For all you tech heads (Unreal 3 engine links)

[Adrian A. Brown]

Hey all,

I thought I'd throw up a couple of links talking about the new Unreal 3 engine (shown at GDC2004) that will be running our nexgen videogames (and hopeful our rendering software). They're using things like realtime soft shadow, SSS, glossy, displacement, GI (spherical harmonic lighting & RT ambient occlusion), HDR lighting, etc. Basically everything we get to do now in vray, and then some, will be able to be done realtime next year or so (and on our TVs with nextbox or PS3's.) I can just imagine now telling my kids how we use to have to wait 10 hour just one pretty picture.

Anyhow here's the links...
http://archive.gamespy.com/gdc2004/unrealengine3/
http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=21751
and here’s a link to an older (last year) UR3 demo video but not the one from this year GDC. Can’t wait to see that one thought.
http://www.hardwired.hu/dl.hw?id=1976&dl=1

Some crazy stuff here. I know Microsoft has been working of this stuff for a while now (probably for DX10) but I didn't think we'd be seeing it a game engine so soon. Here's a link to a old tech PPT from back at GDC2002
http://www.microsoft.com/corpevents/...edAreaLighting.
So whats next folks, realtime Incident Light Fields.

(P.S. Vlado: when do you think we can see some hardware acceleration in vray. I think your new light mapping would be a good candidate for realtime use. I know, wishful thinking )

[cocolas]

damn...that's pretty cool

thanks for the links adrian...


paul.

[Dschaga]

have a look at the far cry engine from http://www.crytek.com/

It's real and you can have the game now .. and not sometimes.
One thing which looks very impressive is the amount of plants on the screenshots.

Have a look at the screenshots of the editor..looks very max like.

[samuel_bubat]

It´s a great engine !
Also check
http://udn.epicgames.com/Main/WebHome
here you can download a free (noncommercial) version
of the unreal2 engine.

Here is another link wich demonstrates realtime raytracing
http://www.realstorm.de/

I think this is the future. Also NLE´s will be gone in some years.
Go for it !!

[Adrian A. Brown]

have a look at the far cry engine from http://www.crytek.com/

Dschaga: I know, I love their new engine and the game itself (you've gotta love their ragedoll physics and normals mapping!!). In fact I'm looking seriously at using the CryENGINE to do realtime architectural presentations, mostly because of that gorgeous vegetation and the editor look incredible.

samuel: thanks for the links. I have been following Realstorm for quite a while but I hadn't keep up with it this year. Nice to see the benchmark update. Yeah I do thing that it's one of the best implementation of RTRT (realtime raytracing) I have still seen. Although I do know that the UR3 engine will have RTRT, reflections/refractions as well. I know it can be done now with pixel shaders in DX9 but I think it will be a major feature for DX10 along with some new ways to simulate GI. Probably with some sort of RT ambient occlusion which I'm sure their going to near raytracing for. Even cooler yet is the few people out there working RT photon mapping like Henrik Wann Jensen. I know his group has got working caustics using pixel shaders. So who knows, maybe DX10 will have photon mapping too. Scary to think.

[Miguel]

Ok, this souns really cool, but how can we the non tech head type learn to port our model to a 3d engine and have collision detection and all the stuff that you are talking about? I know that there is no simple answer, but maybe you could post a couple of links with the basic info.

Thanks.

[samuel_bubat]

if you want to start with the whole realtime stuff, and you don´t
want to learn programming, the best way is to start with a commercial
computer game wich offers modifications.
The easiest editable game i found so far is Morrowind. It has great
and very easy Level Editor. And there is a very good 3dsmax export
plugin available. (Incl. a new shader wich offers a lot of opengl features)

Alternative i would suggest using Quake 3 for realtime testing.
It offers the most advanced level editor I´ve seen (I´ve seen many )
GTKradiant wich can be downloaded at www.qeradiant.com. This editor
also works with a lot of other games.
Actually the export plugins for max are a bit more complicated.

[Tango]

Hi ^^

Anybody got a link to the microsoft presentation? Theirs seems to be dead and it's nowhere to be found in their site. TY!

[Adrian A. Brown]

Whoops, here’s an updated link.
http://www.microsoft.com/corpevents/...eaLighting.ppt
It's a powerpoint file by the way. I'll also say that its not actually that informative without hearing the original speech to go with it, but you will at least get the idea.

Miguel:
Unfortunately I'm not that knowledgeable about it either yet. Samuel is probably way more knowledgeable than me. I've been researching it for a while though but have never tried modding yet. It just always seamed that all the new presentation engines out there (like rtle or adobe atmosphere) really paled in comparison with today’s latest game engines. The trick right now is finding a good way to make a light map for your model (hopefully with bake3d) and getting it into the engine. The only RT presentation stuff I've done used VRML and radiosity solutions. It works but it would be a lot prettier with that Far Cry engine.

[Miguel]

Adrian,

Was begining to investigate rtle after reading this topic, but looks like you are right it can't compare to a game engine, a friend of mine knows about that kind of things, so he will check the unreal one and let me know what he finds, he is a real techhead

Thanks for your help

[cocolas]

Ok, this souns really cool, but how can we the non tech head type learn to port our model to a 3d engine and have collision detection and all the stuff that you are talking about? I know that there is no simple answer, but maybe you could post a couple of links with the basic info.

Thanks.

macormedia director is also another option...especially if you plan to have interactive parts of your model (swinging doors on command etc...)...but again the limitation is the rendering engine is still low quality in compare to the latest 3d RT engines out there.....the Director one looks like Quake 2 in a quality comparison :P


paul.

[Dschaga]

Alternative i would suggest using Quake 3 for realtime testing.
It offers the most advanced level editor I´ve seen (I´ve seen many )
GTKradiant wich can be downloaded at www.qeradiant.com. This editor
also works with a lot of other games.
Actually the export plugins for max are a bit more complicated.

i want to add my favorite quake level editor:
http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~quark/

The funny thing about QuArK, is that it's more object orientated then max. ..shame on discreet , that they still haven't integrated an array modifier.

[jedisalf]

DUnno if on any of those links theres the following video, if not, check it out, that Unreal3 engine looks awesome:
http://home.online.no/~sanbjoe/nv40/unreal3_0002.wmv

[samuel_bubat]

..shame on discreet , that they still haven't integrated an array modifier.

Agree !!!

but... =) check this out if you haven´t allready

http://www.itoosoft.com/english/clone.html

[Matt_3D]

DUnno if on any of those links theres the following video, if not, check it out, that Unreal3 engine looks awesome:
http://home.online.no/~sanbjoe/nv40/unreal3_0002.wmv

Someone showed me the video this morning, I'm still drying the drool off the keyboard. All that in realtime, wow The nv40 chipset is a real killer. It's amazing how much of a leap forward nVidia have made.

-Matt