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headshot
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 Posted: Wed, 15th Dec 2010 17:13 Post subject: [iPhone] Unreal Development Kit |
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http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/12/14/technology-behind-top-videogames-comes-to-iphone-ipad/
| Quote: | Infinity Blade on the iPhone looks damn good. And as of Thursday, anyone will be able to make a game for the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad will be able to make a game using the same graphics technology.
The iOS version of the Unreal Development Kit will be free to download some time this Thursday according to a report today in the Wall Street Journal. The Unreal tech, which, like Infinity Blade, is made by Epic Games, is a variation of the same graphics programs made for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 titles, from Gears of War to Mass Effect to Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
This is no surprise, really. This is how Epic works. The company is at least as much a graphics technology maker as it is a game development powerhouse. Epic creates graphics engines and licenses them to other companies which can then build their games using Epic's tools. Traditionally we've seen Epic get the most of their engines for their own games. In fact, Epic's games have been showpieces for Unreal tech. Gears of War and Gears of War 2 each showed off iterations of Unreal Engine 3. Infinity Blade shows off the power of Epic's tech on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices.
Those who want to make games for the iOS version of Epic's graphics technology will be able to get it for free but will "have to pay a $99 licensing fee and 25% royalties after the first $5000 in sales," according to the journal.
The most formidable rival to Epic's iPhone graphics engine is the one powering Rage HD. That game was crafted by a team lead by id Software's Doom co-creator John Carmack. Outside developers won't be able to use that technology, though. Carmack told Kotaku recently that his parent company, Zenimax, is not interested in licensing the technology to outsiders.
The release of the Unreal Engine for console game produced a flood of games running, for better and worse, a similar graphical style as Gears of War in recent years. We'll see soon whether we got a lot of Infinity Blade lookalikes. It wouldn't be such a bad thing, right? |
May the NFOrce be with you always.
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Mutantius
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| Posted: Wed, 15th Dec 2010 17:40 Post subject: |
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This is so awesome, imagine strategy, RPGs (real open world shit), Shoot em ups with UE3 on the iPad and iPhone
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Wed, 15th Dec 2010 19:01 Post subject: |
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I am more interested to know if there will be some kind of an option to do a "shared section" with the big SDK brother. For example, similar logic, maps, etc - and only have certain things to be unique for each platform. This would be a winner - imagine developing a game for PS360PC and then doing a quick export to a mobile version which uses the same assets!
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| Posted: Wed, 15th Dec 2010 20:26 Post subject: |
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| iNatan wrote: | | I am more interested to know if there will be some kind of an option to do a "shared section" with the big SDK brother. For example, similar logic, maps, etc - and only have certain things to be unique for each platform. This would be a winner - imagine developing a game for PS360PC and then doing a quick export to a mobile version which uses the same assets! |
Would be nice, but would have to be able to dynamically chop down the polys on static meshes that you're using, and that's just the beginning.. Would be pretty awesome though
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| Posted: Wed, 15th Dec 2010 20:38 Post subject: |
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Well, I am not too much into this stuff, but I imagine that most objects are stored at different levels of detail. So the iphone would just just the lower models, which on the PC are only used when you are far away.
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| Posted: Wed, 15th Dec 2010 20:44 Post subject: |
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Not really, once the static mesh is imported, it can be imported multiple times and they just count as copies, down to the vert count, you'd need a separate mesh with the lower detail / poly count / alpha map / texture. It's possible i've been missing a crazy feature of UDK3 but i'm pretty sure that's how it works.
It could be done though in combination of something like Zbrush, where you just take your higher resolution model, chop it down a bit, take it over to Maya for some re topology, shrink the textures / alpha (maybe, might work ok as is but you will get some very weird looking textures with less topology), then send it over UDK and script to replace all instances with the new instance?
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Fri, 17th Dec 2010 11:22 Post subject: |
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LOD models are created at any rate for all console games, because of their poor memory and video hardware. So the UDK using lower detailed meshes is not as much of an issue, as much as dropping object count for instance, but all this can be done using a script. As for lighting and shadowing, on the mobile platforms, it is all static, nothing is actually dynamic, so it doesn't matter what crazy thing you on the consoles, it will look as good on the mobiles, just static. (Lightmass is static too for the most part, but still allows for a lot more options.)
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Fri, 17th Dec 2010 21:58 Post subject: |
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What a joke  You need to cough up 99$/year to be an iOS developer in order to run anything on the iPhone. 
And you need to be an iOS developer to try UDK games. Like they couldn't work a method of using the Apps file sharing mechanism through iTunes to transfer the UDK creations (or at least uncooked ones) to a UDK app downloaded from the store.
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| Posted: Fri, 17th Dec 2010 23:00 Post subject: |
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Sigh, production licenses are incredibly retarded. Until they start allowing a certain amount of people into those circles a year without having to pay, based on individual talent, the mainstream gaming is going to continue going downhill. So many good Indie games have been popping up, they need to start letting these people try their hand at AAA without needing 10 million startup costs.
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| Posted: Mon, 20th Dec 2010 12:24 Post subject: |
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Is it just me or does the Unreal Engine take up almost all the battery on the iPhone4? Maybe because its that demanding on the cpu, ram?
dust.
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headshot
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| Posted: Tue, 1st Mar 2011 00:41 Post subject: |
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Tue, 1st Mar 2011 07:15 Post subject: |
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The question remains, how versatile UE3 currently is, on iOS. Infinity Blade didn't showcase much, as it was very confined and framerate wasn't top notch to be honest. If anything, the Epic Citadel was much better, but that one had no AI, little action and so on.
So can UE3 really sustain the type of games Gameloft has been releasing with their own Engine? Can they make a new UE3 NOVA? Or a new UE3 Gangstar? Or even a UE3 Starfront? I highly doubt it, unless they lower the graphic quality to about the level of their own engine. (All the aforementioned games use the same Gameloft engine.)
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| Posted: Tue, 1st Mar 2011 07:26 Post subject: |
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But I'd assume that the ue3 has much better scripting, animation and stuff like this. Plus the unreal development toolkit on pc is really good (as far as I know/read, just downloaded it, had no time to test it though).
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LeoNatan
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| Posted: Tue, 1st Mar 2011 07:32 Post subject: |
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Yes, the Unreal tools are fantastic. But seeing as how Gameloft has been producing so many games on their engine already, I am not sure the UE3 is really worth all the millions they have presumably paid for licensing.
Animation is down to their artists. No engine can make up for lousy artwork (for example Alpha Protocol  ).
The best benefit I see from this, is Gameloft moving to multi-platform development. They already have one PSN title, and UE3 they can take their games with relatively minimal effort to the consoles. But that would mean they'd have to actually create original titles instead of Low Budgement Day knock-offs.
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| Posted: Tue, 1st Mar 2011 07:36 Post subject: |
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What are you talking about 
Innovative gamemaking = gameloft! fo sure!
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| Posted: Fri, 4th Mar 2011 00:41 Post subject: |
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| iNatan wrote: | | But that would mean they'd have to actually create original titles |
It shouldn't be that hard to do..
I think Gameloft makes their games feel like clones of AAA PC/console games, because this way they will sell better. I don't think they would find it that hard to differentiate them a bit more, if they had to.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHTUOgYNRzY |
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| Posted: Fri, 4th Mar 2011 06:40 Post subject: |
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| consolitis wrote: | | iNatan wrote: | | But that would mean they'd have to actually create original titles |
It shouldn't be that hard to do..
I think Gameloft makes their games feel like clones of AAA PC/console games, because this way they will sell better. I don't think they would find it that hard to differentiate them a bit more, if they had to. |
True. And I don't think you can blame Gameloft. If there were official Halo/CoD games people probably wouldn't buy the clones. They only utilize the lack of such titles, which is perfectly fine IMO.
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