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Unreal Engine 4 GDC feature techdemo screengrabs, unveil June [Up: New, Better Shots]

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
I have the utmost respect for Tim Sweeney. This guy has definetly taken over from John Carmack as the premier programmer of the entire industry - even though we haven't recognized it as such - it's too obvious at this point.

And his vision is... incredible. He's talking about end game graphics technology; planning for it... and is in the right position to do so in a manner that will make these things a certainty.

It might seem a triviality from the perspective of people that only think real time graphics are good for games... but it's one of the more critical technological substrates for a virtual world - and everything that it implies.

This isn't just a matter of making shit look pretty for us - it goes to the core of the technology that can help us co-opt materialism.

Just think... if we had light weight AR/VR glasses, full motion controls, computer graphics that exceeded the limits of human perception... think about how that would change the way we interact - how we do things. How we travel, and create. Suddenly the digital world isn't just a supplement or a retreat for nerds - but the main world within which people spend their time, while the real world... well, it'll change, and hopefully for the better.

To think... all along, it was the gamers that held the keys to a new era of humanity...
Uh...huh...
Talk about overinflated expectations.
 

Allonym

There should be more tampons in gaming
DEAR SONY,

As a loyal fan I just would like to offer some words of encouragement, do whatever the fuck you gotta do to get this engine running viably on your next gen console aka PS4. This stuff looks crazy, imagine a Souls game or fps running on this thing. Please do whatever you can, lay off however many, quadruple your annual losses, let this be your last console...whatever I don't care, I want graphics liner these STANDARD for every game.
 

Metal-Geo

Member
Well anything that streamlines game development better is welcome. If it's really a revolutionary improvement... well hell, it can't come soon enough. But I feel like it's just another hype talk. "Herp derp, UnrealED now automatically backs up your work every 2 minutes, instead of 4".


Uh...huh...
Talk about overinflated expectations.
As much as I love Carmack's adventurous and enthusiastic behavior in game technology development, I will have to agree that Tim Sweeney tends to grasp for 'more'. As weird as it may sound. :p
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
Well anything that streamlines game development better is welcome. If it's really a revolutionary improvement... well hell, it can't come soon enough. But I feel like it's just another hype talk. "Herp derp, UnrealED now automatically backs up your work every 2 minutes, instead of 4".

No, this is actually a massive upgrade to UE3's version of UDK and brings it in line with the current dev kit standards set by the other heavy weights.

Switching to 100% real-time lighting, plus instant build times will make life much much easier on devs who are used to UE3's tools.
 

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
DEAR SONY,

As a loyal fan I just would like to offer some words of encouragement, do whatever the fuck you gotta do to get this engine running viably on your next gen console aka PS4. This stuff looks crazy, imagine a Souls game or fps running on this thing. Please do whatever you can, lay off however many, quadruple your annual losses, let this be your last console...whatever I don't care, I want graphics liner these STANDARD for every game.
Sony, please don't listen to this guy.
 

Blizzard

Banned
removes the bake time process? omg, thanks god!
Yeah, the things I would LOVE to see are a UDK equivalent for this engine, good quality dynamic lighting with reasonable performance, and high quality 4x or 8x MSAA with decent performance (like Mirror's Edge used and I've never had success reproducing in DX9 UDK). Shadows would be a bonus.

I imagine the combination of those three would be a pipedream aside from maybe the CryEngine SDK, but they would be awesome to have.
 
Face it guys next gen about gameplay now, cost of games are high now and most of us already saw this coming just look at top end of PC games they just not a big leap for you to see

we been spoiled this gen, We not going to see a big jump anymore
 

Blizzard

Banned
I'm pretty sure the current CE3 SDK doesn't allow for native MSAA.
I really wonder if I was just doing something wrong, or if Epic took out DX9 MSAA at some point in the UDK development cycle. Mirror's Edge had up to like 4xMSAA and 8xMSAA plus their "Q" high quality option, and it worked great. I don't know of anything custom they did, and yet I feel like I've hardly seen any other UE3 games that had DX9 MSAA of that flexibility and quality.
 

pargonta

Member
you know, it would have been fun if the UE4 reveal was centered around a family having a picnic in a park and a kid playing in a creek. nothing supernatural, nothing fantasy, nothing dark... just human subjects in a familiar and non-threatening situation.

while we apparently can't have content maturation alongside technology maturation, these steps forward in dev engines are great, and should prove to eventually allow developers to delve into more socially relevant, important, and intimate ideas and themes.

Can't wait to see motion.
 
But with all of the issues still present in this gen, like poor AI, poor animation transitions, poor animation in general, and the fact that games just don't ship finished with a ton of bugs, UE4 should be the least of anyone's concerns.
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
I really wonder if I was just doing something wrong, or if Epic took out DX9 MSAA at some point in the UDK development cycle. Mirror's Edge had up to like 4xMSAA and 8xMSAA plus their "Q" high quality option, and it worked great. I don't know of anything custom they did, and yet I feel like I've hardly seen any other UE3 games that had DX9 MSAA of that flexibility and quality.

Probably a custom implementation. That said, proper MSAA is in UDK currently and it has shown up in games that were built on more recent revisions, such as QUBE.

You are probably doing something wrong if you can't use in UDK, I just tweaked the ini to my likings and when I build something and test it it uses those settings.
 
DEAR SONY,

As a loyal fan I just would like to offer some words of encouragement, do whatever the fuck you gotta do to get this engine running viably on your next gen console aka PS4. This stuff looks crazy, imagine a Souls game or fps running on this thing. Please do whatever you can, lay off however many, quadruple your annual losses, let this be your last console...whatever I don't care, I want graphics liner these STANDARD for every game.

Buy a PC. As much as I want amazing graphics on next gen consoles I also want there to be future consoles and I just don't know how feasible it is for developers to be able to afford the cost of creating a game with the visuals that Epic is pushing for. I don't want Sony to go third party, I don't want more developers and publishers to go belly up, etc.
 

Jasoneyu

Member
It looks pretty impressive to be honest. If a few engineers made this demo in 3 months, Imagine if a full team with a budget could do with this. We will see way more impressive uses of this engine down the line. Just look at the first tech demos of UE3 vs the games that came out with it.
 
Creating a game that operates on a level of fidelity comparable to human vision, Sweeney says, will require hardware at least 2,000 times as powerful as today’s highest-end graphics processors. That kind of super-hi-def experience may be only two or three console generations away

Wat...

As for UE 4, it looks awesome but definitely doesn't put Samaritan to shame. I guess E3 will tell the whole story
 

Thunderbear

Mawio Gawaxy iz da Wheeson hee pways games
“UE4 represents nothing less than the foundation for the next decade of gaming,” said Wired. “It may make Microsoft and Sony rethink how much horsepower they’ll need for their new hardware. It will streamline game development, allowing studios to do in 12 months what can take two years or more today."

How many times have I said this. The more horse power the easier game development _can_ get while increasing the quality massively. I've worked as an artist in various roles for the past almost 15-16 years now and the introduction of new, smart tools has already sped up the creation of 3D art. There are so many tools we have available today that just weren't available even 5 years ago and they have sped up production considerably while at the same time increasing the quality.

Next-gen is not equal to just prettier graphics. There's so much more to it than that.
 
How many times have I said this. The more horse power the easier game development _can_ get while increasing the quality massively. I've worked as an artist in various roles for the past almost 15-16 years now and the introduction of new, smart tools has already sped up the creation of 3D art. There are so many tools we have available today that just weren't available even 5 years ago and they have sped up production considerably while at the same time increasing the quality.

Next-gen is not equal to just prettier graphics. There's so much more to it than that.

Hmmm, thats interesting. If it really will streamline the process, cut down development time, while also getting the type of visual quality that Epic is discussing, color me extremely impressed.
 
Enjoy subsidizing $600 worth of graphics card + tax, plus, you know, everything else.

Yeah it looks awesome, though as others have said, atm it certainly does not "blow away" the Samaritan demo, and that's mostly because these sub HD screencaps are pretty much fucking worthless. I'm interested if it really does streamline some lighting features and allow more WYSIWYG and closer to PIE functionality in "3 months" timeframes. But let's be realistic guys. How the flying fuck are we gonna be able to afford this in a normal console box. You can only subsidize so much in hardware/software. And if sales so much as falter it could mean the ruination of any one of the big 3. This is far too risky, ambitious and eye-opening, but again these guys can bitch and moan about console specs all they want because they don't have to market any actual hardware or worry about a bottom line.
 

Pociask

Member
Why is Epic's entire art pipeline so freaking generic?

Dudebro, Lord of the Rings, Blade Runner. Come on, try to be a little more fresh.

The Last of Us looks 10 times better than this.

I have a hard time blaming just Epic, since so many developers are guilty, but this. Doesn't anyone ever flip through the pages of a National Geographic? An art history book? Or even just go outside?

Nintendo's bird-garden demo probably looked more impressive than it actually is just because they showed something different than what everyone else is doing.

I'd love to see what UE4 could do with Norwegian fjords, the American Great Plains, the Great Barrier Reef. Or what about whole different art styles? Monet inspired water lilies scene, or Seurrat's Sunday Afternoon? How about an entire game that takes place in the crazed imagination of Dali?

Don't get me wrong, I love LOTR style stuff, but there's just so much else out there.
 

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
Certainly doesn't look like something that is out of the realm of possibility. Read: Not impressed.
 

george_us

Member
I'm dying laughing over here. Please keep it up trolls.
You really think this looks that much better than Gears 3? It looks great no doubt but I'm clearly not alone in thinking that, so far, this isn't anything super impressive.

Like I said though, if this is something I need to see in motion then I'll definitely change my tune.
 
You really think this looks that much better than Gears 3? It looks great no doubt but I'm clearly not alone in thinking that, so far, this isn't anything super impressive.

Like I said though, if this is something I need to see in motion then I'll definitely change my tune.

I actually hold the same position.

If it really shows a difference in action I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong. Those screens though? Talk about underwhelming.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
Haha, I'm so not a graphics person. Those pics don't look like anything special to me. As long as a game is HD and is pretty, I don't seem to notice the finer details.
 
you know, it would have been fun if the UE4 reveal was centered around a family having a picnic in a park and a kid playing in a creek. nothing supernatural, nothing fantasy, nothing dark... just human subjects in a familiar and non-threatening situation.

while we apparently can't have content maturation alongside technology maturation, these steps forward in dev engines are great, and should prove to eventually allow developers to delve into more socially relevant, important, and intimate ideas and themes.

Can't wait to see motion.

Wasn't there a recent tech demo that consisted of just a bunch of dolls in a studio? And everyone said, "what's so special about that?" I don't think most gamers can honestly tell the difference between baked lighting and real time stuff unless you go out of your way to overemphasize it, like in the Samaritan demo.

The lighting and particle effects are supposed to be the impressive parts of this demo, but we obviously can't judge either from screen caps, though the particles around the demon's eyes do look impressive.
 
If nobody told me those were from UE4 I'd say they were from UE3. Not impressed.

ANYWAY, I want to see that in motion to have a valid opinion. I bet it looks much better in motion.
 

Haunted

Member
Hard to judge until we see it in motion.

Didn't some poster here leak that the UE4 demo featured a demon coming out of a volcano? *searches*
MrBud360, yes. I'll listen when he talks next.


"It also helps him show that changes can be made to the game’s design and code, recompiled and executed nearly instantly—a technical feat that has been simply unheard-of in game development. And just like that, the silence in the room becomes reverent. The videogame industry has changed."

"That's huge."


Sounds pretty similar to what Unity's already doing, that said, It's one of the features I love most about it.
Also CryEngine 3? I remember them being proud that you can instantly see the results of your changes in real-time running across platforms.
 
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