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Pitbull Studio assisting with Unreal Engine 4, also developing UE4-based games
Never heard of Pitbull Studio? Neither had we. Apparently the English studio specializes in hired gun work and is lead by ex-Midway Newcastle's Robert Troughton (Wheelman, etc.). While unknown, the three-year-old studio is working on two things for Epic Games: Unreal Engine 4, and a game built in said engine. Not too bad for a group of guys no one's heard of, eh?Job listings for positions at Pitbull reveal the studio is "working on Unreal Engine 4 with Epic Games," but also, "games derived from that and Unreal Engine 3." Positions range from environment artists to engine programmers, with a variety of other roles in between. Epic confirmed the work with Joystiq this afternoon, and offered a prepared statement from director of engineering, Daniel Vogel. "Epic has a great history working with Pitbull Studio. We can count on them to provide reliable engineering resources, and they're helping us prepare for the next generation of games."We'll see more from Epic's next-gen engine this June.
Unreal Engine 4's GDC demo: exposed!
Just around 30 lucky GDC attendees saw Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 demo. And one such person was Wired's Stu Horvath, who describes the two minute demonstration as "breathtakingly photo-realistic" in an exclusive reveal. The demo apparently follows the demon knight seen above, as he wakes from a frozen sleep ... only to set everything on fire. That scamp!The demo runs on Nvidia's Kepler GTX 680 – a graphics card often described as "next-gen" – and it follows the armored demon dude as he shows off his fancy, graphics-heavy castle. Just 14 Epic employees put together the demo, which apparently runs in real-time within the Unreal Engine 4 environment (a feat for modern game engines, including UE3). Don't be surprised if we see this demo show up in a future Epic game – the company's past demos for Unreal Engine lead to some of Epic's biggest games.Lighting is also improved, according to the piece, with "dynamic lighting" within the engine rather than being individually implemented after the fact. "The number of man-years that required was astounding," Epic design director Cliff Bleszinski said. But with all the additions, Epic's new engine requires much more horsepower; horsepower for which Epic is pushing the likes of Microsoft and Sony. Whether Epic (and us gamers) will get that horsepower, however, remains to be seen.
Unreal Engine 4 images demonstrate top-of-the-line evil eyes
What better way to understand the capabilities of Unreal Engine 4 than to look at this creepy knight guy in various stages of rendering? Glowing eyes that evil need the next generation of rendering technology.%Gallery-155622%
Epic: Consoles must be 'bleeding edge' in next generation
Epic believes that the next round of home consoles will have to be "bleeding edge" if the likes of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo want to stay relevant in the video game market. Speaking to CVG, Epic VP Mark Rein noted that the publisher is "pushing" console makers to use the best possible hardware. "Because if they don't," said Rein, "Apple will go right past them."He added that console gaming is about console makers "delivering something that's way out past the bleeding edge" and making their investment back with software royalties. If console makers don't opt for the latest and greatest tech, he said, there's a chance that consumers "won't want to take the leap" to future consoles.In Rein's view, it's Epic's job to push console makers with advanced technology demos like the "Samaritan" video shown at GDC 2011 (above). Incidentally, Rein isn't worried that console makers will under-deliver with the next generation, believing that they will instead "blow us all away." With Unreal Engine 4 aimed at next generation consoles, and assuming UE4 is even more impressive than the UE3-powered Samaritan demo, we certainly hope he's right.
Epic Games to privately showcase Unreal Engine 4 at GDC
Unreal Engine 3 is one of (if not the most) prolific gaming technologies in existence right now, powering everything from Mortal Kombat and Asura's Wrath to Gears of War 3 and Batman: Arkham City. If you're one of the many developers that depend on Epic's engine, the upcoming 2012 Game Developers Conference may be your first chance to see the next generation of Unreal Engine in action.Epic will be showcasing Unreal Engine 4 to "select licensees, partners and prospective customers" behind closed doors at the conference; demonstrations will be given by appointment only, and all who attend must sign what we can only assume is the most air-tight, all-encompassing non-disclosure agreement ever written. For instance, developers allowed into Epic's demonstration area may not smuggle air out of the demonstration area inside of their lungs and then transfer that air to the lungs of another living person, under pain of chainsaw death. It's pretty serious stuff, but it's probably worth it to see some totally sweet tech demos.
Epic wants Unreal Engine 4 ready for the next-gen console launch
Like an inattentive uncle, Unreal Engine 3 didn't visit this current generation of consoles until it was around a year old. But if Epic's Mark Rein has his way, Unreal Engine 4 will be right there in the birthing room to catch the Xbox 720 and PS4 from their ... electronic womb. "I want Unreal Engine 4 to be ready far earlier than UE3 was; not a year after the consoles are released," he told Develop. "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." When asked what he wants from that next gen, Rein focused on giving developers and publishers more pricing freedom rather than pure horsepower. He wants a beefy GPU as well, but it's telling to see the acknowledgement that the next wave of consoles will be as much about how games are delivered as what they look like.
Epic Games' Tim Sweeney talks Unreal Engine 4, be patient until 'around 2014'
Epic (Mega) Games co-founder and CEO Tim Sweeney is one of our favorite people in the whole, wide gaming world, and it's not just because he told this writer that he reads Joystiq every day. While id's John Carmack is often placed atop our industry's tech pedestal, it's Tim Sweeney whose work on Unreal Engine not only shapes the way video games look but the business models behind how they're created. So when Sweeney talks about the elusive and intangible Unreal Engine 4, we pay attention. "I spend about 60 percent of my time every day doing research work that's aimed at our next generation engine and the next generation of consoles," Sweeney told IGN, adding that this "technology that won't see the light of day until probably around 2014." Sweeney compared this early work to his work on the original Unreal engine in 1996, which introduced "a bunch of new features that hadn't been seen before." Sweeney said, "I feel like that's what I'm doing now on Unreal Engine 4 in exploring areas of the technology nobody else is really yet contemplating because they're still a few years away from practicality." There are two primary technical challenges facing video games today, Sweeney said. The first, and most addressable, is the need to scale up "to tons of CPU cores." While UE3 can divide discrete processes across a handful of cores, "once you have 20 cores" it isn't that simple "because all these parameters change dynamically as different things come on screen and load as you shift from scene to scene." These advancements will help achieve "movie quality graphics" since that outcome has been limited primarily by horsepower. "We just haven't been able to do it because we don't have enough terra flops or petta flops of computer power to make it so," Sweeney said. Less likely to be conquered in the next 10 years: the "simulation of human aspects of the game experience," Sweeney explained. "We've seen very, very little progress in these areas over the past few decades so it leaves me very skeptical about our prospects for breakthroughs in the immediate future." So, to wrap up: Over the next ten years, the aliens / Nazis / zombies / bug monsters in your video games will appear in "movie quality," but will still be pretty stupid. [Image credit: Forbes]
Check out Epic's Unreal Engine GDC tech demo (while you can)
Someone's posted a steady, shaky cam version of Epic's very sexy GDC 2011 Unreal Engine 3 tech upgrade demo on YouTube. Seeing as how Bleszinski and company are none too pleased, don't expect it to be up for long.Update: Surprise! The video was pulled. We've replaced it with the official video.
Epic has high hopes for Unreal Engine 4, not worried about CryEngine yet
With the Unreal Engine 4 targeted for use on the next console generation (whenever that is), Epic President Mike Capps is confident that the product will have "better dominance" than its already ubiquitous Unreal Engine 3. Speaking with Edge, Capps notes the next console generation is "really murky compared to last time," but sees the next-gen tech hanging around the mean streets of the PC market. Capps also isn't getting antsy about Crytek's CryEngine 3 being the best solution for developers. He explained, "They've positioned themselves strongly as the 'we're gonna be on console, push one button and it's great on all three platforms' engine. ... They've yet to ship an Xbox 360 game and we're five years in. It surprises me that people take them seriously as a crossplatform engine company. We don't know how to compete against a company that hasn't shipped yet. It's all potential, so we'll see." Crytek previously stated its next engine would arrive in 2012. Now, the real question: will Crytek or Epic even have "next generation consoles" to sell these newfangled engines for in the next couple years?
Unreal Engine 4 geared for next-gen consoles
Despite the fact that Unreal Engine 3 has been licensed by, oh, everyone for building their current-gen games, results have been hit or miss. While developers continue to get to grips with the current iteration of the technology, its creator, Epic Games, is already at work building the next version to stump them make their lives easier ... in the future.In news sure to make Dennis Dyack happy, Epic's president, Mike Capps, revealed at Microsoft's Gamefest technology conference that the successors to the current crop of consoles (even Wii?) are its target platforms for Unreal Engine 4. "We've got Unreal [Engine] 4 in production right now," Capps told the gathering of developers, adding, "it's going to be in the next console generation ... our rough guess is 2012 to 2018." So, there you have it. Xbox 720 in 2012. We kid. We aren't kidding when we say that we hope developers other than Epic and a handful of others get a sound grasp on UE3 before then.
Unreal Engine 4 will be ready for next console gen
Chatting with Gamasutra during Seattle's recent GameFest, Epic Games' Mike Capps confirmed progress on Unreal Engine 4 mentioning that it should be ready for debut "...in the next console generation - our rough guess is 2012 - 2018." Interesting too was confirmation from Capps that the UE4 will have "console focus" where "version 4 will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the Playstation 3 - and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also. PCs will follow after that."One can only try to imagine what the next console generation will bring in terms of graphics and physics, especially seeing how amazing some games look using the Unreal Engine 3. One can only dream. But we're welcoming the next, next generation with open arms as we say; bring on the pretty!
The Digital Continuum: MMO features in the year 2013
If you were to look back five years ago at the year 2003, the feature lists on the MMOs of that year look quite a bit different from the games of this year. Everything from graphical advancements to new in-game concepts like Warhammer Online's Tome of Knowledge. A lot of new features have cropped up through natural evolution and forcefulness as well. A lot of these improvements were obvious, but many of them have also been unexpected.So what kinds of advancements will the massively genre have made in another fives years? Maybe we'll all be playing MMOs on the newest consoles, or maybe not. There are a lot of variables in this considerably young genre we all love, so looking five years into the future can lead to scary places. Although that won't stop me from trying to peer towards the future in an attempt see what sorts of virtual worlds await us all.
Unreal Engine 4 to 'exclusively target the next console generation'
The video game industry has no shortage of brilliant, outspoken thinkers and Epic CEO (and Unreal Engine guru) Tim Sweeney is no exception. In a previous installment of his interview with TG Daily, Sweeney said the PC wasn't a good platform for gaming and in this final installment he reveals that Unreal Engine 4 "will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft's successor for the Xbox 360, Sony's successor for the PlayStation 3 – and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also." Where does that leave the poor, struggling PC gaming platform? Sweeney says, "PCs will follow after that." Ooh, dissed. While he's not exactly dishing out granular details on the next major iteration of their ubiquitous engine – after all, he did just show us the latest upgrades for Unreal Engine 3 at GDC – Sweeney did share a big picture outlook on the direction of the engine: "scaling to lots and lots of cores." Using the number of cores in the Xbox 360 as a starting point, Sweeney busts out Moore's Law to determine "that around 2010 ... you can put tens of CPU cores on one processor chip and you will have a perfectly usable uniform computing environment." What if he used the PlayStation 3's seven synergistic processing elements as a starting point? The mind staggers ...
