Unreal Engine Technology

The Unreal Engine is one of the most popular game engines for action games. First illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal, it has been the basis of many such games since, including Unreal Tournament and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield. It is developed by Epic Games.

The Unreal Engine is quite different from most other game engines, in that it isn't a stricktly defined API, yet licensees simply get the source code of a complete game, which they can in turn transform into their own game. This has the advantage that your are able to have your game fully working really quickly, but has the disadvantage that the more your game differs from a conventional first person shooter, the harder it will be to implement, and often workarounds have to be made for things that were assumed by Epic, but don't apply to your game.

The Unreal Engine Technology includes support for a scripting language called UnrealScript, which can be used to quickly modify many aspects of the game without having to delve into the C++ internals.

The Unreal Engine is modular. Epic rewrites different parts of it, but it is still the same engine. As such, there are no concrete versions, only numbered "builds" which may or may not contain certain features. Licensees eventually stop merging builds from Epic, but often continue incrementing the build number on their own (instead of the specific "Licensee Version" number), so occasionally disparities arise, as you'll see with Unreal Tournament 2003. Also, with the exception of America's Army, Epic's release of a game marks the first game of that generation engine. AA was the first licensee product to ship before Epic's product of that generation engine.

Projects using the Unreal Engine Technology

Many other software companies have licensed the Unreal engine in order to speed up development of their own titles. These include Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Fallen and Ion Storm Inc.'s Deus Ex. Newer versions of the engine are being used for PC games such as Running With Scissors, Inc.'s Postal², 3D Realms' Duke Nukem Forever, the U.S. Army's America's Army, and Ion Storm's Deus Ex: Invisible War [1].

Versions of the Unreal engine are available for IBM PC (Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux), Apple Macintosh (Mac OS, Mac OS X) and many other Consoles.

Here a comprehensive list of published video games utilising the Unreal engine [2].

Unreal Engine 1.0

The Unreal engine was initially developed for the Unreal game. It featured large maps and a wide color palette in contrast to competing 3D game engines.

Builds 1-226: The original Unreal engine was publicly started with the release of Unreal, although licensees like Legend Entertainment and MicroProse had possessed the technology much earlier. 226f was the final patch to Unreal.
Rendering technologies:
* 3DFX Glide, S3 Metal, PowerVR SGL, Direct3D 5 and 6, and OpenGL, Software Renderer support
* 32-bit fully colored dynamic lighting with softly and animated
* Extensible BSP/PVS and portal technology
* 32-bit colored 512x512 size texture support
* Dynamic range scaled detail textures
* Procedurally animated textures
* Multiple channels of vertex animation support
* Emboss bump mapping
* Multi-texturing
* Light bloom
* Fog volume
* Volumetric lighting
* Particles effects system
* Multi-skybox system

Other features:
* Fully digital audio based module sound system
* Digital music, MP3, CD Audio, module music, s3m, etc support
* Doppler shift
* A3D support
* Software 3D sound
* Surround sound
* Real-time recording of in-engine footage as replayable 'demo' files
* GUI editor

Released projects

Dr. Brain's Thinking Games: Action/Reaction â€" (1999) Knowledge Adventure
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Klingon Honor Guard â€" (1998) MicroProse
TNN Outdoors Pro Hunter â€" (1998) DreamForge Intertainment
Unreal (uses build 220-226) â€" (1998) Epic Games
*Unreal Mission Pack 1: Return to Na Pali (uses build 224-226) â€" (1999) Legend Entertainment
Virtual Reality Notre Dame â€" (1999) NASA
* Many other unknown projects

Unreal Engine 1.5

Unreal Tournament uses Unreal Engine 1.5, an improvement of the original engine.

Builds 300-436: The enhanced version of the original builds. The codebase was forked and the version number jumped to 300 and incremented from there until version 436. The core code was completely re-written. eventually to integrate UnrealEd 2. Additionally, the PS2 and Dreamcast versions of this engine debuted in this timeframe.

Rendering technologies:
* Enhancing and optimizing Direct3D 6 and 7, OpenGL 0.9x support with hardware T&L support
* Major enhancements were to the rendering engine speed
* Decal support
* Skeletal animation support
* S3TC texture compression
* High resolution texture size(1024x1024) support
* Environment mapping support
* Improving skybox system
* Extensible particles system

Other features:
* Network code vast improving
* Fully support on A3D, EAX, DS3D
* Enhancing A.I. algorithm

Released projects

Adventure Pinball: Forgotten Island â€" (2001) Digital Extremes
Clive Barker's Undying â€" (2001) Dreamworks Interactive
Deus Ex â€" (2000) Ion Storm
Deus Ex: The Conspiracy â€" (2002) Ion Storm
Disney's Brother Bear â€" (2003) KnowWonder Digital Mediaworks
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets â€" (2002) KnowWonder Digital Mediaworks
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone â€" (2001) KnowWonder Digital Mediaworks
Mobile Forces â€" (2002) Rage Software
Nerf Arena Blast â€" (1999) Visionary Media, Inc.
New Legends â€" (2002) Infinite Machine
Rune â€" (2000) Human Head Studios
*Rune: Halls of Valhalla â€" (2001) Human Head Studios
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Fallen â€" (2000) The Collective
Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror â€" (2002) Kamehan Studios
The Wheel of Time â€" (1999) Legend Entertainment
Twin Caliber â€" (2003) Rage Software
Unreal Tournament (uses build 400-436) â€" (1999) Epic Games
X-COM: Enforcer â€" (2001) MicroProse
* Many other games projects and non-gaming projects including construction simulation and design, training simulation, driving simulation, virtual reality shopping malls, movie storyboards, continuity, pre-visual, etc.)

Unreal Engine 2.0

Unreal Tournament 2003 uses the second generation of Unreal engine, a large improvement in visual quality and ease of development over the previous engines.

Builds 500-2227: The builds of the second generation Unreal engine started at 500, licensees first saw them after 600, and they were publicly available as build 927 with the release of America's Army. When Epic took over finishing UT2003, build numbers jumped to 2000+. this generation 100% re-written core code and rendering engine. new UnrealEd 3 intergrated. many other engine elements vast improving.

Rendering technologies:
* Direct3D 8 and OpenGL 1.x support
* Hardware shader support for vertex shader and pixel shader
* Improved texture compression
* Environment mapped bump mapping and cube mapping
* Weighted skeletal animation
* Smooth-skinned geometry(skinning animation)
* Facial animation support (including lip syncing)
* Large scale terrain support
* Seamless mixing of indoor BSP meshes, static meshes, dynamic meshes, and terrain meshes
* High resolution(2048x2048) texture support
* Include MathEngine's "Karma" physics engine (licensed separately)

Other features:
* New designed network engine
* Particles system wizard toolset
* UnrealMatinee cutscene toolset
* improving GUI editor
* New designed A.I. system
* Enhancing Real-time recording of in-engine footage as replayable 'demo' files
* Includes support for processing those demo files into DivX movies (The DivX integration code is freely available to licensees, but use of the DivX libraries must be licensed separately)

The engine is sometimes incorrectly called "UT2003 engine", "U2 engine", "UT2 engine", or similar. Licensees sometimes refer to it as "Unreal Warfare", though the original origins of the term "Unreal Warfare" are both vague and confusing. At one point, "Unreal Warfare" was a code name for a project Epic was working on - whether this project was a game or a build of the engine itself is still unclear. Theories vary: some think that this was merely the codename for the Onslaught gametype implemented in UT2004, while others believe it's the original code name for Gears of War. On a related note, Epic is adding a gametype to UT2007 that has been referred to as both "Unreal Warfare" and "Conquest," though Epic representatives have been quick to note that the final gametype name is not set in stone.

The engine itself is named Unreal Engine N for Nth-generation Unreal engine.

Announced projects

San Guo Online â€" Wayi
Brothers in Arms (PSP version) â€" Ubisoft
* Many other unknown game projects(in particular chinese MMO games and casual games)

Released projects

Advent Rising â€" (2005) GlyphX Inc.
America's Army v1.0 ~ v2.3 â€" (2002) U.S. Army (The MOVES Institute)
America's Army: Rise of Soldier (Xbox and PS2) â€" (2005) Secret Level
Brothers In Arms: Earned in Blood â€" (2005) Gearbox Software
Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30 â€" (2005) Gearbox Software
Combat: Task Force 121 â€" (2005) Direct Action Games
Dead Man's Hand â€" (2004) Human Head Studios
Desert Thunder â€" (2003) Brainbox Games
Deus Ex: Invisible War â€" (2003) Ion Storm
Devastation â€" (2003) Digitalo Studios
Exteel â€" (2005) NC Soft
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban â€" (2004) KnowWonder Digital Mediaworks
Jinyong Online 2.0 â€" (2005) Soft-World
*Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green â€" (2005) Brainbox Games
*Lineage II â€" (2003) NC Soft
*Magic: The Gathering Battlegrounds â€" (2003) Atari
*Magna Carta Portable (PSP version) â€" Softmax
*Magna Carta: Tears of Blood â€" (2005) Softmax
*Marine Heavy Gunner: Vietnam â€" (2004) Brainbox Games
*Men of Valor â€" (2004) 2015, Inc.
*Postal² â€" (2003) Running With Scissors, Inc.
**Postal²: Share the Pain â€" (2003) Running With Scissors, Inc.
**Postal²: Apocalypse Weekend â€" (2005) Running With Scissors, Inc.
*Sephiroth â€" Imazic Entertainment
*Shadow Ops: Red Mercury â€" (2004) Zombie
*Star Wars: Republic Commando â€" (2005) LucasArts
*SWAT 4 â€" (2005) Irrational Games
*Thief: Deadly Shadows â€" (2004) Ion Storm
*Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 (GameCube Version, PS2 Version) â€" (2005) Ubisoft
*Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 (GameCube version, PS2 Version, Xbox version) â€" (2003) Ubisoft
*Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow (Xbox only) â€" (2004) Ubisoft
*Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield â€" (2003) Ubisoft
**Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword â€" (2004) Ubisoft
**Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Iron Wrath â€" (2005) Ubisoft
*Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell â€" (2003) Ubisoft
*Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Essentials â€" (2006) Ubisoft
*Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow â€" (2004) Ubisoft
*Unreal Engine 2 Runtime Edition (uses build 2226-2227) â€" (2003) Epic Games
*Unreal II: The Awakening (uses build 829-2001) â€" (2003) Legend Entertainment
**Unreal II EXpanded MultiPlayer (XMP)(uses build 2226) â€" (2003) Legend Entertainment
*Unreal Tournament 2003 (uses build 2107-2225) â€" (2002) Digital Extremes
*Unreal Championship (uses build 927-1018) â€" (2002) Digital Extremes
*World War II Combat: Iwo Jima â€" Direct Action Games
*World War II Combat: Road to Berlin â€" (2006) Direct Action Games
*XIII'' â€" (2003) Ubisoft
* Many other unknown game projects(in particular chinese MMO games and casual games)

Unreal Engine 2 Runtime Edition

Unreal Engine 2 Runtime Edition used in many non-gaming projects including construction simulation and design, training simulation, driving simulation, virtual reality shopping malls, movie storyboards, continuity, pre-visual, etc.

Unreal Engine GeForce FX Technology Demo, A very highly detailed scene with bump maps, rich textures, and dynamic lighting: the flexibility of the GeForce FX shading allows for elaborate lighting calculations resulting in the soft self shadowing in the folds of statue's cloak and the subtle shadows in the corner of the room.

Unreal Engine 2.5

Builds 2500-3369: Enhanced version of Unreal Engine 2 with an optimized rendering engine. core technology re-written and improving and extension, The Unreal Engine 2.5 adds support for 64-bit Windows and 64-bit Linux operating systems. Improving and enhancing UnrealEd toolsets. One fork of the Engine is also highly optimized for the Xbox hardware shader pipeline based on a few graphical enhancements, The Xbox memory management system, Xbox GUI system, editor, and Xbox live support. These Xbox optimized features are integrated into the Unreal Engine 2X, but is an off-shoot of the Unreal Engine 2.5.

Rendering technologies:
* While 2.5 does not make extensive use of Direct3D 9 and OpenGL 2.x level of features, it does use the Direct3D 9 API and thus provides an easy starting point for licensees interested in adding Direct3D 9 and OpenGL 2.x level of graphical features
* UDN site Unreal Engine 2.5 support also features multipass bump-mapping (normal map/bump map/specular map/diffuse map/gloss map/environment map/opacity map/mask map etc), per-pixel lighting and per-pixel shading, virtual displacement mapping, high dynamic range rendering, soft shadows and other modern graphical features present in the Direct3D 9 and OpenGL 2.x feature set
* Texture resolutions up to 4096x4096 support
* Improvements rendering engine speed
* BSP/PVS world rendering enhancing
* Software rendering with Pixomatic (licensed separately)

Other features:
* Included particle system editor
* Voice-over IP support
* Text-to-speech support
* AI speech recognition
* Vehicles optimized physics
* Network code re-written
* Enhancing physics performance

Announced projects

BioShock â€" Irrational Games
Duke Nukem Forever â€" 3D Realms
HoopWorld â€" Streamline Studios
LANDMASS â€" WAYPOINT Corp.
Priston Tale 2 â€" yedang online
Ragnarok Online 2 â€" Gravity Corp.
The Chronicles of Spellborn â€" Spellborn International
The Lost â€" Irrational Games
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent â€" Ubisoft
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes â€" Sigil Games Online
*''Vanguard: (First Expansion Pack) â€" Sigil Games Online
* Many other unknown projects(many developers's MMO games and casual games, FPS games and other genre games)

Released projects

America's Army v2.4 ~ v2.9 â€" (2005) U.S. Army (The MOVES Institute)
Pariah â€" (2005) Digital Extremes
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 â€" (2006) Tripwire Interactive
SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate â€" (2006) Irrational Games
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory â€" (2005) Ubisoft
Tribes: Vengeance â€" (2004) Irrational Games
Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (uses build 3357-3363) â€" (2005) Epic Games
Unreal Tournament 2004 (uses build 3186-3369) â€" (2004) Epic Games / Digital Extremes
WarPath â€" Digital Extremes
* Many other unknown projects(many developers's MMO games and casual games, FPS games and other genre games)

Unreal Engine 3.0

A berserker from Unreal Engine 3 technology demo (later revealed to be Gears of War content), revealing a detailed model with normal mapping and real-time soft self-shadowing

Builds 3500 and above: Unreal Engine 3 targets 2006-2008 PCs, Xbox360, and PlayStation3. The core code, rendering system and all modules were completely rewritten. It discards legacy support to improve performance and obtain visual quality unachievable with older generations of . Incorporates vast improvements to the UnrealEd toolsets.

Rendering technologies:
* Direct3D 9 and 10, OpenGL 2.x support
* 16x Sampled Shadow depth buffers for characters
* 64-bit and 128-bit color High Dynamic Range lighting and rendering pipeline
* Many post-processing effects including light bloom, lenticular halos, and depth-of-field
* Stencil shadow volumes for dynamic lights
* Pre-computed shadow-masks for static lights
* Support for shader models 2, 3 and 4
* Extensibly material shader system
* Geometry shader support
* Volumetric effects such as height fog
* Many per-pixel lighting techniques, including normal mapping, spherical harmonic lighting, and parameterized Phong shading
* Advanced virtual displacement mapping with self-shadowing and z-bias correction.
* 'Real' displacement mapping
* Dynamic LOD for all meshes
* Fully realtime radiosity(PRT) pipeline support
* Non-power-of-two size textures support

Other features:
* UnrealCascade extensible particle system with visual editor
* UnrealMatinee cutscene toolset vast improving
* UnrealKismet visual script editor
* Visual material shader editor
* Improved GUI editor
* Includes AGEIA's PhysX physics engine
* Physics-based animation
* Dynamically deformable, LOD-based terrain
* Procedural vegetation layer
* COLLADA import pipeline
* Seamlessly interconnected indoor and outdoor environments
* Fully multi-threaded
* Incorporates Artificial Studios's Reality Engine

Announced projects

All Points Bulletin â€" Real Time Worlds
America's Army v3.0 â€" U.S. Army
America's Army: Real Heroes â€" (PS3 and Xbox 360) â€" U.S. Army
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway â€" Gearbox Software
Coded Arms: Assault â€" Konami
Empire â€" Chair Entertainment
Elveon â€" 10Tacle
Fatal Inertia â€" Koei
Frontlines: Fuel of War â€" KAOS
Fury â€" Auran
Gears of War â€" Epic Games
Huxley â€" Webzen Games Inc.
Interstellar Marines â€" Zero Point Software
Lineage III â€" NC Soft
Lost Odyssey â€" Mist Walker / Feel Plus
Magna Carta 2 â€" Softmax
Marvel Comics Online â€" Sigil Games Online
Mass Effect â€" BioWare
Monster-Madness â€" Southpeak Games
Parabellum â€" Anocy
Project New Jersey â€" Obsidian Entertainment
Roboblitz â€" Naked Sky Entertainment
Section 8 â€" Timegate Studios
Stargate Worlds â€" Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment
Stranglehold â€" Tiger Hill Entertainment
Swat 5 â€" VUG
Tom Clancy's Firehawk â€" Ubisoft
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas (PS3, Xbox 360 version) â€" Ubisoft
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 5 (PC version) â€" Ubisoft
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell 5 â€" Ubisoft
Too Human â€" Silicon Knights
New Turok â€" Buena Vista Games
Unreal Tournament 2007 â€" Epic Games
Vanguard: second expansion pak â€" Sigil Games Online
* Many unannounced titles

Single License

*Unannounced title â€" 2015, Inc.
*Unannounced title â€" Ensemble Studios
*Unannounced title â€" Hirez Studios
*Unannounced title â€" Perception
*Unannounced title â€" Spellborn International
*Unannounced title â€" Tripwire Interactive
*Many unannounced developers

Multiple Licenses

*Unannounced titles â€" Atari
*Unannounced titles â€" Artificial Studios
*Unannounced titles â€" Buena Vista Games
*Unannounced titles â€" Chair Entertainment
*Unannounced titles â€" Cranky Pants Games
*Unannounced titles â€" Eidos Interactive
*Unannounced titles â€" Gearbox Software
*Unannounced titles â€" GlyphX Inc.
*Unannounced titles â€" High Moon Studios
*Unannounced titles â€" inXile Entertainment
*Unannounced titles â€" Irrational Games
*Unannounced titles â€" Koei
*Unannounced titles â€" Konami
*Unannounced titles â€" Lucky Chicken Games
*Unannounced titles â€" Mad Dog
*Unannounced titles â€" Majesco Games
*Unannounced titles â€" Microsoft Game Studios
*Unannounced titles â€" Midway Games
*Unannounced titles â€" Mind Control Software
*Unannounced titles â€" Namco
*Unannounced titles â€" NC Soft
*Unannounced titles â€" Real Time Worlds
*Unannounced titles â€" Rocksteady Studios
*Unannounced titles â€" Sony Computer Entertainment
*Unannounced titles â€" Sony Online Entertainment
*Unannounced titles â€" THQ
*Unannounced titles â€" Tiger Hill Entertainment
*Unannounced titles â€" TimeGate Studios
*Unannounced titles â€" Spark Unlimited
*Unannounced titles â€" Streamline Studios
*Unannounced titles â€" Surreal Software
*Unannounced titles â€" Trilogy
*Unannounced titles â€" Ubisoft
*Unannounced titles â€" Vision Studios
*Unannounced titles â€" Vivendi Universal Games
*Unannounced titles â€" Webzen
*Unannounced titles â€" Zombie Studios
*Many unannounced developers

Non-gaming projects

Unreal Engine 3 Runtime Custom License is used in many non-gaming projects including construction simulation and design, training simulation, driving simulation, virtual reality shopping malls, movie storyboards, continuity, pre-visual, etc. According to Mark Rein, no such license exists from the architecture. The only form available is Unreal Engine 3 with the toolset and sourcecode meant for games.

Unreal Engine 3.5

Epic is using UE3.0 for Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 2007. However, Epic will continue improving and extending UE3 over the entire console cycle, so there are at least 3.5 years of significant development being planned at this stage.

Tim Sweeney says that, regarding the timeline, development of Unreal Engine 3 will continue throughout the current hardware generation to 2009.

UnrealEd toolsets will be improved and extended, as will other modules and engine elements.

Rendering Technologies:
* Direct3D 11 and 12, same level of OpenGL support
* 2009 and beyond will be probably hardware based graphics technologies
* Vast improving and optimizing renderer and engine

Ohter Features:
* Improving and extending toolsets
* Add the useful new toolsets
* UDN site support on other very many technologies

Unreal Engine 4

Mark Rein, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed on August 18 2005 that Unreal Engine 4 has been in development over the past two years. The engine targets the next generation of consoles after the coming generation, as well as the PC. The only person to work on the engine so far is Tim Sweeney, lead programmer at Epic.

See also

* Unreal
* UnrealScript
* game engine

References

*
*

External links

* The official Unreal Developer Network documenting the Unreal engine
* Online community Unreal engine documentation
* Unreal Technology