Unreal Engine

The Unreal Engine is a game engine from Epic Games (formerly Epic MegaGames ), which is used in the development of console and computer games. Since its first publication in 1998, the game engine has been used in numerous games and ported to various operating systems and game consoles.

• 2.1 First generation 2.1.1 Unreal Engine
• 2.1.2 Unreal Engine 1.5

• 2.2.1 Unreal Engine 2
• 2.2.2 Unreal Engine 2.5
• 2.2.3 Unreal Engine 2X

• 2.3.1 Unreal Engine 3

• 2.4.1 Unreal Engine 4

Survey

The framework of the Unreal Engine consists among other things of the graphics engine, the scripting language UnrealScript and other auxiliary programs such as the level editor UnrealEd. The first version of the Unreal Engine was made in 1998 along with the first-person shooter Unreal on the market. Here, the game also served as a graphics demo for the engine. The Unreal Engine has been used in several other games, including with newly written components. Examples are Deus Ex or rune. The first game with the second generation of the engine appeared on 4 July 2002 with the free first-person shooter America's Army, released in late 2002 Unreal Tournament 2003 Unreal and 2 the sequel to Unreal Tournament 2004 uses the Unreal Engine 2.5.

The third generation of the engine from the 2006 provides complex shader effects, surface with offset mapping, and the ability to reload concurrent and uninterrupted parts of the game world. Thus it exceeds the capabilities of the Doom 3 engine, which was published in 2004.

Costs

The cost of licensing the complete second-generation frameworks amount to U.S. $ 350,000 exactly, each additional sub- version of the second generation can be purchased for each additional 50,000 U.S. dollars. Furthermore, estimated 3% royalties. For non commercial use or for educational purposes is a free version, the Unreal Engine 2 Runtime demo, under an EULA are available. Here, however, the functionality is very limited, including no access to the source code possible. Since November 2009 there is for the Unreal Engine 3 now free licenses for non-commercial, and commercial projects for licenses from 99 U.S. dollars, and 25% of profits from sales of U.S. $ 50,000. A free version of Unreal Engine 3 has been available since November 5, 2009 under the name " UDC " ( Unreal Development Kit).

Versions

The Unreal Engine is modular. Although Epic writes various parts of the engine new, but it remains the same engine. That's why there are no specific version numbers, but merely numbered builds, which contain certain functions or not. The published framework packages but are themselves always dubbed by Epic with Unreal Engine N, where N is always for the generation or version of the engine.

First generation

Unreal Engine

The first version of the Unreal Engine, also called because of their successors Unreal Engine 1, was released in 1998, along with Unreal. However, Legend Entertainment and MicroProse had already purchased the license before. The Unreal Engine 1.0 was designed for high -end PCs in 1998. 226f was the final patch for Unreal.

Unreal Engine 1.5

The Unreal Engine 1.5 was designed for high-end PC from 1999 to 2001 and for the first time for the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. The code has been removed, the version number jumped to 300 and the number grew from there up to version 436 The core code has been completely rewritten to eventually integrate the UnrealEd 2. Until recently, through the UTPG project version 451 was developed which ( the UED ) and server operator brings to developers some changes, features and more stability.

Second generation

Unreal Engine 2

The Unreal Engine 2 was developed for high-end PCs from the years 2002 to 2003, the Xbox, the Playstation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube. The version number of the second generation of the engine started at 500, license ducks started at 600 and the first publication, America's Army bore the number 927 published as Epic Games' Unreal Tournament 2003, jumped the version numbers on 2000 and later. Again, large parts of the code has been rewritten and integrated a new version of UnrealEd.

Unreal Engine 2.5

The Unreal Engine 2.5 was designed for high -end PCs from 2004-2005. It represents an improved version with an optimized rendering engine Unreal Engine 2.0 represents the Unreal Engine 2.5 first offered support for 64- bit Windows and 64- bit Linux operating systems.

Unreal Engine 2X

The Unreal Engine 2X is a fork of version 2.5 and was developed specifically for the Xbox. It is highly optimized for the Xbox hardware shader pipeline, the memory management, the GUI system, and the Xbox Live support.

Third Generation

Unreal Engine 3

The game environment Unreal Engine 3 is the direct successor of the Unreal Engine 2 The new game environment is characterized by a technology that is supposed to be in the years 2006 and 2007, "on the state of things." It was first published in November 2006 with the game RoboBlitz. A few days later was followed by the port for the Xbox 360 with Gears of War. The engine is also used in Unreal Tournament 3, the successor to Unreal Tournament 2004. Besides the versions for the PC ( Mac, Windows) and the Xbox there is also a port for the PlayStation 3 According wiiinsider.de has Mark Rein, vice president at Epic Games announced that a use of the engine on the Nintendo Wii was excluded. The framework should be up to 2012 gradually expanded and improved. A Linux version was planned, but was never published.

2010 appeared the first games for the iPhone based on the Unreal Engine 3

The game environment is based on the DirectX 9 Shader Model 3 and provides support for DirectX 11 ready.

Since November 5, 2009, Unreal Engine 3 can be downloaded from the official website in the form of the Unreal Development Kit for non-commercial use. More versions for the development of console games to follow. With these changes, the cost of a commercial use of the Unreal Engine 3 has been greatly reduced.

Fourth generation

Unreal Engine 4

After the presentation of the Unreal Engine 3 marketing chief Mark Rein announced on demand by a journalist that his company is developing the fourth generation of the engine since about mid-2003. Large developments will not begin before 2008. From 2012, the Unreal Engine 4 to be ready. As one of the first developers Square Enix secured an Unreal Engine 4 license in October, 2012.

Games based on the Unreal Engine (selection)

The various titles of the Unreal series are highlighted in bold, as this in the following tables - each were published simultaneously with the engines - apart from the Unreal Engine 3. Epic Games used this often in the past to demonstrate the capabilities of the engines.