Unreal Engine 3 Features @ GDC 2009

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Hyrage

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Apr 9, 2008
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You would find those anyway if you actually tested your own levels.

Once you already played your map over and over and over again, you do not act like if it was your first time playing the game. You do not react the same to the multiple game elements that unconsciously orient player, you do not use the same strategies and either the environment, you do not try stupid things like a stupid player would do and you probably don't play like 10 000 other different players.

Singleplayer or Multiplayer, I do think that Playtesting is a very important part and that technology offered by Epic Games would allow us to see where people are moving, where they interact and else. It's something every Game Dev should use and it would help a lot to avoid doing useless work.
 

jayoplus

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Feb 20, 2008
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Good news on the upgrades, everything is impressive but what really impresses me the most is the emitting material based lighting.
 

Ignotium

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Apr 3, 2005
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Not sure if the MCP finds errors.

MCP is not meant to fix any errors, maybe to highlight them, but not fix'em. But anyways, is quite a powerful tool to actually improve gameplay, in fact, the more i think about it the more i notice how powerful it can be
 

Sjosz

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Once you already played your map over and over and over again, you do not act like if it was your first time playing the game. You do not react the same to the multiple game elements that unconsciously orient player, you do not use the same strategies and either the environment, you do not try stupid things like a stupid player would do and you probably don't play like 10 000 other different players.

Singleplayer or Multiplayer, I do think that Playtesting is a very important part and that technology offered by Epic Games would allow us to see where people are moving, where they interact and else. It's something every Game Dev should use and it would help a lot to avoid doing useless work.

QA.
 

[GU]elmur_fud

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Mar 15, 2005
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...
Originally Posted by [GU]elmur_fud
All this seems cool but the browser stuff strikes me as pure fluff. I was hoping to see them actually address some of the things about the editor that keeps alot of modders at bay.
...such as?
....

Are you really trying to argue a well established point such as this? Seriously there have been every1 from community mappers such as myself on up to professional developers that have commented on the level of diificulty in using this editor. The previous unreal editors got progressively easier by and large, but the UE3.0 editor, at least in it's UT3 inception (and I doubt the others are much different) is a massive hop skip and a jump backwards in usability.

I can't really comment on the code as I don't program But the drastic dirth of mutators (as compared to UT2k4 a year out from realease) speaks for itself to me. That and how many people who actually program for a living that have given up on working with modding this engine. Typical response when I try and probe a reason is that "it's just not flexable enough to do much with."

The sheer amount of UT3 maps Today vs. the amount of UT2k4 (not counting UT2k3 ports) maps @ the same time out from release is a extreme example of how the community somewhat abandoned this game and a good indicator of why.

If people are to work with such a high maintence editor on the scale of a low maintence one Epic is going to have to pimp it out in the form of flow. The anemic amount of assets and the complexities of Bringing in ones own and having them look good in this editor is enough to scare off most people out there.

Before UT3's launch there were all sorts of people talking about what they wanted to do with the new engine. Ut3 hits and within a very short time people start bailing like crazy.

UT2k4 was and is more popular then UT3 for one big reason. Ease of customization.

My UT2k4 INV RPG server sees about 150 people a day play on it and that total is still growing.

My UT3 server no matter the gametype sees 12 -15 people a day max. The more custom maps (and other content) I have up on it the more people connect.

You want specifics details where the editor can improove... I'll only give you the most obvious one, as I am through handing out freebies to the game industry;

Format flexability: Native support for .psd import is a plus, no .dds support is a minus. Removeing .lwo but not adding in another filetype is a big minus. And yes I see the .t3d but that was an option available under import/export on UT2k4, it's nice that they added it to the resource browser but not new. BTW not every1 uses 3D Max or Gmax. Did autodesk pay them to exclude lightwave?

The Titan pack is awesome don't get me wrong. But if Epic truely wants to improove their flagship franchise they might try working on making that which made UT3's predecessors phenomenal. The ability for the community to tear UT3 apart and build something new.

The lighting tools look like a step sorta in that direction. But the GUI enhancements don't don't change anything that was cumbersome in the editor. They are just eyecandy and a different approach at navigating a already simple enough navigation scheme.

You asked.
 

hal

Dictator
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But don't you think a lot of people abandoned making maps or mods of it because UT3 never really "took off"? There are still plenty of people who managed to make levels with UE3... take a look at the MSUC, HOLP packs, CBP, the 3DBuzz contest.

I'm not a level designer, but what I keep hearing is that it's just a lot more work from a content standpoint to create levels that look as good as the retail levels. The previous editors use older, simpler technology and of course they are easier to use.

I'm probably missing something, but that's my reaction to what you're saying.
 

[GU]elmur_fud

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Mar 15, 2005
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Ok I follow you there hal. But having been one of the contestants in the 3Dbuzz contest I can tell you that only just over 100 people finished there map out of 174 entries. Most of those people where former UT community mappers some where professional game developers. I think 106 was the actual number of completed entrants. That said, if the better mappers of the community, IE the authors of HOLP and the CBP's, werren't able to make maps either I wouldn't need to point out the problem it would be pretty obvious.

It's not just alot more work. There is a substantial amount more that is needed to be known. Those that are succeeding at mapping for UT3 are either just using stock or already knew how to model with 3Dmax. They already knew how to make a high poly model and bake it out for it's normal maps, diffuse maps, leght maps, and textures. And those same people are often code savy enough to use the programming tools in the editor to create there kismet sequence. If you already know all that then filling in the gaps and learning the new methods is no big deal but if you don't then you are most likely going to be overwhelmed by a monsterous learning curve.

Most of the cummunity made maps based off other peoples models because they couldn't model themselves. Most of them never even tried asking permission. I learned lightwave for 3 reasons; #1. Tracking down the author of every custom asset and securing their permission to use their work was a huge pain in the arse. #2. I couldn't always find what I wanted. And #3. Once I set about to learn how to model I found lightwave much easier to learn.

Now with UT3 I am having to learn alot more. I am too stubborn a UT fan/community mapper to give up, But where with UT2k3 & 2k4 I was able to hop in and churn out 19 maps in 2 years with UT3 I am still working on my first (the one I started for the 3Dbuzz contest).

The default content dosen't fit with the entire community or even the majority. It actually only accomadates about half of us. Though some of the alternative map types get disreguarded and/or malined by the default community. Oversized world, arena, racetrack, and other map types had significant fanbases. Most of those fans though they temporarily returned didn't stay as they found it to difficult to ressurect the style of UT they enjoyed.

Epic seems to have forgot or never realised that their brand of ut wasn't the majority of the community. Sure it was the biggest piece of the pie but there were so many other pieces so many so that they had a substantial wieght on UT2k4's overall popularity and success.

Epic, even if they did nothing else to them should have explored and layed out some of the groundwork for some of the other popular camps. It would have streamlined and excellerated the developement of many of the older popular gametypes and/or mutators. Additionaly it would have prevented alot of those fans from feeling like Epic forgot about them and their contributions to the unreal community.

Most of UT3's lost fanbase are fans that left strictly because of the lack of the UT they knew and loved. The UT they knew and loved is slow comming because not every1 was able to hop right in and bring back their contributions to the community that so many people wanted.

UT3 is less of a game then previouis UT's because it has less of a community. It has less of a community because there are less people able to work with the channels for making the game More there own. Less is always less never more.

I follow what your saying hal, but when I dig into it this is what I see as the reason, not that it's just more work. We are not that lazy of a community by and large.
 

Sjosz

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Dec 31, 2003
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Elmur Fud, I can see where you're coming from, but try seeing it from the side of the developer of the engine as well. With an engine that's being marketed to be licensed out to other companies using it, it requires a more robust/advanced amount of capabilities to be a successful candidate. The new direction of the toolset that comes with UT3 isn't somehow bound to UT3, it's bound to the trends of the game industry at large. What Epic does is simply cater primarily to what their prospect clients would want to have in an engine and that engine's toolset.

Kismet and matinee allow for a lot more control than the previous engine's way of scripting cameras and level events, the BSP tools are more robust and less prone to errors than the previous engine's, and the content browser of the editor has become a lot more accessible. The downside, or plain knock-on effect of these improvements is that there is a steeper learning curve for people new to making levels, content, and mods. It's not Epic's fault that the game industry is moving towards higher poly models, normal/parallax maps and more complex shaders.

The result of that is that the learning curve is so steep that people who just want to try something out for fun are less prone to get something worthwhile out, while the more persistent members of the community and/or the community designers who have been around since earlier will have a more robust toolset to work with. Quick maps can always still be made. My CTF-Hosh from HOLP1 was 4-6 hours a day for about 7 days worth of development time, and I know Hourences' levels from that pack each only took about a day, or 2. In fact, the entire pack was made within 10 days.
Sure, those levels don't have the high-poly stuff in there that Epic's retail levels do, but then you want people to be able to pull off levels like that in a short amount of time when the development time of the retail levels of UT3 is several months?

At the end of the day, you either enjoy spending time in the toolset and building something, or you give up because the learning curve is too steep or the amount of time you invest is disproportional to what you expect to get out of it.
 

neoduck

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Oct 18, 2001
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yeah mate... i think you're barking up the wrong tree =)

i asked you to share issues with the editor, and you listed issues with the UT3 community. The small hand full of examples you gave me (the import filetypes etc.) are basically non-issues.

Sjosz has hit the nail on the head in that the editor is designed by epic, for epic and for other people who want to licence their engine. Games are getting more detailed, more complex, and epic is providing well rounded tools to support this. Do you want epic to remove the options avaliable in the editor so it doesn't scare people away? that's insane!

These changes are an attempt to smooth out an already robust content creation work-flow, and i think it looks fairly significant.

ps. UT3 is not getting these changes anyway.
 

Mozi

Zer0 as a number
Apr 12, 2002
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I hate it to say it but stop lamenting for older tools. New tools are usually better.

Sure things change etc but more often than not for the better.

The way I see this is that I personally have been using Unreal tech as community level designer since Unreal first came to light. Now the very first version of Unreal Ed looked daunting and kind of scared me away at first, but I kept at it.

UT came around and I fired up the editor and it looked familiar but different but given that I used the first iteration kind of new what I was doing but learned more.

Following that 2k3/2k4 editor came around again same deal I knew more from past iterations and learned new tools like the concept of static mesh over tons of BSP to make that one set of pipes :)

Now UE 3 is here and guess what same thing... I knew what to do and learned the new tools like Kismet on my own.

When the next iteration comes around for public use most if it will be familiar yet new things will need to be learned.

What I am getting at is if one has the passion and interest to learn and stick with something you don't fear change you embrace it.

The gaming industry as a whole is a savage beast and dev houses need to be on top of their tools to be the best at what they do, be it Epic, Valve, Blizzard, Infinitiy Ward (list goes on and on) what ever tools they use in house today are not the same tools they used day 1. That **** is probably so outdated why would one use it... they don't sit around and lament oh v1.0 was better I don't like v3.4 of my tools...

Honestly if people believe the new trends of tools and their complexity is pushing people way from using the tool ( NOT THE GAME NOR COMMUNITY, JUST THE TOOL IT SELF) then I am afraid that your perspective on game development is not the same as those that love to dig in and spend time to learn or improve on their skills in design, art, and code to make the best games possible and not just speaking about Epic or Unreal Engine I am speaking about game development tools in general.

As a hobbyist if you think v1.0 of a tool works for you then go use it... but if one is looking to use modding as means to go pro then you got to get with the times and learn the new tools you can't go pro using outdated tools.
 

[GU]elmur_fud

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Mar 15, 2005
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I think you guys missed my point. I fully embrace the progress and agree with the fact that with the advance of technology there will be changes and allot of those changes will complicate things. In the case of UT3, Epics champion of community involvement, this complication has scared alot of people off and was sadly almost a death blow to the game. Argue that those people weren't dedicated to the hobby all you want, it doesn't change the fact that it did chase a substantial portion of them off. Had Epic spent a bit more time looking at advancing the custom content pipline semi-proportional to the conciderable advancements to thier engine that probably wouldn't be the case. They should have complimented each other instead it appears from where I sit that that the custom content pipeline was mostly made to conform to the tech advancements. There are ways they could work together better that even I can see, but I don't get paid for my input so some1 who does can come up with that on there own. (Hence why I didn't answer neoducks question directly).

Indeed I focused on the UT franchise but for the majority of this community UT or GOW are all they know of Epic tech. Since only a small fraction have developer access. So my comments were more on the level of the masses and not a select few.

I am sure that for a individual with a developer lic. the new features are like new toys. I was commenting on these features from the vantage point of a fairly average skilled community content creator. I am not cream of the crop skill wise but I am not bottom of the barrel either.

My orrigonal point boils down to:
Were these features to be, or if these features ever are available to the UT3 modder they wont/wouldn't make any significant impact on the usefulness of the editor to the average or under average skilled amature content creator.

I say that because the browser changes look like they are simply a different means of getting to the same end. No easier or more difficult really, just a little cooler.

The lighting changes could make a bit of a differance if most people under the average mark really understood the principals of lighting a 3d enviroment. Which I am guilty of bad lighting myself though a portion of that has to do with the length of time it takes to build lighting on my old system. Which it seems may have been a large enough complaint due to the cloud based light rendering implementation here. Of course most people don't have the space, funds, and/or knowledge to set up shared process on a lan. So it's kinda obvious that the end user isn't likely to see much if any of this anytime soon... if ever.

ps. Obviously I am not oblivious to that fact. Merely viewing it from the hypothetical standpoint of were the UT3 community to get these changes as well. Sorry that wasn't as transpearent as I figured it was.
 

elmuerte

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[GU]elmur_fud;2272998 said:
Format flexability: Native support for .psd import is a plus, no .dds support is a minus. Removeing .lwo but not adding in another filetype is a big minus. And yes I see the .t3d but that was an option available under import/export on UT2k4, it's nice that they added it to the resource browser but not new. BTW not every1 uses 3D Max or Gmax. Did autodesk pay them to exclude lightwave?
You're asking Epic to maintain legacy code for formats only a very few use to import old files? UE3 uses COLLADA for importing 3D objects. All industry tools that have any meaning support exporting to COLLADA, including LightWave 3D. But you could also use Maya; 3ds Max; Poser; Cinema 4D; Softimage|XSI; Side Effect's Houdini; MeshLab; SketchUp, Blender, modo and Strata 3D. That's why more 3D modeling tools than UE2 supported.
 

Ignotium

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Apr 3, 2005
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@elmur_fud
About the "getting into the UE3" thing. In my case i had never used any other kind of development software (dreamweaver and flash maybe) but nothing related to 3D environments, lights collision, events and so on. So for me when you say that people that are being successful now with UE3 are those that have been mapping for so long, all i can think about is BS, the first time that i EVER worked with the UE toolset was when i got my copy of UT3, and yet i managed to get the third place of the 3DBuzz contenst. And yes, when you realize that there are more then 7 different editors within the Unreal Editor of course it's intimidating, but i mean, get real, this is next generation gaming ( a term that's been so overused up to now that makes me sick) you can't expect to have a toolset similar to that of UT. And besides, you can't possibly expect from a reasonable and logical point, that a person NEW to ANYTHING is going to have the level of proficiency similar of that of a person that's been working with similar technologies for years.

To be honest, people just try to fool themselves into considering the tools to be the problem between them and the results they get
 

[GU]elmur_fud

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Mar 15, 2005
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You're asking Epic to maintain legacy code for formats only a very few use to import old files? UE3 uses COLLADA for importing 3D objects. All industry tools that have any meaning support exporting to COLLADA, including LightWave 3D. But you could also use Maya; 3ds Max; Poser; Cinema 4D; Softimage|XSI; Side Effect's Houdini; MeshLab; SketchUp, Blender, modo and Strata 3D. That's why more 3D modeling tools than UE2 supported.

Are you trying to say only a few people use lightwave? Cause that would be very wrong.

Reguardless of what xml schema ut3 uses it only supports .ase and .t3d for 3Dmesh imports. It supports COLLADA .dae for skeletal mesh imports and that is something ut2k4 didn't do but I was speaking of map assets. So yeah if I was making a player model or vehicle I could make it's skeleton in Lightwave but I would still have to use some app that supported .ase Which would be those owned by autodesk mostly notable exceptions are blender, which is how I get my content into UT3 since I can import .lwo to it and then export .ase

@elmur_fud
About the "getting into the UE3" thing. In my case i had never used any other kind of development software (dreamweaver and flash maybe) but nothing related to 3D environments, lights collision, events and so on. So for me when you say that people that are being successful now with UE3 are those that have been mapping for so long, all i can think about is BS, the first time that i EVER worked with the UE toolset was when i got my copy of UT3, and yet i managed to get the third place of the 3DBuzz contenst. And yes, when you realize that there are more then 7 different editors within the Unreal Editor of course it's intimidating, but i mean, get real, this is next generation gaming ( a term that's been so overused up to now that makes me sick) you can't expect to have a toolset similar to that of UT. And besides, you can't possibly expect from a reasonable and logical point, that a person NEW to ANYTHING is going to have the level of proficiency similar of that of a person that's been working with similar technologies for years.

To be honest, people just try to fool themselves into considering the tools to be the problem between them and the results they get

There are always exceptions, congrats on being one of them. BTW when I said 'UT' in my posts I was refering to the entire UT franchise. Not the old game. My apologies if that caused some confusion. You know you actually bear evidence to my point; the more talent you have for the process of game design the easier it is to pick up this editor and make something cool. With earlier versions of the editor far less predisposed talent was needed.

I still use the Old tools to mod the old games I am not trying to use the old tools to mod UT3. Though I have made a joke or 2 about that in the past. Well I still use the ut2k4 editor as I still run a UT2k4 INV server. I can't say as I have any of the older iterations installed even anymore.

My posts have been trying to point out that there is a correlation between game popularity and the differences in the making content for said games. The new features relate to content develpoement, I simply argue that were they available to the masses for UT3 they would have little to no effect on game popularity as they neither make it easier or more difficult to make custom content. The one exception I see in there (for an end user) is that the radient imaging of lighting could improve how well lighting is set up in maps.

Now wouldn't it be cool if you could paint the lighting with say an airbrush tool. Just select your lightsource switch to top down view and paint/erase to achieve a more customized lighting setup... Drag out ray trace arrows to control distance and direction...
 

evilmrfrank

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Apr 22, 2005
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I personally love new tools coming in :D No matter how complex they are, usually the more complex the tool set the more awesome stuff I can do with it, unless its just designed poorly but I don't think the UED is designed poorly :)
 

Abvex

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Feb 18, 2008
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Does anyone have a clue about the background music on this video? its not bad and I like to save it.