UnrealEngine3/Tim Sweeney Interview : Questions Welcomed

[Reverend]

We interviewed Tim just recently and I'm going to bug him again, mostly because of what I have read at http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11062 as well as :

On another note : I know you guys will be previewing UE3 at GDC. I am wondering (read : hoping fervently) if there's any chance Beyond3D can be given a copy of what you'll be presenting at GDC wrt UE3.

Thank you for asking! That is an excellent question. The answer is: NO!!!


But I'd be glad to talk some more about what we've showing and where we're headed with UE3 after GDC is over. There is a lot of really cool new tech in there. The virtual displacement mapping (renamed buzzword I referred to as "holographic texture mapping" in the HomeLan interview) is one of those things that nobody had really anticipated would be possible with DX9.

Maybe this applies more to folks that have actually seen UE3 in action at GDC (I couldn't go myself) since that would mean knowing what to ask based on what they saw and what Epic told them at GDC. I had actually talked to Tim about offset mapping (he called it differently, as above) some time back (and he'd told me then that he'd seen it in action himself and that Andrew/Epic was updating their renderer to include it in UE3).

So, questions welcomed.

 

[jvd]

Ask him if he is going to put in controls for af and aa Tell him jvd told him too

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

I want to know how high the polys will be on an average scene.

 

[g__day]

How does the graphics engine scale across old to new graphics cards (is the approach used by Source DX6 -> DX9 adopted)? If so does this mean for every effect you have to either have a way of doing it in a lower DX level than modern cards use or else simply dump the effect?

How has A.I. improved - what advances can we expect to see?

How has material physics changed? Can I grab a bucket - fill it with water - put it on a chair, light the chair then shoot holes in the bucket to let water pour out and put out the fire on the chair? Wouldn't that level of object interaction be impressive!

 

[Reverend]

First of all, at the risk of sounding like a jackass, I would appreciate it if you guys can understand it if I say that I will be the sole judge of what questions I'd pick based on the type of interview this will appear as at this site.

Ask him if he is going to put in controls for af and aa Tell him jvd told him too

I want to know how high the polys will be on an average scene.

... and these are not questions I would pick (again, sorry if this makes me look insensititive).

Ask Tim technical stuff that he would enjoy answering simply because it would test him.

Thanks.

Here's a couple of pointers :

1) Offset mapping : Tim is excited about this. I'm sure he'll be interested in stuff that picks his brain, questioning him about the virtues and pitfalls of this software implementation.

2) "Soft shadow" : I know exactly how this is being done in UE3. Ask him (but not a simple "How is this being done, Tim?").

 

[jvd]

Sorry . I was just joking a bit .


Ask him if he has run into any shader limits on the current set of dx 9 cards during the programing of the new engine .



Also ask him if he plans on programing paths for cards lower than dx 9 and even lower than dx 8 .

 

[3dcgi]

Will UnrealEngine3 impliment soft shadows with a stencil method, shadow map like method, or something much different?

 

[Sage]

is he prefering PS 3.0 and writing fallbacks for 2.0, or using 2.0 and rewriting the code for 3.0? And why? And what about VS 3.0? How much is VS 3.0 going to be used for effects that will be unavailable on VS 2.0 hardware, and what effect are those?

Also, what are his views on OpenGL 2.0, specifically the HLSL? Does he see an OpenGL 2.0 in the future of Unreal?

 

[991060]

Isn't the so called "holographic texture mapping" what's been discussed at this forum a while ago, and humus made a demo using this technique?
I think it's only a trick, nothing big deal comparing to the remade lighting system which is expected to be the basis of UE3.

 

[Waltar]

I'd like to know if the fuzzy shadowing demo he did for the NV30 is going to be implemented in the new engine. And what are his thoughts on normalmaps? Yay or nay?

 

[Evildeus]

is he prefering PS 3.0 and writing fallbacks for 2.0, or using 2.0 and rewriting the code for 3.0? And why? And what about VS 3.0? How much is VS 3.0 going to be used for effects that will be unavailable on VS 2.0 hardware, and what effect are those?

Also, what are his views on OpenGL 2.0, specifically the HLSL? Does he see an OpenGL 2.0 in the future of Unreal?

I second that!

 

[Dave Baumann]

Are the architectures of the upcoming consoles having an influence on the engine design? If so, can you indicate, without preannouncing the configurations of the upcoming consoles, in what ways they are having an influence?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Screen. Shots. Many of them. Please ))

 

[Reverend]

Tim has kind of answered the following questions in our interview with him recently.

Also ask him if he plans on programing paths for cards lower than dx 9 and even lower than dx 8 .

<on UnrealEngine3>... aimed at DirectX9 hardware as the absolute minimum spec, and scaling (way) upwards from there...

Are the architectures of the upcoming consoles having an influence on the engine design? If so, can you indicate, without preannouncing the configurations of the upcoming consoles, in what ways they are having an influence?

With consoles being more attractive than the PC in terms of profits, how does this affect the way game engines are being designed that simultaneously target both platforms?

Next generation console weighs verily heavily on our minds for the third generation Unreal Engine, and is going to be a major focus of ours both from a game point of view and an engine point of view. Can't say more yet, though.

However, I'll try to change the questions you have in mind, to see if we can get anything more/clarification out of him.

About OGL2. I'd ask him sometime back about this, refering 3Dlabs. His response was something like "Are they making any new hardware?". I think Tim's disinterested. I'll ask about OGL2 anyway, of course.

Screen. Shots. Many of them. Please ))

Yeah, I've already asked him. He hasn't replied, what with being at GDC.

 

[nobie]

Ok how about: How is he handling developing technology for a game that won't ship for over a year? After all what's cutting edge today is old news tomorrow.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Rev - I know the answer to that question would be yes,but I was wondering if there could be some expansion on that. For instance, I would expect that "threading" will be very important for the next gen consoles,and so to maximise their potential the engines should be very multithreaded. I also suspect his recent comment about doing the vertex processing on the CPU is related to the next gen consoles as well.

 

[Skinner]

Could you ask him when we'll see real dynamic weather- and watereffects.

 

[Tim Murray]

What feature that was previously impossible/unusable are you most looking forward to for the R500/NV50 generation?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Care to comment on Carmack's GDC keynote, with respect to multiple cpu configurations for consoles (or PCs for that matter)? Do you think this is:

1) Avoidable and fundamentally the wrong way to go
2) Not ideal, but probably the best way for hardware to move forward to keep increasing power while maintaining costs
3) The way to go.

 

[991060]

what do you think of MS's recent XNA plan? what's its pros and cons for game developers?