The most amazing thing since I stepped out of the isv kran

[TWD]

I don't think what crytek was doing is the same thing. New builds of UE3 has stuff like indirect lighting as well, but it's not nearly as effective as this demo. I should do more research, but I was under the impression that those were still all just clever hacks. They weren't actually making all the calculations. I'm not that familiar with Crysis, but the video for Crysis 3 isn't even in the same ballpark. They've been hyping their next gen engine for a while, but it looks like mostly hype to me.

[Selerox]

Doesn't mean a damn without a game behind it.

[dragonfliet]

In a sense, you're right: UE4 implements new stuff, improvements of tech, etc. It's a new engine and it is better than before. Things improve and new bits get added, but nothing here is particularly unique at all, except that it is moving into the future. Hell, here's the product of 3 seconds of research of CryEngine 3 in 2010, doing 98% of what UE4 is doing.

I don't mean that this isn't all cool and all, just that it is merely cool and no big revolution

[NeoNite]

This thing they have with Sauron....

And besides TWD, when you "stepped out" of the ISV kran you ended up in Spirevillage. Which looked quite amazing as well.

[TWD]

Originally Posted by dragonfliet

In a sense, you're right: UE4 implements new stuff, improvements of tech, etc. It's a new engine and it is better than before. Things improve and new bits get added, but nothing here is particularly unique at all, except that it is moving into the future. Hell, here's the product of 3 seconds of research of CryEngine 3 in 2010, doing 98% of what UE4 is doing.

I don't mean that this isn't all cool and all, just that it is merely cool and no big revolution

We'll I've seen the real time editing stuff before. Particularly with ID's latest engine. That's not the revolutionary part. However, the video you posted just shows how revolutionary UE4 really is. In it they have a particle effect of fire, and the guy shows off editing a light to match it. That's not necessary in UE4 because each particle can contribute to the lighting in the scene. Hence in the UE4 video they show off embers lighting the room all by themselves. Or look at the fireplace. It's not an effect with a lighting animation anymore. The effect creates the light just as it would in real life. This is the first time where everything can react correctly to the lighting including particles and bounce/indirect lighting. The effect where the smoke is affected by and affects all the lighting in the scene is downright crazy. I always hated the smoke in ww2 games, and now they've fixed it.

[dragonfliet]

Like i said: it's a nice iteration. Nothing particularly special, but certainly an improvement. It is the future.

[cryptophreak]

Originally Posted by dragonfliet

Nothing particularly special

I completely disagree. I used to have to wait hours to render this stuff using Maya and equivalent 3D packages, and I completely accepted that it should take that long because it was goddamn amazing that it could happen at all. Now it's happening in real time. What an incredible display of technology.

[Zxanphorian]

Originally Posted by cryptophreak

I completely disagree. I used to have to wait hours to render this stuff using Maya and equivalent 3D packages, and I completely accepted that it should take that long because it was goddamn amazing that it could happen at all. Now it's happening in real time. What an incredible display of technology.

And with the lighting. Pretty much what TWD said. All you have to worry about is the emissivity of particles, objects, etc, and the transmissivity and albedo (reflectivity) of the environment. The engine does the rest. You don't have to worry about simulating things anymore, such as shadows and the diffuse glow of the room caused by light streaming in. All of it is done in real-time. It is the closest to real-life physics of visible radiation that I have seen in any game or tech demo.

[DeathBooger]

Originally Posted by TWD

We'll I've seen the real time editing stuff before. Particularly with ID's latest engine. That's not the revolutionary part. However, the video you posted just shows how revolutionary UE4 really is. In it they have a particle effect of fire, and the guy shows off editing a light to match it. That's not necessary in UE4 because each particle can contribute to the lighting in the scene. Hence in the UE4 video they show off embers lighting the room all by themselves. Or look at the fireplace. It's not an effect with a lighting animation anymore. The effect creates the light just as it would in real life. This is the first time where everything can react correctly to the lighting including particles and bounce/indirect lighting. The effect where the smoke is affected by and affects all the lighting in the scene is downright crazy. I always hated the smoke in ww2 games, and now they've fixed it.

I think you're confusing game engine accomplishments with GPU accomplishments. The stuff in UE4 have been around for years, you just couldn't do it in real time because the GPU tech wasn't there yet.

[TWD]

Originally Posted by DeathBooger

I think you're confusing game engine accomplishments with GPU accomplishments. The stuff in UE4 have been around for years, you just couldn't do it in real time because the GPU tech wasn't there yet.

Well it's certainly true that these things were around, just not real time. When I took my opengl class in school I wrote a particle system for my final project. We also did a lot with real time shadows. But we were doing it all with a stencil buffer. As per the trick Carmack came up with for Doom III.

But doing it all together is no simple task. That's a very complicated rendering pipeline. It's no wonder it took so many years to make it. It will be interesting to see how close others are to duplicating it, although square looks on the right track.

[cryptophreak]

Originally Posted by DeathBooger

I think you're confusing game engine accomplishments with GPU accomplishments. The stuff in UE4 have been around for years, you just couldn't do it in real time because the GPU tech wasn't there yet.

Real-time rendering is a whole different ball game and employs vastly different techniques. It's a gross oversimplification to say it's "been around for years, you just couldn't do it in real time", and to give all the credit to GPU enhancements. You're glossing over a large number of man-hours put in by very smart people.

[Bi()ha2arD]

Originally Posted by Selerox

Doesn't mean a damn without a game behind it.

Well, they'll license it to everyone and their dog.

[DeathBooger]

Originally Posted by cryptophreak

Real-time rendering is a whole different ball game and employs vastly different techniques. It's a gross oversimplification to say it's "been around for years, you just couldn't do it in real time", and to give all the credit to GPU enhancements. You're glossing over a large number of man-hours put in by very smart people.

I don't think it's an oversimplification at all. It's not like Epic designs DirectX or anything. It has been around for years and there are still old tech demos that look better than UE4 but are limited to simple objects like spheres. Why? GPUs aren't fast enough yet.

I give Epic a ton of credit on the engine design it self, I think they did a great job making it less of a chore to design a game, but pretty visuals never stay appealing for that long because there's always something better on the horizon as hardware improves. In a couple years we will just expect games to look this way just how we expect games to look like they do now.

[DRT-Maverick]

A little off topic, but still about the Unreal4 engine. Isn't it going to be primarily, if not exclusively designed for consoles? If so, I will never own a console, and that means the Unreal software dies here for me. D:

[Zxanphorian]

Originally Posted by DRT-Maverick

A little off topic, but still about the Unreal4 engine. Isn't it going to be primarily, if not exclusively designed for consoles? If so, I will never own a console, and that means the Unreal software dies here for me. D:

I'm not sure, but considering the Unreal Engine at this point seems to be mainly licensed out to other parties and even developed for mobile apps, I would assume that there still would be PC games based on the UE. But, I wouldn't hold my breath for any PC games coming from Epic any time soon. Didn't they say that they are going console-only now?

[UBerserker]

^Nope. They still have to announce their PC-only game.

[Zxanphorian]

Originally Posted by UBerserker

^Nope. They still have to announce their PC-only game.

Until they start development and confirm that it will indeed be PC-only, I'm still not getting my hopes up.