UnrealEngine3 Interview

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It's been a big week for Epic Games this week. Their latest multiplayer shooter, Unreal Tournament 2004, is shipping to stores and getting rave reviews. They also announced their upcoming Xbox exclusive title Unreal Championship 2 and they also announced the merging of their company with their former sister team Scion Studios. The big news from Epic isn't finished yet, however, as HomeLAN got a chance to chat with Epic Games chairman and CEO (and its main programmer) Tim Sweeney to get the first details on UnrealEngine3, their next generation game graphics engine that will be shown at next week's Game Developers Conference in San Jose, CA.

 

 

 

HomeLAN - First, what will Epic be showing to select folks at next week's GDC?

 

 

 

Tim Sweeney - We'll be showing the third-generation Unreal Engine. This is the next major leap in Epic's engine technology, featuring an entirely new rendering engine and physics system that hasn't been shown publicly before.

 

 

 

UnrealEngine3 is targeted at high-end DirectX9 and future GPU's and next-generation game consoles, and our focus is on absolutely realistic per-pixel lighting, with 100% dynamic shadowing everywhere, including new technology for soft dynamic shadows. The level of graphical detail and fidelity in the content we're creating is between 4 and 16 times higher than what's been seen in DirectX9 games shipping in 2004, and there are substantial qualitative improvements in the technology, based on a bottom-up rethinking of the 3D rendering architecture in light of what's now possible with DirectX9, and some even more amazing things that will become possible with GPU's, CPU's and next-generation consoles in the 2005-2006 timeframe.

 

 

 

We'll be showing the latest update to our second-generation tech, UnrealEngine2.5, that recently shipped with Unreal Tournament 2004. We're even showing a version of UnrealEngine2 that's completely optimized for the Xbox, which we're calling UnrealEngine2X. That's the technology driving our just-announced Xbox-only title, Unreal Championship 2 (check out http://www.unrealchampionship2.com).

 

 

HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the new features for the next generation Unreal Engine?

 

 

 

Tim Sweeney - There is a new 100% dynamic, 64-bit-per-pixel high definition rendering engine focus on per-pixel lighting and dynamic shadowing. This includes all of the logical features you would expect in an HDR rendering pipeline, such as lenticular halos and light blooms, dynamically shadowed lights and projectors, normal mapping, displacement mapping, and raytracing effects such as volumetric lighting and refraction. But it goes further than that with entirely new things that haven't been done in real-time before, such as holographic texture mapping, spherical harmonic lighting, and dynamic soft shadows.

 

 

 

Beyond rendering, there are many other core engine improvements, such as an entirely new physics system designed to support significantly more complex interactions between objects than has been possible in the past; a new framework for dynamic streaming loading of content aimed at both next-generation consoles and PC's; and a completely new skeletal animation system that dynamically combines motion-captured animation with physics feedback and procedural controllers.

 

 

 

On the content creation side, we have a new bump-map and spherical harmonic lighting preprocessing tool enabling our characters to light with the visual fidelity of their several-million-triangle source art and a new visual shader editing interface enabling artists to create real-time shaders with the same level of complexity of what was previously only possible with offline renderers. At Epic, we've always put a lot of effort into tools creation, but the third-generation Unreal engine brings this to an entirely new level.

 

 

 

HomeLAN - How do you think your next generation engine compares to other game engines such as id's Doom 3 and Valve's Half Life 2 (Source) engine?

 

 

 

Tim Sweeney - UnrealEngine3 is essentially one generation ahead of the hybrid DirectX7-9 engines shipping in 2004. We've designed UnrealEngine3 from the bottom up with 100% focus on DirectX9 and later hardware and the kind of graphics and CPU specs we're expecting from next-generation 2006 and later PC's and next-generation consoles. By throwing out compatibility with past hardware, we've been able to create a much purer and more general renderer that's not constrained by old fixed-function and 8-bit-per-pixel rendering architectures, and this fact really shows up when you look at the engine's visual fidelity, support for very detailed outdoor as well as indoors environments, and very open and unrestricted shading and lighting system.

 

 

 

Of course, we're targeting games shipping in the 2006 timeframe, so being a full generation ahead ought not to come as a surprise. But Epic stands somewhat alone in terms of shipping major engine releases and games coinciding with each major generation of GPU's and console game generations.

 

 

 

HomeLAN - How far along is the development of the next generation Unreal Engine?

 

 

 

Tim Sweeney - Our core renderer, physics, tools, and networking are up and running now, and we're well into building characters, static meshes, and levels for our next-generation game. Game play development is still quite early on, so subsystems like AI and path finding are just in the process of being brought up now. For teams developing games for the mid to late 2006 timeframe, UnrealEngine3 now provides a solid starting point for preproduction work, ramping up to full production in the fall.

 

 

 

So, it's certainly not for quick 18-months projects ramping up to full speed right now; and it's not for Xbox 1 or PS2 titles at all. We'd point people to our second-generation UE2.5 and UE2X engines if they need to get a title into production right away. But if you are developing a large-scale project aimed at next-generation consoles and PC, you should check out UE3.

 

 

 

HomeLAN - How does the new Unreal Engine relate to the upcoming GPU's from NVIDIA and ATI?

 

 

 

Tim Sweeney - At GDC, we'll be demonstrating UnrealEngine3 on 3D hardware shipping in early 2004, and the performance there is only decent. The GPU's we're looking at as UnrealEngine3's sweet spot are approximately 18 months away. As you can see, we're aiming high! This makes UE3 an excellent platform for next-generation console games, and also for performance-oriented PC gaming in 2006.

 

 

 

HomeLAN - What about the Unreal Tournament 2004 engine? Will it fade away now that your next-generation engine is up and running?

 

 

 

Tim Sweeney - The second-generation Unreal engine path was brought up-to-date with the release of Unreal Tournament 2004. We've just revealed Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict to the gaming press as well. UC2 is an Xbox-exclusive game that brings the engine even further. There will be great UnrealEngine2-powered games shipping as far out as 2006/7 with some major tech upgrades along the way. So for teams who are looking at a relatively short development cycle, or want to develop one more Xbox or PS2 title, or support relatively low-end mass-market PC's, UnrealEngine2 is a great starting point, and it's being actively updated and supported.

 

 

 

HomeLAN - Why do you think game developers should consider licensing UnrealEngine3 instead of creating their own?

 

 

 

Tim Sweeney - Most teams who use the Unreal engine do so because it enables them to focus on game play and on building their game -- as opposed to building technology to build their game. And being able to start game development right away with a working engine, and getting a toolset that is far more evolved than could be justified by just one or a handful of projects. Those are the solid business reasons. But to a certain extent, you just have to see the engine in motion, and our tools and content-creation pipeline to see what it's all about -- so be sure to come by and see it the Epic Games meeting room at GDC!

 

 

 

HomeLAN - How does a person attending GDC get to see a tech demo of the next generation Unreal Engine?

 

 

 

Tim Sweeney - We're highly suggesting they book an appointment because our GDC booth can get very busy at times. To do that they should email Mark Rein

([email protected]) with their contact information and two or three suggested times they'd like to meet with us and we'll try to accommodate them. We have an Exposuite (a private booth in the north end of the show floor) #228 that's open from 9:30am to 6:30PM on Wednesday and Thursday and then from 9:30AM to 3:30PM on Friday.

 

 

 

HomeLAN - Finally is there anything else you wish to say about Epic, the next Unreal Engine and your plans for GDC?

 

 

 

Tim Sweeney - We're really excited about our technology roadmap and we think developers and publishers should try to get over to see it.

 

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