User:Nysin/UE Draft

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The Unreal Engine is a widely used game engine for action games. First illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal, it has been the basis of many such games since, including Unreal Tournament and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield. It is developed by Epic Games.

The Unreal Engine technology supports a scripting language called UnrealScript, which can be used to modify many aspects of the game without having to delve into the C++ internals.

1 Unreal Engine versions
2 Released games
- 2.1 Unreal Engine 1.0
- 2.2 Unreal Engine 2.0 and newer
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Unreal Engine versions

Many other software companies have licensed the Unreal Engine. These include Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Fallen and Ion Storm Inc.'s Deus Ex. Newer versions of the engine are being used for PC games such as Running With Scissors, Inc.'s Postal², the U.S. Army's America's Army, and Ion Storm's Deus Ex: Invisible War. [1].

Versions of the Unreal Engine are available for IBM PC (Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux), Apple Macintosh (Mac OS, Mac OS X) and many other Consoles.

Here is a comprehensive list of published video games utilising the Unreal Engine [2].

[edit] Unreal Engine 1.0

The Unreal Engine was initially developed for the Unreal game. It featured large maps and a wide color palette in contrast to competing 3D game engines.

Rendering technologies:

3DFX Glide, S3 Metal, PowerVR SGL, Direct3D 5 and 6, and OpenGL, software rendering support
32-bit fully colored soft animated dynamic lighting
Extensible BSP/PVS and portal technology
32-bit colored 512x512 size texture support
Dynamic range scaled detail textures
Procedurally animated textures
Multiple channels of vertex animation support
Emboss bump mapping
Multi-texturing
Light bloom
Fog volume
Volumetric lighting
Particles effects system
Multi-skybox system

Other features:

Fully digital audio based module sound system
Digital music, MP3, CD Audio, module music, s3m, etc support
Doppler shift
A3D support
Software 3D sound
Surround sound
Real-time recording of in-engine footage as replayable 'demo' files
GUI editor

[edit] Unreal Engine 2.0

Unreal Tournament 2003 uses the second generation of Unreal Engine, an improvement in visual quality and ease of development over the previous engines.

Builds 500-2227: The builds of the second generation Unreal Engine started at 500, licensees first saw them after 600, and they were publicly available as build 927 with the release of America's Army. When Epic took over finishing UT2003, build numbers jumped to 2000+. This generation saw the core code and rendering engine re-written and the new UnrealEd 3 integrated. Many other engine elements were improved.

[edit] Unreal Engine 2 Runtime Edition

Unreal Engine 2 Runtime Edition has been used in many non-gaming projects including construction simulation and design, training simulation, driving simulation, virtual reality shopping malls, movie storyboards, continuity, pre-visual, etc.

[edit] Unreal Engine 2.5

Builds 2500-3369: Enhanced version of Unreal Engine 2 with an optimized rendering engine. core technology re-written and improving and extension, The Unreal Engine 2.5 adds support for 64-bit Windows and 64-bit Linux operating systems. Improving and enhancing UnrealEd toolsets. One fork of the Engine is also highly optimized for the Xbox hardware shader pipeline based on a few graphical enhancements, The Xbox memory management system, Xbox GUI system, editor, and Xbox live support. These Xbox optimized features are integrated into the Unreal Engine 2X, but is an off-shoot of the Unreal Engine 2.5.

[edit] Unreal Engine 3.0

A berserker from Unreal Engine 3 technology demo (later revealed to be Gears of War content), revealing a detailed model with normal mapping and real-time soft self-shadowing

[edit] Non-gaming projects

Unreal Engine 3 Runtime Custom License is used in many non-gaming projects including construction simulation and design, training simulation, driving simulation, virtual reality shopping malls, movie storyboards, continuity, pre-visual, etc. According to Mark Rein, no such license exists from the architecture. The only form available is Unreal Engine 3 with the toolset and sourcecode meant for games.

[edit] Unreal Engine 4.0

Mark Rein, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed on August 18, 2005 that Unreal Engine 4 has been in development over the past two years⁽¹⁾. The engine targets the next generation of consoles after the coming generation, as well as the PC. The only person to work on the engine so far is Tim Sweeney, lead programmer at Epic⁽²⁾.

[edit] Released games

[edit] Unreal Engine 1.0

Adventure Pinball: Forgotten Island — (2001) Digital Extremes
Clive Barker's Undying — (2001) Dreamworks Interactive
Deus Ex — (2000) Ion Storm
Dr. Brain's Thinking Games: Action/Reaction — (1999) Knowledge Adventure
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets — (2002) KnowWonder Digital Mediaworks
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone — (2001) KnowWonder Digital Mediaworks
Mobile Forces — (2002) Rage Software
Nerf Arena Blast — (1999) Visionary Media, Inc.
Rune — (2000) Human Head Studios
Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror — (2002) Kamehan Studios
TNN Outdoors Pro Hunter — (1998) DreamForge Intertainment
Twin Caliber — (2003) Rage Software
Unreal (uses build 220-226) — (1998) Epic Games
- Unreal Mission Pack 1: Return to Na Pali (uses build 224-226) — (1999) Legend Entertainment
Unreal Tournament (uses build 400-436) — (1999) Epic Games
Virtual Reality Notre Dame — (1999) NASA
The Wheel of Time — (1999) Legend Entertainment
X-COM: Enforcer — (2001) MicroProse