-lighted by Gearbox
Project lead Frederik "Fresch" Schreiber has received a non-commercial license to proceed with Duke Nukem: Next-Gen, his Unreal Engine 3-powered Duke Nukem 3D remake. Fresch secured the license in just under three weeks after his first announcement -- a credit to rights holder Gearbox's openness to share the franchise with the community -- and has aleady assembled a team of nine other contributors (though he is still "hiring" for a number of positions). Fresch, who abandoned similar "next-gen" remakes of Daikatana (too unpopular) and SIN (shut down by MumboJumbo), has plans to release a public multiplayer demo of Duke Nukem: Next-Gen "sooner than you think." Of course, the full version will be released "when it's done" -- and he notes that "Duke Nukem: Next-Gen" is, wisely, just a codename. Check out the freeware project's first test video after the break.
Unreal Engine now able to make iOS apps
With Apple's recent decision to ease off on its third-party app creation tools restrictions, gamers are in for some very cool and interesting developments. At the Korea Games Conference, Epic Games announced that the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) will have the ability to generate iOS games and other applications. The UDK is freely available and has the ability to churn out incredible looking environments, such as the Epic Citadel tech demo you might have downloaded or at least gazed upon in wonder. If the gameplay of the final, released version of the Citadel demo is as smooth and playable as what was shown at the most recent Apple press event, there's no doubt we'll see even more amazing things come from what developers can churn out with the UDK. Think someone will port Unreal Tournament?
Unreal dev kit adding iOS support, Epic Citadel downloaded 1 million times
Well, that didn't take long. Less than a week after Apple announced that it would "relax" some of its iOS restrictions, allowing the use of third-party app creation tools, among other things, comes the following announcement from Epic Games, straight out of the Korea Games Conference: "We announced UDK will be able to generate iOS applications!" To translate for you quickly: Independent iPhone developers will soon be able to use the freely available Unreal Development Kit – which Epic also announced has 350,000 installations to its name – to create graphically lush mobile apps. If you're looking for an example of that graphical potential, check out the Epic Citadel tech demo, first revealed at this month's Apple press conference. With over one million downloads (another figure shared today!), we wouldn't be surprised if you already have. But you probably haven't seen Dungeon Defenders, a title whose developer has taken the jump from UDK novice to Unreal Engine 3 licensee, and all the commercial benefits that entails. You can see a video of the game running on both the iPhone and Android platforms after the break, but it's also in development for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. We're pretty excited to see the strength of Unreal Engine married to the diversity and quantity of the new breed of mobile gaming marketplaces, iOS and Android included. %Gallery-101015%
Epic's free Unreal Development Kit adds Steamworks
Epic has released an update to its Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free version of Unreal Engine 3. The update includes a host of new features, but one of the most significant additions is support for Steamworks. According to the changelog, Steam has become the default online system for UDK and will handle online functions like friends, matchmaking and server browsing. The update also adds Scaleform GFx, which allows game creators to build attractive user interfaces. You can check out a video of Scaleform GFx in action after the break. Head over to Shacknews for the full list of new UDK tweaks.
Half-Life 2 mod Age of Chivalry becomes commercial Unreal game
Those of you entrenched in the Source mod community may recall Age of Chivalry, a Half-Life 2 mod set in medieval times. It gained a following, and now developer Team Chivalry has announced a new project: Chivalry: Battle for Agatha. This time around, however, Team Chivalry is ditching Source and going with Epic's Unreal Development Kit to build the latest version of its fantasy world. Right now, there's no word on when the game will be released, but Team Chivalry is looking for alpha testers. If you're interested, check out this post on the forums. %Gallery-93370% [Via Shacknews]
Unreal Engine 3 adds extra dimension with NVIDIA 3D Vision
Epic Games has announced that its wildly popular Unreal Engine 3 has now added NVIDIA's 3D Vision to its list of supported technologies. We've already come across Batman: Arkham Asylum being played with NVIDIA's signature shutter glasses so this isn't a huge surprise per se, but it does put a stamp of compatibility on the vast catalog of games -- both current and future -- built upon Epic's graphics engine. Those include Borderlands, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Bioshock 1 and 2, and that all-time classic 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. The Unreal Development Kit -- a freeware version of the Engine for non-commercial uses -- is also being upgraded to make the addition of stereoscopic 3D effects "easier than ever," while other small improvements (covered by Gamespot) show that the Epic crew isn't standing still on its core product. Good news for all you mobile mavens wanting a taste of Unreality on your iPhones or Pres.
