Unreal Engine 3.0's impact a bit over hyped?

[Brimstone]

Unreal Engine 3.0 has gotten a lot of attention and for good reason: the screenshots that have been released are good looking. However the real world impact on the XB-360 just seems way overstated at this point. Hardly any launch games are using it. And for the ones that are going to use UE 3.0, they're second tier developers.


Madden and all of the EA games aren't going to use UE 3.

Both RARE games Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero aren't using UE 3 afaik.

Project Gotham Racing is an in-house engine.

Ghost Recon 3 is going to use YETI. UBI seems to have ditched Unreal Engine technology after using it predominatley on the X-Box and PC.

Quake 4 is using the Doom 3 engine.

Call of Duty 2 is built upon an in-house engine. Infinity Ward, one of the most talented first person shooter developers in the world, with Call of Duty 2 has focused on advanced particle effects. Infinity Ward concentrated on this because gameplay called for it. Visibility will effect the computer A.I. soldiers decision on when to fire. So detailed smoke clouds are present in the game along with other effects like swirling dust clouds. From the articles I've read about CoD 2, the particle effects are the best ever done in a video game and are have a really immersive effect.


The marketing behind the UE 3.0 is clearly brilliant. They've really gotten the spotlight to show on their technology. Gears of War seems to be overshadowing a game like Call of Duty 2, despite the incredible track record of the members of Infinity Ward. They designed the first Medal of Honor for EA which was wildly successfull. After that they jumped ship to start their own company named Infinity Ward, and then created Call of Duty that became a huge critical success.

 

[AlNom]

To me, UE3.0 is about getting some great tools into the hands of lesser known studios (with less money) or to studios that need to do a quicker job and don't want to spend a lot of time making a proprietary engine.


edit: it helps smaller studios in the long run because time is money. Plus everything ERP has mentioned

 

[nameless_one]

I don't know how an engine costing $1,000,000 will be of any help to smaller studios?

 

[ERP]

On middleware in general.

I'll bet money that any half decent developer could build an engine for
their specific task superior to any middleware engine. The problem is that middleware by it's very nature has to be designed to solve as wide a variety of problems as possible, building a specific solution to your problem will always be better.

What's harder is doing that while trying to build a game on a short deadline, content invariably suffers because tools are poor or delivered late. IME almost all middleware ends up having more engineering time invested into it than writing an engine from scratch wouldhave cost, but it gives the content guys a huge leg up at the start.

i.e. It's easy to throw together a quick good looking demo because you have working tools and runtime. This is particularly important for 3rd party developers becasue they can demonstrate forward progress much quicker to publishers. It also makes the publishers feel warm and fuzzy, because they feel that they are starting with a solid technical solution.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Is in-house engine creation going to be harder or easier next-gen? With default tools support like Collada and CG, any 3D modeller or shader tool supporting these can create content. With open standards for defining content only an import routine is needed. This leaves content creation tools out of the equation for inhouse engines that can then work on how to use that data.

Or will a middleware engine that uses multithreading and certain optimizations per platform be such a huge time-saver that creating the same inhouse would just take too long and be too costly that middleware will be practically essential?

As for UE3, I think it's hype is based on strong showings. Both XB360 and PS3 showed smooth animations for UE3. Other demos NOT running on UE3 (on XB360 at least) looked decidedly ragged. This could well be for a lot of factors, but to the general masses it looks like UE3 is more effective.

 

[ERP]

I think you'll see more reliance on middle ware, but not because it couldn't be done internally. More because as publishers start investing more money they want less risks and middleware is a good way to reduce those risks.

The real cost of engine development is the toolset. Better tools = better art in general. IME iteration time has more impact on art quality than more small increases in engine performance.

At E3 I think the Unreal engine demos have the advantage of a solid toolset that was already being built for PC. I doubt many of the console specific engines are in as advanced a state because development started later and the lack of real hardware.

I'm not knocking UE, but if your providing a general solution there is no way you can compete with an application specific solution. Although the gap is going to close.

 

[wco81]

Was Renderware the most widely-used middleware this generation?

It seems to have been used in a fairly wide variety of genres.

I heard that EA once wanted to get a horse mascot into NCAA but would have had to use some external technology and weren't willing to pay for it.

Guess they got their hands on middleware in the most expensive way, by buying Criterion.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I wouldn't call Bioware a 2nd tier developer.

I think if the first generation of UE3 game look as amazing as GOW, then 2nd and 3rd gen games will be absolutely stunning.

And GOW is overshadowing Call of Duty because WW2 games are seriously played out, they've beaten that genre to death.

 

[shortround]

The marketing behind the UE 3.0 is clearly brilliant. They've really gotten the spotlight to show on their technology. Gears of War seems to be overshadowing a game like Call of Duty 2, despite the incredible track record of the members of Infinity Ward.

Well, IMHO, the track record of Epic Games is slightly greater than that of Infinity Ward. Especially engine wise, where Call of Duty used a (highly modified) Quake 3 engine.

 

[thatdude90210]

You would think that MS, being a software giant, would create a few engines themselves for licensing to small developers. Just look around at some of the mod scene, and license engines to ones that show promise.

 

[Brimstone]

The marketing behind the UE 3.0 is clearly brilliant. They've really gotten the spotlight to show on their technology. Gears of War seems to be overshadowing a game like Call of Duty 2, despite the incredible track record of the members of Infinity Ward.

Well, IMHO, the track record of Epic Games is slightly greater than that of Infinity Ward. Especially engine wise, where Call of Duty used a (highly modified) Quake 3 engine.

IMHO, because this time around Infinity Ward has gotten a chance to create their own engine and tools for their game, thats pretty exciting. The CoD 2 engine is going to be expertly tailored to enhance gameplay. Gameplay is what has gotten their games praise and accolades. To me CoD 2 is headed in the right direction to achieve next-gen gameplay.


I'm not suggesting people shouldn't be pumped up about Gears of War beceause I'm jazzed to get my hands on it, but it isn't a launch game. The same goes with Unreal Engine 3 technology, most of the launch games aren't using it, so I'm more intrested in some other opinions from other developers.

This isn't Epics fault, they're out to promote what they've been working hard on.

 

[Wunderchu]

on a related note, it seems the following developers / companies / organizations have licensed UE3:

ACONY
Bioware
Microsoft Game Studios
Midway
Namco
NCSoft
Silicon Knights
Streamline
TimeGate
USA Army
Webzen
Vivendi Universal








(this list was compiled by Inane_Dork in this thread: http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=344446 )

 

[PARANOiA]

Namco?? That surprised me. Anyone know what game they're using it in?

 

[_phil_]

Namco?? That surprised me. Anyone know what game they're using it in?

Don't worry ,it's only Namco US.the team behind dead to right is making Frame City killer on UE3.

 

[Ruined]

Namco?? That surprised me. Anyone know what game they're using it in?

Don't worry ,it's only Namco US.the team behind dead to right is making Frame City killer on UE3.

Which I don't really get, since Frame City Killer looks like it is using the Quake 3 engine or something

 

[_phil_]

Namco?? That surprised me. Anyone know what game they're using it in?

Don't worry ,it's only Namco US.the team behind dead to right is making Frame City killer on UE3.

Which I don't really get, since Frame City Killer looks like it is using the Quake 3 engine or something

Yes ,outside bad art ,i think they made their demo on an earlier version of UE (2.5 ,or even 2.0 ),because ,for example , the self shadowing seems broken in the video they showed.I have yet to ask for more details from a friend out there at namco US.

 

[Nightz]

And I thought Unreal engine was considered inefficent (bloated in comparison)
Did they do a complete rewrite last year?

 

[_phil_]

And I thought Unreal engine was considered inefficent (bloated in comparison)
Did they do a complete rewrite last year?

i'm at the same point.I have used it (not professionally but for leisure) from 1.0beta to 2.0 ,but lost interest since.I heard it improved a bit in versatility.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

You would think that MS, being a software giant, would create a few engines themselves for licensing to small developers. Just look around at some of the mod scene, and license engines to ones that show promise.

Microsoft has no experience doing game engines of any kind. Everything you can call "Microsoft Game Studios" are other companies with in-house engines or at least in-house variations of engines that were bought out. You can take something like Halo's engine, which is something Bungie never intended to license out, and it definitely shows in the codebase. Licensed engines tend to have some more strict guidelines. I'm sure if you saw Halo's codebase, it would be an absolutely ghastly mess that somehow by some miracle actually works.

The other big thing is that MS is good at making tools for the programmer, but not for the artist. Again, a zero experience thing. And when you get down to it, tools for the artist are going to have the biggest impact on reducing costs of development.

From the standpoint of tools, I don't think anything comes close to Unreal, and that's probably the main reason everybody is licensing it. Technology-wise, UE3 is not doing anything completely impossible for anyone else.

 

[see colon]

Well, IMHO, the track record of Epic Games is slightly greater than that of Infinity Ward. Especially engine wise, where Call of Duty used a (highly modified) Quake 3 engine.

the console versions of CoD run on renderware. since EA now owns criterion, and criterion owns renderware it's a pretty safe assumtion that part of the reason they are changing engines is to stop giving money to their competition.

the fact that EA owns renderware is also a pretty decent excuse for them to not license UE3. they have their own middleware now.