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unreal engine 4 #438673
03/19/14 22:56
03/19/14 22:56
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https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/welcome-to-unreal-engine-4

kind of awesome.

unreal engine 4 (it's not the UDK!) is in a similar price category as gamestudio now.

for the price of one gamestudio pro edition you can use the unreal engine for 4 years. laugh (edit: seems you can even quit the 20$ per month subscription and continue using the current version you have - you just don't get updates anymore.)

a pretty tough competition between unreal and unity seems to be starting.

valve seems to go into a similar direction too with their upcoming new source engine.

edit: cryengine is 10$ per month.

the unity forum is very funny at the moment. laugh

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ventilator] #438683
03/20/14 07:56
03/20/14 07:56
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sivan Offline
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thanks, this is brutal.
is that true that no Unrealscript in UE4? as I see yes, only C++ with visual studio is mentioned in the programming guide, which is great.
I just thought of making a trial again with UDK or with CryEngine, but Cryengine's graphics asset importing pipeline is more restricted (requires a recent Photoshop and Max or Maya). let's see Unity's answer. and of course of 3DGS laugh

cryengine 9.90USD/EUR/month: http://cryengine.com/news/crytek-announces-its-cryengine-as-a-service-program

Last edited by sivan; 03/20/14 08:41.

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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #438695
03/20/14 08:45
03/20/14 08:45
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Mainz
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This is really great. Maybe I take a look at it. And I should recheck Cryengine, if you say the have licences for 10$/month now.

EDIT: there's no trial version Unreal Engine 4 yet. So I will wait until my current project is finished (in 2 months) because it doesn't make sense for me to purchase it for 19 EUR per month and only have time for testing in my spare time.

Last edited by oliver2s; 03/20/14 08:54.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: oliver2s] #438698
03/20/14 09:52
03/20/14 09:52
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Karlsruhe
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What I like a lot is that Epic just announced UE4 and they already provide hands on videos on youtube on how to work with the editor. This is sooo user friendly I love it!

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: oliver2s] #438699
03/20/14 09:52
03/20/14 09:52
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it will be interesting how unity will react. probably they also will adjust their prices a bit.

one of the advantages it still has is unityscript/c#/boo. c++ isn't for everyone (it's not that i wouldn't be able to become better in it if i really wanted to but i never really wanted to so far. i hate it. :)) and i am not sure about the blueprint visual scripting system. i haven't checked it out yet but visual scripting can be cumbersome in my experience. what would be a few lines of code can require big node networks already.

but if a big indie community builds around unreal engine then sooner or later there will be bindings for managed languages too i guess.



i am very curious about what valve will do with source 2. i have read that they will focus on increasing productivity of content creation. user generated content (mods,...) is extremely important for them.



i find those webgl developments fascinating too. the engines run in pure javascript - no need for any plugins - at almost native speed. incredible.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: oliver2s] #438700
03/20/14 09:56
03/20/14 09:56
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This is fantastic news - add this to the Havoc engine being free for mobile development and you have a totally new market. I'm curious though why they did come up with this just now. Why wasn't this possible say 10 years ago?

Last edited by Toast; 03/20/14 09:56.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #438702
03/20/14 10:13
03/20/14 10:13
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Budapest
sivan Offline
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there's a programming video how blueprint projects work, imo it is just fine. add a class in editor, that will appear in visual studio with a little proper settings part to work together with the editor. cool. blueprint projects seem to be a great help for a couple of game genres. I nearly bought it, just hesitating. maybe I check it, download, then cancel the subscription.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #438706
03/20/14 11:44
03/20/14 11:44
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Hm well right now they basically bombed Unity 5 off the planet - I mean, seriously, when you're going to choose an engine to pay monthly fees for, I can't really see the point of paying 75$ per month for Unity without source code access when you can get Unreal with source code access for 20$. I mean, come on. Of course, the UDK was a fucking mess to work with compared to Unity so far, but judging from all the footage showing the new workflow that Epic released so far, I think they really upped the game in that regard. Especially the videos showing one of their artists presenting what he made in a few hours without any real programming skills look incredible in that regard, the results honestly look better than a lot of what hobby devs manage to do with Unity in weeks.
And technically, well, there's nothing to talk about, UE4 IS one of the big guys, along with Frostbite and Cryengine, and hopefully Source 2 when it's revealed, and Unity has always been a rough approximation of these big players.
My biggest fear is that we'll now get a wave of crappy "Indie-" titles based on Unreal, just like as we got and still get due to Unity, that actually are nothing more than really bad hobby pojects.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #438707
03/20/14 12:18
03/20/14 12:18
Joined: Nov 2007
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Germany, BW, Stuttgart
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Unity 5 looks promising as well, they put a lot of effort into the engine as well.
I think it can get much cheaper with Unity if you buy a full version (1500$) instead of leasing UE4 with 20$ per Month and 5% off your revenues of the games.

So let's wait for the future, maybe Source Engine 2 will happen these days at the GDC as well...


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: MasterQ32] #438709
03/20/14 12:39
03/20/14 12:39
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Budapest
sivan Offline
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it would be the biggest explosion, if the new WED is represented on GDC with android support grin
anyway I could not resist, and bought UE4 for 19 USD, as I'm just out of the eurozone. but not planning a continuous subscription...


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #438711
03/20/14 12:43
03/20/14 12:43
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Posts: 3,258
Mainz
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Please share your experience after testing a while.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: oliver2s] #438713
03/20/14 13:52
03/20/14 13:52
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sivan Offline
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okay.
until now: the installer is 50MB that downloads 7GB, so atm waiting...
source is available from github, with some separated 3rd party dependencies like Recast/PhysX/OpenAL/OGG etc., just requires to register your github name at your unreal account page.
hardware and software requirements are more precise in a docs page: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/GettingStarted/RecommendedSpecifications/index.html


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #438738
03/20/14 19:12
03/20/14 19:12
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Netherlands
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Quote:
5% off your revenues of the games
, is that from turnover/sales or profits?
, nevermind, I found it on this link -> http://www.moddb.com/engines/unreal-engine-4/features/unreal-engine-4-released.

Quote:
That means: If your game makes $10 on the App Store, Apple may pay you $7, but you'd pay Epic $0.50 (5% of $10).

Last edited by Reconnoiter; 03/20/14 19:20.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Reconnoiter] #438740
03/20/14 19:47
03/20/14 19:47
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Maybe one of the advantage of Unity3d over Unreal is the mecanim system
At the beginning I was skeptic but when I got used to it I realized that it is really a great tool

Btw is Unreal 4 a component based enegine , same as Unity ?
What 3d file format does unreal support ?

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #438747
03/20/14 21:08
03/20/14 21:08
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sivan Offline
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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #438765
03/21/14 08:10
03/21/14 08:10
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Originally Posted By: AlbertoT
Maybe one of the advantage of Unity3d over Unreal is the mecanim system


unreal's persona animation system sounds very similar to mechanim.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ventilator] #438769
03/21/14 08:50
03/21/14 08:50
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sivan Offline
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for the first sight it is slow, I mean requires a good pc (in case of an unlit empty level it runs around 25 FPS, which drops to 10-15 if I put some things inside). on the other hand it is very easy to use, and it has some Unity feeling, and yes, objects have components. I just did it in a few minutes from the incléuded asset content:



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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #438814
03/21/14 19:22
03/21/14 19:22
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The original Unreal engine has been developed for a commercial game same as Torque for Tribes
I remember the flame war 3dgs vs Torque
I was on 3dgs side
The point was that 3dgs was a multipurpose engine while Torque was much better than 3dgs but for some types of games only , a nightmare for anything else

Nowadays Torque is dead while 3dgs is still (more or less) alive

I wonder whether the same story is going to be repeated , Unity vs Unreal 4


Last edited by AlbertoT; 03/21/14 19:23.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #438827
03/22/14 09:33
03/22/14 09:33
Joined: Jun 2009
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Bavaria, Germany
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@sivan: epic games' statement sounds different :S
"...while remaining both scalable and accessible to make games for low-spec PCs."

Are there any benchmarks out at the moment?


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Kartoffel] #438831
03/22/14 10:51
03/22/14 10:51
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Mainz
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Originally Posted By: Kartoffel
@sivan: epic games' statement sounds different :S
"...while remaining both scalable and accessible to make games for low-spec PCs."

Are there any benchmarks out at the moment?


It seems Epic Games have a different definition of "low-spec".

On one page they write:
Quote:
Unreal Engine 4’s rendering architecture enables developers to achieve stunning visuals and also scale elegantly to lower-end systems


And on the other page:
Quote:
What are Unreal Engine 4's system requirements?
Desktop PC or Mac
Windows 7 64-bit or Mac OS X 10.9.2 or later
Quad-core Intel or AMD processor, 2.5 GHz or faster
NVIDIA GeForce 470 GTX or AMD Radeon 6870 HD series card or higher
8 GB RAM


We are in 2014, but really: quad-core processor and 8 GB RAM as MINIMUM spec isn't "low-end" for me

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: oliver2s] #438834
03/22/14 12:03
03/22/14 12:03
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Originally Posted By: oliver2s

We are in 2014, but really: quad-core processor and 8 GB RAM as MINIMUM spec isn't "low-end" for me


True, same for the GPU requirement. Interesting coincidence, my flatmate upgraded his desktop PC just a few days ago with a intel quad core and 8GB RAM after playing on a dual core and 4 gig for years, as well as with a Radeon 4870 HD, which he didn't switch out and isn't even sure yet if he will, and I did so far consider his machine higher low end at least. According to the UE4 requirements he still falls under low-spec NOW after the upgrade, which is really kinda weird to me. My own PC which I consider to be capable of nearly every current game on high settings isn't even higher than these minimum specs, at least on the CPU/RAM side of things, which is really kinda shocking to me.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: oliver2s] #438836
03/22/14 12:39
03/22/14 12:39
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the development environment needs those specs. the games done with it can run on lower end hardware and mobile devices.

i guess that is what they mean.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ventilator] #438838
03/22/14 13:14
03/22/14 13:14
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Yes, maybe.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: oliver2s] #438846
03/22/14 13:45
03/22/14 13:45
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I just wanted to say that the editor runs on low fps on my i5 2.5GHz notebook with a HD7670M, especially when all effects are on, and I have not tested yet a compiled exe with low graphics settings. probably there are tools to refine settings, especially because of the mobile platforms, whose support are not fully finished now. Mac and Ios is in an early state. I will try it as I have time, by checking the example projects for a couple of genres (smaller ones like platformer, and 2 bigger ones for FPS, RTS). I will share them with you.
but defining a min system requirements is a kind of estimation, you can start to develop a bigger project knowing you need years, so imo they are right in case of their main target segment, but made a large step to expand their market towards the indie developers and hobbyists. a few years ago I found UDK system requirements too high, now it is fine, but smaller engines are more hobbyist friendly in this area, having at least one stage technology lag, resulting in lower achievable possible quality, which is not unacceptable in many cases.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #438901
03/23/14 04:00
03/23/14 04:00
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Quote:
Hotreload:
Make updates to your gameplay code while the game is running using Unreal Engine 4's popular Hot Reload feature. This tool allows you to edit C++ code and see those changes reflected immediately in-game without ever pausing gameplay.


That sounds like IT-Porn^^
@Sivan have you tried this already?


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Rackscha] #438904
03/23/14 07:01
03/23/14 07:01
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no, I could spent only a little time with ue4, everything is very new, so there are a lot of things to read and see and try... but thanks for the hint, sounds very cool laugh


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #438907
03/23/14 08:55
03/23/14 08:55
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just found that benchmark.

I used the highest settings, except for antialiasing (just FXAA).
...runs really smooth on my (except for the cpu) medium system.


Edit: stupid me misread ue3 for ue4, sorry for that grin

Last edited by Kartoffel; 03/23/14 08:57.

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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Kartoffel] #438957
03/24/14 14:45
03/24/14 14:45
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that´s pretty striking... Unity announced the new version 5 with some cool stuff but the same price calculation as the old versions... and of course ... some of the really very serious users of unity start to open their mind to compare the advantage and disadvantage of both core engines (not only the poor 14 years old fan boys).

...and it is some kind of funny... it seems that unreal provocatively copies the style, workflow of the uniy editor and even the main theme of the unity page.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: alpha_strike] #439788
04/09/14 14:27
04/09/14 14:27
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sivan Offline
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yeah it is much more unity like now than any other engine...
Esenthel engine also stepped onto the path of subscription (15USD/month), but apparently it cannot be canceled as flexibly as ue4, valid subscription is checked on each editor startup. and source code access subscription is much more expensive. http://www.esenthel.com/?id=store (users are not very happy)

at the moment in ue4 I always get an editor crash after the shooter example game startup, and in some other cases (maybe my old non-update-able driver is the issue), but at Epic they really seem to work on bug-fixing of all crash reports.
so currently it is cool to get familiar with this engine to get prepared for a future game project, because it is full with great stuff, but imo it requires some time to make it really solid on all platforms (it runs best currently under windows). so maybe later I will give them another month... but maybe Cryengine could also make some surprises...

if you are interested I could compile 1-2 test levels to see some end results. the realistic rendering demo is great (okay, 2 expert developers worked on it for 3 weeks full time).


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #440085
04/17/14 19:23
04/17/14 19:23
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Hello

I purchased a software magazines

Even admitting that some commercial games have been developed using Unity3d , They claim that a game UE4 vs Unity3d does not simply make sense, UE4 playing in an other League
No explanation, s top down claim

What do youn think ?

Last edited by AlbertoT; 04/17/14 19:24.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440403
04/25/14 08:12
04/25/14 08:12
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sivan Offline
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as planned, I cancelled my subscription, because I want my game project to continue in 3DGS, but I will keep discovering it. UE4 has a long learning curve if you are new in it, but has definitely professional and complex features. its Blueprint visual programming system is great for experienced 3d artists and casual game developers to make little simple games easily, which is a very strong point to switch to it. using example projects as references, and starting a new project based on templates is also a big help (they have both Blueprint and C++ versions, but later the project can be a combined one).

yesterday they released 4.1 which supports beside PC, Mac, Android, iOs, HTML5, (but as a preview solution only) Linux, SteamOS, XBox One, Playstation4 (consoles require additional registration at MS and Sony). but for example SpeedTree integration is still missing. they seems to know that templates are a strong feature, so new ones are also available... this is how they can attract more potential Unity5 users.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #440460
04/25/14 23:08
04/25/14 23:08
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Toast Offline
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Originally Posted By: sivan
yesterday they released 4.1 which supports beside PC, Mac, Android, iOs, HTML5, (but as a preview solution only) Linux, SteamOS, XBox One, Playstation4 (consoles require additional registration at MS and Sony). but for example SpeedTree integration is still missing. they seems to know that templates are a strong feature, so new ones are also available... this is how they can attract more potential Unity5 users.

What's even better: You now can earn 3000$ per product per quarter you have to pay no royalties on making UE4 even more indie friendly. That translates into up to 12,000$ annual income you don't have to pay royalties on which is quite something and makes the entry into game development even more accessible when comparing to paying the 20$/month fee versus e.g. around 3000$ for one Unity Pro license with mobile publishing...

It'll be interesting to see how Unity reacts as their 75$/month model (you afaik only can cancel every 6 months) they introduced looks horrible now and that might even be 150$/month if you also need the mobile publishing add-ons (I at least think they again did split PC/Mac and mobile publishing)...

Last edited by Toast; 04/25/14 23:10.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #440465
04/26/14 08:32
04/26/14 08:32
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I have not noticed that license change, but cool, easier to manage releasing very cheap little casual games.
the source code access of UE4 is also fun, user feedback based bug-fixing and feature development became a proven way last month. for an ordinary user it is not really needed, but can attract many indie developers and larger studios.
game engines targeting rather beginners, students, and hobbyists seem not to react on these changes (or just waiting), and probably they are right as they are a bit different market segment, focusing on easy start and basic usage. I wonder how 3dgs price policy goes in future, maybe stays as is, but it could easily be a more potent engine than currently (okay, the pc only publishing is a bit odd today).


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #440505
04/27/14 01:34
04/27/14 01:34
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Originally Posted By: sivan
game engines targeting rather beginners, students, and hobbyists seem not to react on these changes (or just waiting), and probably they are right as they are a bit different market segment, focusing on easy start and basic usage. I wonder how 3dgs price policy goes in future, maybe stays as is, but it could easily be a more potent engine than currently (okay, the pc only publishing is a bit odd today).

I think there's still a lot of shock and awe left. UE4 pretty much changed the industry just as Unity did when releasing their free version of the engine which made most other engines release something similar too...

Considering 3DGS - well I don't want to sound too harsh but apart from people who did use it for years and know the engine very well there's no reason to prefer it over virtually any serious engine out there. Development of the engine seems to have stopped and even if something is going on no one can tell if development won't be halted for yet another Zorro kind of project. Apart from that the development in general is too slow - I mean look at what pretty much one guy did on the Neoaxis engine and what happened here in the last few months. 3DGS hasn't really evolved for years and is in no way worth its price - especially not when considerung a 20$/month UE4 engine. I also don't really see any serious advantages 3DGS has. The engine itself and the tools/editors are badly outdated. Lite-C once might have been a good thing (although I always was rather sceptical about it) but nowadays you simply can go for Lua / Javascript for easy scripting. If you want a bit more which is just what Lite-C is about you should go straight for C#. It pretty much fills Lite-C's role without being a proprietary solution you only can use for 3DGS...

When now talking about the other engines I think they simply will be forced to do something. They probably can stick to what e.g. Unity does with their pricing but they will need to adapt to what UE4 did i.e. also offer a very low monthly fee together with some royalties. Changes might not be evident in the near future but I guess in the next 2-3 years it will be obvious that the UE4 licensing model is extremely attractive and will catch lots of users. That's why I think that e.g. Unity will adapt in the near future. It also was told that internal discussions about changes already are going on but they don't want to knee-jerk their counterreaction which is why it'll still take quite a while...

Last edited by Toast; 04/27/14 01:35.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #440511
04/27/14 10:45
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Quote:
Considering 3DGS - well I don't want to sound too harsh but apart from people who did use it for years and know the engine very well there's no reason to prefer it over virtually any serious engine out there.
, its very cheap (com. version is only 150 euro smile ).

Quote:
I also don't really see any serious advantages 3DGS has.
, I personally don't know much of the spec differences, but in this thread http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/187356-...d88c1738cdf3056 , a poster called DaviHimura seems to have some decent arguments.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Reconnoiter] #440543
04/27/14 18:26
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Originally Posted By: Reconnoiter
its very cheap (com. version is only 150 euro smile ).

Neoaxis or Shiva don't cost me a thing in order to use the full engine with more features (not mentioning the "hidden" restrictions like Com may have weighted bones but in Com it's just one vertex per bone although that might have changed in the meantime), more modern tools, a multitude of shaders that work out of the box on anything and especially when considering using Unity's free version you also have access to an asset store with lots of assets. Especially Unity's asset store is fantastic with entire game kits, pathfinding algorithms, editor extensions, particle effects or even visual scripting solutions...

From my point of view especially the tool situation and the shader aspect are a huge downside for 3DGS. The tools didn't really evolve and still are stuck in the Half-Life 1 era. We have been promised an overhaul which also is on the forecast page but who knows how it'll turn out in the end - I actually expect nothing close to what Unity or Shiva (2.0) offers. Shaders also always were terrible in 3DGS as things that simply worked out of the box never really existed and in order to really make good use of them you have to have an in-depth understanding and should be able to write them for yourself. I also don't know if shaders on the BSP level geometry ever started working the way you'd wish them to do...

In my opinion 3DGS simply started to miss the "Zeitgeist". Look at MED - that's a mid 90s mindset. Nobody needs such a modelling tool anymore and it still got quite some love when free solutions like Blender or Wings3D existed and were good at what they do. You nowadays should be able to import from whatever tool you chose for your work. I can't even say if it now does import models with bone animations or if you still have to animate in MED...

Quote:
I personally don't know much of the spec differences, but in this thread http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/187356-...d88c1738cdf3056 , a poster called DaviHimura seems to have some decent arguments.

For the most part I fail to see real arguments here. Mentioning the lightmapping on terrains especially feels wrong as the 3DGS lightmapper always created rather unsatisfying results and I still remember people constantly asking to "outsource" the lightmap information so they could use a software like Gile[s] instead to bake their own actually decent looking lightmaps...

Talking about multiplayer capabilities also is a rather bad idea as the users in this forum did show that the 3DGS multiplayer system is in many parts a catastrophe that might in theory be able to handle some nice number of players etc. but fails badly on rather simple tasks when actually using it. What I especially remember is that you could compile whatever program of yours and make it try to connect to a 3DGS multiplayer server of someone else which results in a server crash. So in the end just as for the lightmap example the multiplayer component is there on the paper but is lacking in its execution. You still should be able to find topics about it and I think someone at a certain point started integrating RakNet into their project as the 3DGS internal system simply was unable to deliver good results...

Last edited by Toast; 04/27/14 23:45.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #440547
04/27/14 19:51
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Quote:
Especially Unity's asset store is fantastic with entire game kits, pathfinding algorithms, editor extensions, particle effects or even visual scripting solutions...


Yeah, until you get a conflict because some (lots of) Asset Store Developers are too dumb to use namespaces. Actually I don´t know how good the features are implemented in UE4, but when it comes to Unity you can find a big bunch of half-baked features. You need some awkward workarounds if you want to realize a mid-sized project.

Example? What about this: You can´t load scenes additively with baked Occlusion Culling. And you have to dig in their forums to get this information...


no science involved
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: fogman] #440553
04/27/14 23:51
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Yeah - all that glitters is not gold and as such asset store solutions might not always work as flawless as intended. When talking about Unity there is some truth to a discussion that came up in their forums after the UE4 announcements. UE4 sort of has become a service while Unity is a product you buy. In order to make a new version attractive there have to be new features. This of course sometimes leads to some half-baked stuff. That's a rather general problem though while the service idea behind the UE4 subscription creates a stronger focus on aspects like bugfixing and refining the features that are already there...

UE4's new licensing model in my opinion is the next big thing after Unity with its free version which had quite an impact on the entire industry back then. We'll probably see other engines offering similar subscription offers...

Last edited by Toast; 04/27/14 23:53.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #440559
04/28/14 08:22
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Originally Posted By: Toast

UE4's new licensing model in my opinion is the next big thing after Unity with its free version which had quite an impact on the entire industry back then. We'll probably see other engines offering similar subscription offers...


Already happenend - both Unity and CryEngine now run on a per-month payment, with Unity actually offering the least attractive option.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #440560
04/28/14 09:21
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cryengine only announced it, without source access, but 9.9 per mo is neat (and I think they will limit the available platforms). ue4's cancelling option is also neat. I wonder how crytek improved the workflow to be more user friendly (and easy). the photoshop and Max/Maya dependency of cryengine3 was a significant gate imo. a few days ago a 3rd party importer tool appeared for it, probably a similar one can be expected for cry4.
due to my little testing experiences, ue4 is much more easier than UDK was (making a new project is not a pain any more, fine asset packs, example projects, templates), with good docs and videos, but still more heavy than Unity (I used only Unity3, which was really easy), whose javascript is as easy as lite-c. but 75/mo is now simply too much.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #440572
04/28/14 11:52
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I will check UE4 when paypal payment is possible.
They work already on such a solution.

If my hardware can handle the engine I think I will switch.
Acknex is dead.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: gri] #440579
04/28/14 12:44
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I'm waiting, too until I have enough spare time laugh

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: PadMalcom] #440584
04/28/14 13:27
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Quote:
The tools didn't really evolve and still are stuck in the Half-Life 1 era.
, poor WED grin , but yeah I agree with this.

Quote:
What I especially remember is that you could compile whatever program of yours and make it try to connect to a 3DGS multiplayer server of someone else which results in a server crash.
, lol that is kindy bad. For indies though, what are the chances that someone will do that to your server? Unless speaking about MMO's or maybe competive (as in tournament / ladder games), than I can understand it is problem.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #440630
04/28/14 23:26
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Originally Posted By: sivan
but 75/mo is now simply too much.

I read 225$/month on the unity forums if you also want all of the mobile publishing add-ons. While Unity appears to recently be better for mobile apps that's around ten times more than for UE4...

Quote:
lol that is kindy bad. For indies though, what are the chances that someone will do that to your server? Unless speaking about MMO's or maybe competive (as in tournament / ladder games), than I can understand it is problem.

Well it's what came up in one of the discussion threads about the multiplayer capabilities here on the forum. It was such a surprising flaw in the system I simply had to remember and which showed up for those who actually tried to do something serious with the built in multiplayer features and commands. The internal system itself seems ... well let's not say it's completely broken but it's not what you'd expect from a system that is advertised wih MMO capabilities. Although to say the truth there might have been some improvements during the time JCL developed that porn online game...

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #440750
05/01/14 08:05
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How about the programming style ?

Is UE4 a component based, Unity like, game engine ?
You attach scripts to the gameobjects
Each script comes with its Start() and Update() function
or
Is it an "old fashion" ( the one I like laugh ) game programming style
You create your entity classes, stsrting from a list of prefabricated classes and methods

In the Game Play you have one only Main() function such as

Update() {

bob.move();
Jane.shoot();

}

Much more intuitive and user friendly, in my opinion

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440766
05/01/14 16:20
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a mix of both, but not as easy to manage as in Unity3d but easier than it was in UDK. it does not create so many dll files to run faster by avoiding too many communication among dll-s, normally only one so called game module.
you can create a new class by the class creation wizard in the editor to be pre-created with macros and other required stuff. you can select its base that can be a couple of different things, e.g. a new character class or just a general base class called actor, or a component class:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT...zard/index.html
then add code:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Programming/Basics/ClassCreation/CodeOnly/index.html
then you can put this new actor class in the level in the editor (after compiling the new class in VS2013 and restarting the editor)
or alternatively you can create Blueprint classes, or a mix of both:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Programming/Basics/ClassCreation/index.html


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #440771
05/01/14 17:50
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Thanks sivan

Do you mean that UE4 comes with a basic Actor class which contain all variables and methods which you would expect from an Actor ?
for example if you want to find the distance between John and Mary, you can write something like

dist = John.position - Mary.position;

instead of the ugly Unity code

dist = transform.position - Mary.transform.position;

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440772
05/01/14 18:02
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@AlbertoT:
You've written exactly the same line in a semantic way. It is just an API thing how this things are handled...


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: MasterQ32] #440776
05/01/14 20:53
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C++ codes look in general more ugly than unity's javascript, and a real mess comparing to lite-c. if you unhappy with it, for a lot of things visual programming can do a the job. it's basically not a lightweight hobby engine... probably it will be easier to use when some books come out.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: MasterQ32] #440789
05/02/14 10:12
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Originally Posted By: MasterQ32
@AlbertoT:
You've written exactly the same line in a semantic way. It is just an API thing how this things are handled...


Nope
It is a completely different game engine design.
It has nothing to do with API and the programming language

Unity is a "component based engine "
Although such game design has become quite popular, I dont like it , just a matter of taste

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440790
05/02/14 10:25
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Maybe but Transform is an obligatory component and thus can't be seen as a component of an object but just a fixed part of it.
In Gamestudio there are similar concepts of "Components", but are called "action" here. Only thing is that those actions aren't really controllable compared to modules / components.
A system with a single class per actor also isn't really viable because it is too limiting. You have to write a lot of code in order to share code between two classes (e.g. an actor. you would need the same code for input in a character, a vehicle, but for NPCs you need a different "input". This is much more complicated than a component based system.)

Imho the best way is to use a mixture of both (In fact, Unity supports such behaviour: Just create a base module for all your classes you want to have for your game and use this as a base class, not MonoBehaviour)


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: MasterQ32] #440796
05/02/14 11:24
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I'm far from having a solid point of view but I can see some benefits on using a not fixed transformation component while it defines the way the draw call data is computed. I mean, imagine a 2.5D render chain where the rotation part of the transformation matrix is specifically computed with a single degree of freedom instead of the three. Would this issue be a noticeable benefit?

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: MasterQ32] #440800
05/02/14 14:14
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Originally Posted By: MasterQ32
Maybe Transform is an obligatory component base class


It is an obligatory component only for a "component based engine " laugh

If you define a class Actor which contains a variable such as " position " or a method such as " Move " then you dont need to have a class Transform
You simply write, in the Loop() function

myBot.position;
myBot.Move();

instead of attaching a script to myBot :

transform.position;
rigidbody.Move();

You are right 3dgs is basically a component based engines but in the past there were engines with a different archictecture
,ex TrueVision
Having said that , I dont mean that components are bad, I mean that in my opinion they lead to a ugly code

I did hope that UE4 resumed the old fashion programming style

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440802
05/02/14 14:40
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I never even looked at UE4, but from what I read at different places, it seems to be based on classes and inheritance. So you got a base class with some properties, another classes inheriting from it adding some more properties and so on.
But they could still provide a way to also attach components like a physics body or something. Also it could make sense to have a special transform object holding the transformations, so you would still have something like:
Code:
void MyClass::Update(float delta)
{
    transform.position.x += delta;
}


Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440803
05/02/14 14:51
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Originally Posted By: AlbertoT


If you define a class Actor which contains a variable such as " position " or a method such as " Move " then you dont need to have a class Transform


Having said that , I dont mean that components are bad, I mean that in my opinion they lead to a ugly code

I did hope that UE4 resumed the old fashion programming style


As stated before, having actor classes with variables such as you list is fine, but a component oriented design does in fact lead to better code in the long run. Imagine you have another class that needs a position, a move method or similiar, but isn't in any way linked to your actor class so deriving is not an option - that'd lead to a lot of duplicated code. Say for example you want skeletal animations - believe me, you'll love to have a reusable transform class then.

You're right in that it's somewhat strange at first, and the component system was one of the reasons why I didn't like using Unity when I just came from Gamestudio (which imho doesn't have any characteristic of component based design, or any solid design whatsoever), but once you get used to it it does make work easier. A nice balance is good, though - I don't like the approach of stuffing EVERYTHING into components, either, there are cases where inheritance is a better solution.
However, with UE4, if all you want to do is create gameplay logic, you won't have to deal with much C++ anyways.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #440810
05/02/14 18:12
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Quote:



Imagine you have another class that needs a position, a move method or similiar, but isn't in any way linked to your actor class so deriving is not an option - that'd lead to a lot of duplicated code.



actually this is the main advantage of component based game engines " over traditional game engines
You attach to an entity just the methods / variables which are strictly needed

The weak point of "components" is the interaction between entities
As I said in my first post, you would accept that it is more elegant to write :

Actor john = new Actor()
Actor Bill = new Actor()

distance = John.position - Bill.position

Rather than in John's script

GameObject Bill = GameObject.Find("Bill")

distance = transform.position - Bill.transform.position

3DGS in principle use components
Have you never been fighting with those bloody void pointers ?
This is typic of components

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440812
05/02/14 18:34
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It doesn't have to be. This is not a problem of component based style but of the strict programming languages:

E.g. you could write similar code with lua:
Code:
local go = GameObject:new()

go:attach(Transform:new())
go:attach(Character:new())
go:attach(Animation:new())

-- same as go.transform.position
print(go.position) 

-- same as go.animation:playAnimation("walk")
go:playAnimation("walk")



So you see this is just a matter of language wink


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: MasterQ32] #440815
05/02/14 19:21
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uhmmm....I have never seen a Unity tutorial made by Unity experts using such coding style
maybe it works but for sure it is not a standard
The interaction among entities is a well known weak points of components

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440819
05/03/14 09:11
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Originally Posted By: AlbertoT
[quote]
3DGS in principle use components
Have you never been fighting with those bloody void pointers ?
This is typic of components


Void pointers have nothing to do with components, they're just a (rather handy) part of C. You can use them to set up a component system in lite-c I guess (as there are no templates in C), but they don't indicate any component based design in the engine at all.

You do have a point about the interaction, that can seem kind of unintiutive, and finding the desired object may even seem like undesired overhead, but I do actually prefer that over having all my objects in a global scope.

Last edited by the_clown; 05/03/14 09:14.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #440820
05/03/14 11:24
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Yes they are related items
3DGS is , in principle, a component based engine

"Actions" are components which you attach to the entities in the scene
my is a pointer to the associated entity
you is a pointer to the entity you want to interact with

if you write :

john = GameObject.Find("John");

john is a pointer to the entity john , same as "you" in 3dgs

Same as in all component based engine the interaction among entities is a weak point
Scripts must continuously Exchange information

This makes Unity and even worse 3DGS code so ugly, in my opinion

Leadwerk engine seems to have found the right compromise
It is a mix between traditional and components engines

I wonder whether UE4 offer a similar or even better solution

Last edited by AlbertoT; 05/03/14 11:32.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440822
05/03/14 14:03
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I don't really see the connection between the use of pointers and a component based architecture.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440823
05/03/14 14:25
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if interested in some actual code view, the pre-made 3rd person template character class looks like this (nothing sexy, the capital lettered U... thingies are engine macros you have to know, only the first few lines are auto generated when adding a new class via the editor wizard):
.h
Code:
// Copyright 1998-2014 Epic Games, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
#pragma once

#include "GameFramework/SpringArmComponent.h"
#include "thirdpersontestCharacter.generated.h"

UCLASS(config=Game)
class AthirdpersontestCharacter : public ACharacter
{
	GENERATED_UCLASS_BODY()

	/** Camera boom positioning the camera behind the character */
	UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category=Camera)
	TSubobjectPtr<class USpringArmComponent> CameraBoom;

	/** Follow camera */
	UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category=Camera)
	TSubobjectPtr<class UCameraComponent> FollowCamera;

	/** Base turn rate, in deg/sec. Other scaling may affect final turn rate. */
	UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category=Camera)
	float BaseTurnRate;

	/** Base look up/down rate, in deg/sec. Other scaling may affect final rate. */
	UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category=Camera)
	float BaseLookUpRate;

protected:

	/** Called for forwards/backward input */
	void MoveForward(float Value);

	/** Called for side to side input */
	void MoveRight(float Value);

	/** 
	 * Called via input to turn at a given rate. 
	 * @param Rate	This is a normalized rate, i.e. 1.0 means 100% of desired turn rate
	 */
	void TurnAtRate(float Rate);

	/**
	 * Called via input to turn look up/down at a given rate. 
	 * @param Rate	This is a normalized rate, i.e. 1.0 means 100% of desired turn rate
	 */
	void LookUpAtRate(float Rate);

	/** Handler for when a touch input begins. */
	void TouchStarted(ETouchIndex::Type FingerIndex, FVector Location);

protected:
	// APawn interface
	virtual void SetupPlayerInputComponent(class UInputComponent* InputComponent) OVERRIDE;
	// End of APawn interface
};



.cpp
Code:
// Copyright 1998-2014 Epic Games, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

#include "thirdpersontest.h"
#include "thirdpersontestCharacter.h"

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// AthirdpersontestCharacter

AthirdpersontestCharacter::AthirdpersontestCharacter(const class FPostConstructInitializeProperties& PCIP)
	: Super(PCIP)
{
	// Set size for collision capsule
	CapsuleComponent->InitCapsuleSize(42.f, 96.0f);

	// set our turn rates for input
	BaseTurnRate = 45.f;
	BaseLookUpRate = 45.f;

	// Don't rotate when the controller rotates. Let that just affect the camera.
	bUseControllerRotationPitch = false;
	bUseControllerRotationYaw = false;
	bUseControllerRotationRoll = false;

	// Configure character movement
	CharacterMovement->bOrientRotationToMovement = true; // Character moves in the direction of input...	
	CharacterMovement->RotationRate = FRotator(0.0f, 540.0f, 0.0f); // ...at this rotation rate
	CharacterMovement->JumpZVelocity = 600.f;
	CharacterMovement->AirControl = 0.2f;

	// Create a camera boom (pulls in towards the player if there is a collision)
	CameraBoom = PCIP.CreateDefaultSubobject<USpringArmComponent>(this, TEXT("CameraBoom"));
	CameraBoom->AttachTo(RootComponent);
	CameraBoom->TargetArmLength = 300.0f; // The camera follows at this distance behind the character	
	CameraBoom->bUseControllerViewRotation = true; // Rotate the arm based on the controller

	// Create a follow camera
	FollowCamera = PCIP.CreateDefaultSubobject<UCameraComponent>(this, TEXT("FollowCamera"));
	FollowCamera->AttachTo(CameraBoom, USpringArmComponent::SocketName); // Attach the camera to the end of the boom and let the boom adjust to match the controller orientation
	FollowCamera->bUseControllerViewRotation = false; // Camera does not rotate relative to arm

	// Note: The skeletal mesh and anim blueprint references on the Mesh component (inherited from Character) 
	// are set in the derived blueprint asset named MyCharacter (to avoid direct content references in C++)
}

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Input

void AthirdpersontestCharacter::SetupPlayerInputComponent(class UInputComponent* InputComponent)
{
	// Set up gameplay key bindings
	check(InputComponent);
	InputComponent->BindAction("Jump", IE_Pressed, this, &ACharacter::Jump);

	InputComponent->BindAxis("MoveForward", this, &AthirdpersontestCharacter::MoveForward);
	InputComponent->BindAxis("MoveRight", this, &AthirdpersontestCharacter::MoveRight);

	// We have 2 versions of the rotation bindings to handle different kinds of devices differently
	// "turn" handles devices that provide an absolute delta, such as a mouse.
	// "turnrate" is for devices that we choose to treat as a rate of change, such as an analog joystick
	InputComponent->BindAxis("Turn", this, &APawn::AddControllerYawInput);
	InputComponent->BindAxis("TurnRate", this, &AthirdpersontestCharacter::TurnAtRate);
	InputComponent->BindAxis("LookUp", this, &APawn::AddControllerPitchInput);
	InputComponent->BindAxis("LookUpRate", this, &AthirdpersontestCharacter::LookUpAtRate);

	// handle touch devices
	InputComponent->BindTouch(EInputEvent::IE_Pressed, this, &AthirdpersontestCharacter::TouchStarted);
}


void AthirdpersontestCharacter::TouchStarted(ETouchIndex::Type FingerIndex, FVector Location)
{
	// jump, but only on the first touch
	if (FingerIndex == ETouchIndex::Touch1)
	{
		Jump();
	}
}

void AthirdpersontestCharacter::TurnAtRate(float Rate)
{
	// calculate delta for this frame from the rate information
	AddControllerYawInput(Rate * BaseTurnRate * GetWorld()->GetDeltaSeconds());
}

void AthirdpersontestCharacter::LookUpAtRate(float Rate)
{
	// calculate delta for this frame from the rate information
	AddControllerPitchInput(Rate * BaseLookUpRate * GetWorld()->GetDeltaSeconds());
}

void AthirdpersontestCharacter::MoveForward(float Value)
{
	if ((Controller != NULL) && (Value != 0.0f))
	{
		// find out which way is forward
		const FRotator Rotation = Controller->GetControlRotation();
		const FRotator YawRotation(0, Rotation.Yaw, 0);

		// get forward vector
		const FVector Direction = FRotationMatrix(Rotation).GetUnitAxis(EAxis::X);
		AddMovementInput(Direction, Value);
	}
}

void AthirdpersontestCharacter::MoveRight(float Value)
{
	if ( (Controller != NULL) && (Value != 0.0f) )
	{
		// find out which way is right
		const FRotator Rotation = Controller->GetControlRotation();
		const FRotator YawRotation(0, Rotation.Yaw, 0);
	
		// get right vector 
		const FVector Direction = FRotationMatrix(YawRotation).GetUnitAxis(EAxis::Y);
		// add movement in that direction
		AddMovementInput(Direction, Value);
	}
}



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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #440831
05/03/14 19:24
05/03/14 19:24
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AlbertoT Offline
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Thanks

It seems a clean code

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #440832
05/03/14 19:45
05/03/14 19:45
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AlbertoT Offline
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Originally Posted By: the_clown
I don't really see the connection between the use of pointers and a component based architecture.


suppose you want to move the entity John

In 3dgs you attach an "action" to John
Action contains the c_move function with the parameter "me" which is a pointer to the entity John

In Unity you attach a script to John which contains the function

transform.Traslate()

The pointer to john is implicit

Now suppose that you want to move John only if he is close to Bill

In 3dgs you must have a pointer to Bill in John's action
In Unity you call the pointer :

bill = GameObject.Find("Bill");

in John's script

Dont you see any similarity between 3dgs and Unity ?

Dont you agree that the following code is much cleaner ?

Start()

John = new Actor()
Bill = new Actor()

Update()

if( dist = John.position - Bill.position < = ...) john.Translate();

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440833
05/03/14 21:06
05/03/14 21:06
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That code may be cleaner as long as you only have Bill and John, but it'll get damn messy as you add functionality.
Encapsulation is always desireable.
What if you have not two but 1000 actors, of different kind, weapons, characters, vehicles, whatever. How would your code look then?

Also, actions in 3dgs can hardy be compared to components. Maybe to a script component, but that's only one flavour of components you could have in a real component based architecture.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440834
05/03/14 21:10
05/03/14 21:10
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Code:
ENTITY* john = ent_create(SPHERE_MDL,vector(0,0,0),NULL);
ENTITY* bill = ent_create(SPHERE_MDL,vector(10,0,0),NULL);
if (vec_dist(&(john->x),&(bill->x)) > 100)
   bill->x += 10;


You can also create the GameObject.Find function easily in Gamestudio with the help of ent_next. All this has nothind to do with components.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #440836
05/03/14 23:18
05/03/14 23:18
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AlbertoT Offline
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Originally Posted By: the_clown

What if you have not two but 1000 actors, of different kind, weapons, characters, vehicles, whatever. How would your code look then?

Also, actions in 3dgs can hardy be compared to components. Maybe to a script component, but that's only one flavour of components you could have in a real component based architecture.


Yes Unity scripts and 3dgs Actions are similar items
Unity supplies a complete set of prefabricated components while in 3DGS you must create your own components using lose functions

Of course a traditional engine does not come with the class Actor only
It supples different kind of classes
such as the class Vehicle or the class Camera , the class light or the generic class Object for non animated items such as weapons

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440838
05/04/14 00:27
05/04/14 00:27
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Superku Offline
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It's a little off-topic but nevertheless, you don't have to use a single action or a single (global/ non-temporary) pointer to create a fully functional game with Gamestudio. Just use ent_next, ent_for_name("Bill") and so on, whatever you prefer.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Uhrwerk] #440855
05/04/14 14:08
05/04/14 14:08
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AlbertoT Offline
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Originally Posted By: Uhrwerk
Code:
ENTITY* john = ent_create(SPHERE_MDL,vector(0,0,0),NULL);
ENTITY* bill = ent_create(SPHERE_MDL,vector(10,0,0),NULL);
if (vec_dist(&(john->x),&(bill->x)) > 100)
   bill->x += 10;


You can also create the GameObject.Find function easily in Gamestudio with the help of ent_next. All this has nothind to do with components.


Ok but you can not write, for example
John.Animate()
or
bill.LookAt(john)

On th contrary the class Actor contains everything you would expect from an actor ( a character )
same as he class Camera or light or terrain etc

This makes the code much more intuitive and clean

Anyway superku is right a comparison Unity /3dgs is off topic
My question was

Can anybody describe in few words UE4 architecture ?

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440856
05/04/14 14:37
05/04/14 14:37
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sivan Offline
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I think no. But maybe if you read this page it helps a bit: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Programming/Basics/index.html


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440857
05/04/14 16:34
05/04/14 16:34
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Originally Posted By: AlbertoT
]
Ok but you can not write, for example
John.Animate()
or
bill.LookAt(john)

On th contrary the class Actor contains everything you would expect from an actor ( a character )
same as he class Camera or light or terrain etc

This makes the code much more intuitive and clean


You are absolutely right in that regard - there's no member methods in 3dgs, because lite-c is not an object oriented language. Still nothing to do with components though.
The approach you seemingly prefer sits between 3dgs and Unity - classes with encapsulation, but with deep hierarchies instead of aggregation.
That used to be the common approach (3dgs doesn't have something like this because it's horribly outdated), until game engines went mainstream, and today, component based approaches are the common way because they empower the non-programmer as creator, be it an amateur using Unity or an artist or game designer at a triple A studio. Most of the time, the people who write gameplay code simply are no educated programmers, so those who are create systems and architectures that enable other people to create stuff without having to struggle with low level code.

I do apologize for this last offtopic post. tongue

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #440858
05/04/14 17:12
05/04/14 17:12
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If you mean that component based engines are more flexible than traditional ones thanks to aggregation, that's right but just in theory


From my experience as hobbyst game programmer if an engine comes with a reasonable number of classes : Actor - Vehicle - Camera - Terrain - Math - Ray etc and each class contains a reasonable number of methods and variable then you can develop 99.9 % of the games while using an elegant and intuitive programming style

The only real advantage of components based engine is the natural multitasking, you dont need to use threads, not that easy

However higher flexibility and multitasking are important only for large projects
For casual games I dont see any reason for using components, just an horrible code nothing more

Thanks Sivan
at a first glance UE4 architecture seems quite smart

Last edited by AlbertoT; 05/04/14 17:15.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #440862
05/04/14 21:15
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Well yes they are more flexibel, but the core point is they give non-programmers and high level coders/scripters more power to create stuff that's outside the tight specification of, say, given actor and vehicle classes. This is important if you don't want to mix up engine code and gameplay logic.

And how exactly do you get "natural multitasking" with components? Oo

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #440879
05/05/14 09:55
05/05/14 09:55
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ventilator Offline OP
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maybe he means coroutines? like wait() in gamestudio and yield() in unity?

for me both concepts can be ok. sometimes the difference isn't that big. but what i don't like that much are extremely convoluted OO hierarchies. laugh

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ventilator] #440880
05/05/14 10:01
05/05/14 10:01
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In fact "component"-based system is a better object-oriented style than stacking your classes until the stack collapses wink

Loose Coupling and Composition are two common practices to keep better code and this works pretty well with "component"-based systems...
Why should i refactor the whole world interaction of a character if i can just replace the fitting loose component with another?

But i think we should move posts related to this topic into another thread, so UE4 discussion can go on here...


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: MasterQ32] #441017
05/09/14 12:41
05/09/14 12:41
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sivan Offline
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a new Unreal Tournament development starts with UE4, for free: https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/the-future-of-unreal-tournament-begins-today


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #441018
05/09/14 13:38
05/09/14 13:38
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These are great news, let's see how they'll do when it comes to content and community management of such a Project.


Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #441026
05/09/14 18:28
05/09/14 18:28
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Originally Posted By: the_clown

how exactly do you get "natural multitasking" with components? Oo


As far as I know Unity loops through the Update() functions of all scripts somehow like 3dgs wait(1)

getting back to UE4
It seems rather a traditional oriented architecture
see the code posted by sivan
Maybe many people are not that happy of components

Last edited by AlbertoT; 05/09/14 18:29.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #441034
05/09/14 20:45
05/09/14 20:45
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maybe the component system's main purpose is to present a very flexible editor, where artists and non-professional or even non-programmers can assemble complex objects easily, do a lot of simple game logic, e.g. door openings, character control, and other stuff like a complete unique sky and weather system, or trigger started effects by the new Kismet called Blueprint. it makes life really easier and game development faster, not only a toy, and can be combined with C++ classes. unfortunately the C++ programming part is not really well documented currently, only a few starter tutorials are available. so I'm just discovering it very slowly, not leaving my 3dgs stuff behind...


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #441040
05/10/14 07:25
05/10/14 07:25
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In principle you are right
However you must distinguish between a weather system and a character

The former is stand alone the latter must interact with other entities
This is the weak point of components based system
The code gets ugly and consequentely also the game logic sucks ,in my opinion

The (supposed) advantage of components is flexibiliy thanks to aggregation
Pre made classes can lack some methods and / or be redundant

Getting back ( once again ) to UE4
It seems that the engine comes with pre made classes but the developer can customize them and/or create his own classes
Am I right ?
If so , it would be the ideal compromise

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #441043
05/10/14 10:15
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Quote:
The former is stand alone the latter must interact with other entities
This is the weak point of components based system
The code gets ugly and consequentely also the game logic sucks ,in my opinion


Imho this is the strongest point of components as long as your components feature events:
Let's have a character. This character has a component named "Activator". It can trigger events on "Trigger" components. A "Trigger" component has an event named "OnTrigger". Now any object that is interactable features a "Trigger" component, no matter what the object is. Maybe an NPC, a door, an lightswitch, whatever...
Every of those triggerable objects just gets it's own "Trigger" component and registers the event "OnTrigger". In Unity terms it would be like this:

Code:
void Start()
{
    // Assume this object HAS a Trigger attached.
    this.GetComponent<Trigger>().OnTrigger += Trigger_OnTrigger;
}

void Trigger_OnTrigger(object sender, TriggerEventArgs e)
{
    // Prints the activator that triggered the trigger.
    Debug.Write(e.Activator);
}



So we don't have to subclass a "Triggerable" class to get the features shared...
Now image the same thing with subclasses. Easy going, right?
Yes, as long as we only have one shared feature.

Next thing: Having an object with the components "Trigger" "Hurtable" "Talkable"
How do you want to realise a Door and an NPC now? Both a triggerable, but only the NPC is hurtable and "talkable". Okay so far so good, also doable with classes. But now make a crate, that is only hurtable (on order to destroy it).
Now it gets complicated and to keep inheritance low you start to have a lot of duplicated code....

Just my two cents on this topic

Quote:
Getting back ( once again ) to UE4

I've taken a closer look to sivans code and it seems to me that UE4 uses a component system as well (CapsuleComponent, CameraBoom, FollowCamera, InputComponent, ...).
Looks pretty similar to Unity, you have an init phase (Constructor vs. Start), different events (SetupPlayerInputComponent vs. OnGUI) and for sure an update "loop" as well. (N.A. vs Update).
Only thing that differs is that you can build Prefabs in UE4 as a base class where you take a Prefab-Object in Unity....

So imho the engine designes are really close together...

[Please note all of the above are assumptions derived from the code sivan posted, i may be completly wrong]


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: MasterQ32] #441045
05/10/14 11:08
05/10/14 11:08
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AlbertoT Offline
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Thanks for your competent explanation
I dont argue that component based engines are powerful
If they became so popular there is a reason, I suppose
I mean that they are not user friendly thus they are not the best choice for hobbyest programmers / casual games

To detect collision , in a traditional engine you simply write something like

myBot.GetCollisionType();
You have of course previusly written
yourBot.SetCollisionType();

I suppose it is much cleaner even if less powerfull ( maybe)

About your interpretation of UE4 architecture it seems to me rather a mix of traditional and component based engines

UE4 apparentely supplies a" Character " class
This is in conflict with the "holy Bible" of components
Classes in a components based engine must be absolutely generic
Also Unity actually is a mix

Did you try out Torque engine ( not to be confused with Torque3d)
This is a pure component based engine

A nightmere, beleive me

Last edited by AlbertoT; 05/10/14 11:18.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: AlbertoT] #441333
05/19/14 18:10
05/19/14 18:10
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looks like someone stipped the elemental demo out of the editor and made a standalone executable out of it ...


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Kartoffel] #441334
05/19/14 18:36
05/19/14 18:36
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sivan Offline
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it is possible to make any of them, maybe I offered here something to provide if there is an interest... but great to check, as I quit subscription just before 4.1.

one near future funny feature is win xp support by opengl coming with 4.2.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #441417
05/22/14 09:05
05/22/14 09:05
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sivan Offline
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today I have made my 2nd UE4 bug report, now with a workaround. another engine requiring polishing... just like working with 3DGS grin but technical feedback is much slower.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #441446
05/23/14 07:05
05/23/14 07:05
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Since you have access to the source code, do they allow pull requests in their github repository?


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: WretchedSid] #441447
05/23/14 08:35
05/23/14 08:35
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my account is inactive, but I'm sure yes. their main concept is to allow to contribute new stuff, and it has already happened in a couple of times.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #442124
06/12/14 09:39
06/12/14 09:39
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Paypal support is very close.

From the forums....

Quote:
Quick update on PayPal -- we're in the process of testing the integration right now and hope to release it within the next week or so. Fingers crossed....


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: gri] #442137
06/12/14 19:54
06/12/14 19:54
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Ä°stanbul, Turkey
Quad Online
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@JustSid

it works like larger open source projects, with reviews and community feedback and reputation etc. As you might guess, getting a new feature pulled requires more work than fixing bugs(new feature needs to be really useful and polished). Bug fix pull requests are easier to get pulled in and generally goes down like this: you post a fix, people suggest how it can be done better or you need to get your fix aligned with coding conventions and then you fix the fix and then it gets pulled.

Also getting code into unreal tournament is much faster than filing a pull request to engine. Since like, it's in rapid development phase, and cost of breaking something is less compared to engine.

There is like ~200 merged and ~40 open pull requests on git right now on 4.2 branch

Last edited by Quad; 06/12/14 19:56.

3333333333
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #442154
06/13/14 11:48
06/13/14 11:48
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I quite like their AnswerHub, where you can ask the developers in several categories, but it is a bit different from a forum. threads are tracked whether answered or not, and you can reactivate it by further questions. it seems to be a good solution to manage questions and answers in a huge quantity, and they take it seriously. for example one of my crash reports was finally pushed towards the proper specialists when it was too tricky for the standard answering guy, and they could find a workaround what to modify in source code and ini files.

moreover, here users can get karma points if you ask/resolve something important, or if you answer other users' question. and you get badges for notable or popular questions. maybe it is good for the developers to track and know better their users personally. (I have 21+2+2 after 2 problem solving discussions.)


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #442162
06/13/14 14:40
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sivan: ever heard of http://stackoverflow.com/ ? o.O

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Slin] #442222
06/16/14 07:18
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I frequently read it but never realized its system grin


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #442552
06/25/14 06:39
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sivan Offline
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@gri: paypal works now.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #442557
06/25/14 09:39
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thanx, yes I've seen already in the Unreal forum.

whooohooo! First I have to try it on my laptop. But the next days I will pimp an older machine for rendering.

Sadly I have much work today and get home at late evening.

But hey! Now I have access to the engine.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: gri] #443478
07/17/14 08:10
07/17/14 08:10
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sivan Offline
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Speedtree is now in 4.3 https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-43-release but costs another monthly 19 USD http://store.speedtree.com/product/speedtree-for-ue4/ and exported models can't be used with other engine. fortunately it does not require continuous subscription similarly to the engine.

the visual behaviour tree editor is magic laugh


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #444193
08/01/14 21:30
08/01/14 21:30
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Just played 2 days with UE4 and did the programming tutorial. This mixture of Blueprint (Drag & Drop programming) and C++ is weired, I'd prefer to do it all in Visual Studio. But nevertheless, the result looks nice (visually) and the game templates a great.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: PadMalcom] #444202
08/02/14 13:39
08/02/14 13:39
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I agree.
probably it is made for a team, where programmers do the game core in C++, and artists and level designers i.e. non-programmers can fine tweak things by blueprints, ratchet would be very satisfied with it laugh


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #444203
08/02/14 13:43
08/02/14 13:43
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Are you kidding? That blueprint & c++ mixture is awesome. Blueprints have stuff like constructors, and interfaces and events and stuff -not sure maybe even inheritance-. For me it would be like do only necessary stuff in c++ rest in blueprint.


3333333333
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #444289
08/05/14 10:23
08/05/14 10:23
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I think one just has to get used to it! laugh No I played around with C++ and the Unreal SDK some more and find traps everywhere. The weiredest thing is that I can run some C++ - Functions when playing the game in the editor but I cannot use them when I publish my game. I'll keep investigating wink

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: PadMalcom] #444293
08/05/14 14:14
08/05/14 14:14
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sivan Offline
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maybe because platform specific stuff?

and yeah, it requires more organized design and programming. and learning blueprints is a must, fortunately it does worth the time... if you have enough laugh


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #444656
08/16/14 11:51
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I just created a model with fuse, imported it into UE4 and it works! 5 Minutes work for a rigged and animated AAA model with spec and normal map. This... is... nice!

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: PadMalcom] #444717
08/17/14 17:14
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that you can sell soon on the upcoming marketplace. or offer for free.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: PadMalcom] #444948
08/23/14 10:33
08/23/14 10:33
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Originally Posted By: PadMalcom
I just created a model with fuse, imported it into UE4 and it works! 5 Minutes work for a rigged and animated AAA model with spec and normal map. This... is... nice!

Is Fuse worth its money? Are you satisfied with the results?

BTW:
Happy Birthday! smile

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #444949
08/23/14 10:39
08/23/14 10:39
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Mainz
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What's fuse?

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: oliver2s] #444950
08/23/14 10:41
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Originally Posted By: oliver2s
What's fuse?

The Google is not strong with you? grin

https://www.mixamo.com/fuse

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #444951
08/23/14 10:50
08/23/14 10:50
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Sure I did a Google search: https://www.google.de/?gws_rd=ssl#q=fuse wink

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: oliver2s] #444953
08/23/14 12:34
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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #444955
08/23/14 12:52
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Fuse is a simple drag and drop character creator that works pretty and rigs your models to be animated. The bad part is that you need to pay mixamo a lot of money to animate your model. Some animations are free but those are really limited. If you DO have some fbx animations for a human skeleton fuse is a good buy laugh

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: PadMalcom] #448658
02/15/15 09:13
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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #448666
02/16/15 09:07
02/16/15 09:07
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That's more than webgl, it's asm.js support.


3333333333
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #448744
02/19/15 15:04
02/19/15 15:04
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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449056
03/02/15 18:53
03/02/15 18:53
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ue4 is now free, no monthly payment. GG every other engine.
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

Last edited by Quad; 03/02/15 18:54.

3333333333
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449057
03/02/15 19:06
03/02/15 19:06
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I really think this is a smart move.. now, I simply see no reason why someone should use Gamestudio tongue Unity is also heavily tackled by this... I think 5% royalties are very OK, because if you really make more than 3K per quarter, you can really afford the next 150 USD of the next 3K! All the up-front costs were killing Unity for me, now I'm heavily breathing and I really get excited about Unreal grin

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449058
03/02/15 19:23
03/02/15 19:23
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Originally Posted By: Quad
GG every other engine

Yep, that's it. Time to download UE4 I guess.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Superku] #449060
03/02/15 21:37
03/02/15 21:37
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sivan Offline
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heh, I wanted to subscribe again this week grin (I waited a few months because 4.7 was said to introduce significant C++ related changes)
and everybody will get 30usd to spend in marketplace who subscribed earlier. nice present. probably their forum will be heavily overloaded in the following months (it was already very active)

its financial side is also very interesting... maybe they want to get money mainly from the marketplace stuff?


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449061
03/02/15 21:56
03/02/15 21:56
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Well there's still the fact that UE4 does have a rather steep learning curve compared to Unity (and Gamestudio for that).
So I guess the kind of devs who used Unity for its simplicity will probably stay there for quiet a while.
Economically though, this just blows every other product from the market.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #449062
03/02/15 22:12
03/02/15 22:12
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In light of the news of ue4 being free, unity is holding a live-streamed very special announcement event in 18 hours at San Francisco GDC 2015: https://twitter.com/unity3d/status/572448662355243008 grin

it's ON!

though i do not expect them to go free and open source like ue4


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #449063
03/02/15 22:16
03/02/15 22:16
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Originally Posted By: the_clown
Well there's still the fact that UE4 does have a rather steep learning curve


Ue4 also has immense amount of video tutorials direct from Epic, samples and template projects.


3333333333
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449064
03/02/15 22:30
03/02/15 22:30
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sivan Offline
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yeah, you could spend 2 lives to watch all the videos grin

unfortunately the documentation has many missing part, but sometimes the developers appear unexpectedly in forum threads to help you out when you want to use undocumented features of the engine. (e.g. in a custom level streaming question they pasted in some code from their unfinished game called Fornite, what I need to port my game concept from 3dgs to ue4)

I'm sure unity also has an appropriate response on it... in a game dev article a developer (of Wateland2) said porting their game from unity 4.5 to 5 will allow much more users to mod the game...


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449065
03/02/15 22:47
03/02/15 22:47
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and hey,
looks like that $30 is effective immediately



unity better announce something good to keep their users on board.

right now the forums/online communities and twitter is waiting patiently(but in the brink of riot) and the hype is up about that announcement. They better announce something good or it means riot.

Last edited by Quad; 03/02/15 22:49.

3333333333
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449066
03/02/15 23:25
03/02/15 23:25
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also i know i am kinda spamming but:

idk why but i find this funny. this shows up on the ue4 launcher front page, first page you see when you install it new:


goes there when clicked:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT...mpaign=learntab


3333333333
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449071
03/03/15 08:07
03/03/15 08:07
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sivan Offline
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ha-ha grin
earlier only a short Wiki post existed about how to port from Unity3d4 to UE4. this is war grin but Epic is not brave enough to do something similar with 3DGS A8!!! grin


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449075
03/03/15 09:32
03/03/15 09:32
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Could be because they don't know it exists.

Last edited by the_clown; 03/03/15 09:33.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #449080
03/03/15 13:45
03/03/15 13:45
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shots fired.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449088
03/03/15 22:54
03/03/15 22:54
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Originally Posted By: Quad
unity better announce something good to keep their users on board.

Unity now is free too...

http://pics.computerbase.de/6/3/4/8/5/2.jpg

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #449101
03/04/15 15:50
03/04/15 15:50
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I'll just say fair enough.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449102
03/04/15 16:03
03/04/15 16:03
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I kinda like this trend. Sure, it's sad that this could kill smaller ones like A8 but game engines are getting more and
more sophisticated and smaller dev teams or one-man developers are having a hard time keeping up because
without all these features there's a shitload to do (like graphics programming for example) if you don't
use top notch engines - which lot's of people cannot afford.

But by providing these tools for free they allow these developers to focus less on engine related problems/limitations
but on the game itself which, I think, will cause improvements in graphics and gameplay to occur faster then before.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Kartoffel] #449105
03/04/15 17:24
03/04/15 17:24

M
Malice
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I have personally been road blocked in ue4 for a few months. Blueprints is slow and blows big balls. I can see a total none-programmer loving this feature. However, I hate it, and I still don't know c++. Rock meet hard place! Tell you what I'd love. A 3dgs app that lets my write up lite-c and then converts it to those dumbass blueprints. Now that would be awesome! Or converts it to whatever Unity uses. I am sick of trying to learn 20 new ways, to do what I already can do now.
Can someone tell me why they just don't make a "Bring your own langue" game development environment? Who abandons scripting??? WTF!

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ] #449107
03/04/15 18:08
03/04/15 18:08
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Originally Posted By: Malice
I am sick of trying to learn 20 new ways, to do what I already can do now.

Yeah that's exactly my problem, too. Even if it's just one new thing to learn, let's say UE4, I currently don't have the will power to learn the new editor, C++ and ways of doing things.
Instead I prefer to just code my games the way I know it, even if it means they suck even more than they could with UE4.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Superku] #449109
03/04/15 18:41
03/04/15 18:41

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Yup, I don't want to hijack the thread but this is how I see my current reality. I can build decent demos in 3dgs. So I am going to stop focusing on being programmer, artist, shader want-to-be, ect.
I will be the one man creation machine I am. This means building fast and decent demos with 3dgs, hiring a UE4 or Unity team to produce the high end demo and then Kickstarting to finishing the project with the UE4 team.

@Superku you have tons of project material that could actively be, being converted by a small team that knows UE4 very good. This frees you to create a game not all the extras. With your materiel set you can turn down the level of work and stay 3 months ahead of the UE4 as they are literally recreating the project level by level and adding the highest levels of paint and shader as possible. You should be able to demonstrate ideas that 3dgs can not achieve and any really skill team should be able to convert it to the newer engine features (e.g. destructible walls). Your hiring a team to re-engineer your project or reverse-engineer your game (Which ever term best fits the technical langue), and I believe great thing can be created this way, using an actual 3dgs reference game and written design instructions(Video and messaging too).

But ok, let me jump off this thread. Sorry to cut in folks...

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Superku] #449115
03/04/15 19:28
03/04/15 19:28
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Originally Posted By: Superku
Instead I prefer to just code my games the way I know it, even if it means they suck even more than they could with UE4.
The same way i'm thinking and beacuse of this i would rather pay for an A9 upgrade then take UE5 for free. UE4 is really powerfull engine, but he did not guarantee that i will make my game faster and better. I'm one who is still happy with Acknex, and if one day i see that he is totally dead, the next logical move would be UE, but for now I'm far from it.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Iglarion] #449117
03/04/15 19:46
03/04/15 19:46
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The best advice I can give to anyone is to never stop learning. Acknex's way of doing things is lightyears behind in anything modern and C++ may seem more complicated, but once you grok it you will understand how incredibly inferior A8 really is.

Being good at something is, well, good, but it's not an excuse to not switch to something better. That is of course unless you have an already quite progressed game, like Superku does. It makes zero sense for him to port Superku to another engine, not in this state. For new projects and everyone else however, I can only recommend to look into the alternatives.

Seriously, never stop learning. Especially if you consider this to be more than a hobby. You'll always have to learn new things if you enter this industry and stopping to learn means you'll be left behind soon. This industry is moving fast, keep up with it. Also, learning new things is fun too laugh


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: WretchedSid] #449118
03/04/15 19:51
03/04/15 19:51
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The second best advice I can give to anyone is to stay the fuck away from the gaming industry. Terrible wages for a life sucking job.

Join a start up with money behind it and enjoy standing in the fallout of the money flying around for a bit, or join one of these enterprise companies that has been established for some time. Your choice, the first one will probably net you a little bit less and have you back on the street after a couple of years, while the other is less fun and gives you less freedom.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: WretchedSid] #449119
03/04/15 19:52
03/04/15 19:52
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PS: If you can't program, you can still make Minecraft Let's Plays.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: WretchedSid] #449121
03/04/15 20:49
03/04/15 20:49
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Lgh
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Lgh


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: WretchedSid] #449123
03/04/15 21:55
03/04/15 21:55
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Originally Posted By: WretchedSid
The second best advice I can give to anyone is to stay the fuck away from the gaming industry. Terrible wages for a life sucking job.

Join a start up with money behind it and enjoy standing in the fallout of the money flying around for a bit, or join one of these enterprise companies that has been established for some time. Your choice, the first one will probably net you a little bit less and have you back on the street after a couple of years, while the other is less fun and gives you less freedom.


That is true for any software startup / company. Not just game industry. Programming in general is a life sucking job and if you do not absolutely love it on a Stockholm Syndrome level, do not even think about it grin


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449124
03/04/15 23:09
03/04/15 23:09
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@Sid
But looking at your pictures on facebook it seems to be a pretty nice job you have there!


Professional Edition
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--------------------
http://www.yueklet.de
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: alibaba] #449126
03/04/15 23:43
03/04/15 23:43
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Ä°stanbul, Turkey
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For everyone who says "but, i already know lite-c... etc."

do this:
read this:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Programming/Introduction/index.html

then read all stuff under gameplay programming on the right pane.

from there on it should be easy to convert whatever you wrote in lite-c to unreal c++.

rest is figuring out a pipeline to converting your assets to unreal engine.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: alibaba] #449127
03/04/15 23:58
03/04/15 23:58
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@Quad: But the games industry is (un)arguably the worst in that regard. The others pay at least decently.

Originally Posted By: alibaba
@Sid
But looking at your pictures on facebook it seems to be a pretty nice job you have there!

I'm not working in the games industry though!


Shitlord by trade and passion. Graphics programmer at Laminar Research.
I write blog posts at feresignum.com
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: WretchedSid] #449130
03/05/15 03:02
03/05/15 03:02

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@Sid - "Ouch" you do recall I am 100% home taught. I learned by doing and studying you guys work. The jump to C++ is more then just a langue switch for me. It is like 20 University classes I've never taken. e.g. programming logic and design. But I do thank you for the encouragement to both learn and not become a game programmer. I am a creativity type with no desire or ability to be a paycheck corporate programmer.
-- Also, Sid, I can see how my port idea for Superku was dumb. However, there is still no reason he can not use A8 as a demoing tool for future projects.

@Quad - Totally Awesome, thank you. If you are using UE4 maybe I can get advice from time to time.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ] #449131
03/05/15 03:28
03/05/15 03:28
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Ä°stanbul, Turkey
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I am not actually using it, it's more like i am just poking it with a stick.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449134
03/05/15 09:09
03/05/15 09:09
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this new programming link is great, and also the unity to ue4 is worthy to read as a start.
I have been got stuck a bit with my AI development in lite-c, C++ requires more organized work but offers more structured and flexible work. And the visual debugging possibilities of UE4 behaviour tree is really great! Of course, all the Blueprint and Behaviour Tree stuff can be later rewritten in C++ to be more efficient, but for prototyping they are awesome. When Blueprints get complex they are more difficult to look over than a well structured code package.

what I suggest is to start with the general tutorial videos:
- Introduction to the UE4 Editor

then to get a blueprint overview is very important, even if you think you don't need, only C++. they are essential to understand the engine's logic:
- UE4 Blueprint Quickshot (to see what they can do in a very short form)
- Introduction to Blueprints (gives deeper knowledge)
- Blueprint Essentials (a quick but useful feature overview)

and the 3rd person blueprint series !!! to understand how it really works, including materials, particle effects, FBX import, animation:
- Introduction to Blueprint 3rd Person Game Creation

then you can do the programming basics (which also uses blueprints), you don't really need to deal with the engine source:
- Introduction to UE4 Programming

then a good written tutorial on the Wiki:
- First Person Shooter C++ Tutorial

and a video series again to get familiar with AI made with behaviour tree and blueprint:
- AI Guard Tutorial

and if you get bored, discover the Content Examples project laugh then you can get the source from GitHub, and go through Characted, Pawn and other important source files, to understand the whole framework's logic, when to use the Game Mode, and when AI Controller of a Character instead of directly the Character etc. it is a complex but very motivating system. after a long learning you can work faster, while in 3dgs after a short learning you need to develop your tools and framework in a more time consuming way. but if you want to make good materials in ue4, it is handy if you learn some shader programming in 3dgs.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ] #449135
03/05/15 10:40
03/05/15 10:40
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Originally Posted By: Malice
@Sid - "Ouch" you do recall I am 100% home taught. I learned by doing and studying you guys work. The jump to C++ is more then just a langue switch for me. It is like 20 University classes I've never taken.

I haver never seen a university from the inside in my whole life. And never heard of anyone who could program on more than a theoretical level after having just attended one.

So, you have to learn C++? What's the big deal? That it looks scary and that the internet says it's such a complex and terrifying language? The worst part about C++ are templates, and you don't even need to touch them if you don't feel like it. The rest is just a matter of learning a couple of more concepts.

Come on man, everything looks scarier from afar. That is, except of my mom, who looks kinda cute from far away and gets terrifying once you get too close to run away.


Shitlord by trade and passion. Graphics programmer at Laminar Research.
I write blog posts at feresignum.com
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: WretchedSid] #449139
03/05/15 14:05
03/05/15 14:05

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@Sivan -
I read a $2 book "Mastering Unreal Blueprints" and did the insane blueprint web to make a cascading IF set, for a many set of frames flipbook cycle. But I have done the first 3 educations you listed. UE4 is awesome, however, like you say - it take a lot of work to get to a effective level of use. Thanks very much for the study plan !!

@Sid - Lol grin
Okay, you got me. Maybe it is just intimidation. Thank you too. I'll report back in, in a few months. Because if I can learn it, then TRULY anyone can.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ] #449141
03/05/15 14:46
03/05/15 14:46
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If you want to have a book, I heard good things about this one: http://www.amazon.com/Accelerated-C-Practical-Programming-Example/dp/020170353X (note, I have NOT read it myself). It has less handholding with regards to "oh, that idiot probably doesn't even know what a variable is", and gets you right into the important bits.


Shitlord by trade and passion. Graphics programmer at Laminar Research.
I write blog posts at feresignum.com
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: WretchedSid] #449149
03/05/15 18:43
03/05/15 18:43

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OK I'll grab it. The langue is not real that different. java, c, c#, C++ all really similar. However, the logic and design has been said to be vastly different. But, I will see and report back.

-- Fun Fact -- The lite-c manual sucked so bad at explaining Pointers, I had to ask @Sid, who was kind enough to take make a pm or two to teach me. lol Thanks Sid..

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ] #449150
03/05/15 19:57
03/05/15 19:57
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I also sucked a lot with pointers in lite-c, and memory allocations of struct arrays of struct arrays, and access them in several ways, but it was a very useful experience. in C++ and UE4 fortunately you can work with references, which can be more convenient. and in UE4 memory handling is made easier by helpers and garbage collection.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449152
03/05/15 23:55
03/05/15 23:55
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Ä°stanbul, Turkey
Quad Online
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If you already know lite-c and want a smoother transition to pointers, disable pointer detection/conversion thing that lite-c does. #define PRAGMA_POINTER


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449167
03/06/15 13:54
03/06/15 13:54
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my little soldiers marching towards UE4... (Fragmotion FBX export works perfectly)



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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449195
03/07/15 14:25
03/07/15 14:25
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Also, if anyone tried the ue4 and editor before and it performed poorly, i found that 4.7 vastly improves editor performance on lower-end machines.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #449200
03/07/15 21:35
03/07/15 21:35
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I can confirm it. What is especially much better is terrain and instanced vegetation rendering performance (I played with it today a bit). I hope animation performance improvements come in 4.8 as promised.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449204
03/08/15 08:01
03/08/15 08:01
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That blueprint stuff is awesome! I just started watching videos about it and making dynamic lights switching on and off for actors moving into a volume is really a snap, done in just a few seconds, without coding something.

Awwww... and the shading - awesome!

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: HeelX] #449207
03/08/15 12:51
03/08/15 12:51
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Originally Posted By: HeelX
That blueprint stuff is awesome! I just started watching videos about it and making dynamic lights switching on and off for actors moving into a volume is really a snap, done in just a few seconds, without coding something.

I also liked examples where you could see someone doing a simple arcade game like space invaders. It really is a powerful feature and I guess the only problem about it is to stop yourself from using it for anything as its performance while not terribly bad is not the best either... wink

Last edited by Toast; 03/08/15 12:52.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #449220
03/09/15 02:25
03/09/15 02:25
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Downloaded Unreal, opened it, had no idea what to do or even where to start, realized my years of 3DGS experience mean nothing with a real engine, cried myself to sleep.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Feindbild] #449223
03/09/15 08:07
03/09/15 08:07
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sivan Offline
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buy a huge popcorn and watch & do the videos I mentioned above laugh (if you just watch them you will not learn it because you fall asleep)


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449228
03/09/15 12:08
03/09/15 12:08
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Let's see how Crytek reacts to this whole development laugh


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Kartoffel] #449229
03/09/15 12:37
03/09/15 12:37
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They already did afaik by not reacting at all... They also had a GDC presentation showcasing some new features and stuff, but they didn't change anything about their pricing policy so far and I think it unlikely to happen tbh.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #449232
03/09/15 14:18
03/09/15 14:18
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They are said to be in a financial trouble.
And cryengine requires some 3rd party licences to have e.g. for audio, Photoshop is needed for texture conversions etc. Not so indie-friendly. I quickly checked it last year, but had problems with the asset pipeline. And no project system: one SDK is one project. Probably great for professional studios...


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449233
03/09/15 16:33
03/09/15 16:33

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Malice
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@sivan are you now the new Head of 3DGS to UE4 transition team? The pied piper of Unreal...?
I many of you are jumping over to UE4 maybe you can carve out a corner on the UE4 Forum. If so Let me know, my bags are already packed for the move :-D

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ] #449241
03/09/15 20:32
03/09/15 20:32
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Originally Posted By: Feindbild
Downloaded Unreal, opened it, had no idea what to do or even where to start
what do you think why so many people still use 3dgs grin

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: CodeMaster] #449242
03/09/15 21:03
03/09/15 21:03

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Quote:
what do you think why so many people still use 3dgs grin

I would say its not that UE4 is hard. Its a good system with good guides. However, it is not a lone-wolf system. It suites minimum size teams but not the best for a single person. 3DGS is harder to learn, but supports a single developer style creation.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: CodeMaster] #449247
03/10/15 10:04
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@Malice: haha, I see no rats around laugh it is possible to make a 3DGS refugees page on the forum e.g. at General Discussion grin ...and maybe a 3DGS to UE4 page would be useful...


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449248
03/10/15 13:04
03/10/15 13:04

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Quote:
I see no rats around laugh

As I recall the animated movie, the Piper lead the villages children away when the village leaders didn't the bill.
A fitting metaphor for engine that doesn't maintain its services and see it's users leaving in masses. wink

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ] #449270
03/11/15 11:05
03/11/15 11:05
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to be honest I know pied piper from here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2LG7JXK5mQ laugh


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449288
03/12/15 10:57
03/12/15 10:57
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I realized if you want to test real performance it is better to test run the project in standalone mode, and fps can be written out by a console command stat_fps.
It runs fine in 1366x768, even with 400 animated characters onscreen (with LOD, the same I use in 3DGS) and some thousand instanced static mesh trees, having billboard LOD (shader can be get from LandscapeMountains demo). A desert scene could perform even better laugh



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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449289
03/12/15 11:39
03/12/15 11:39
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@sivan, which engine has higher fps with your setup (army, trees etc.), gamestudio or unreal4? Unreal4 I take it?

Thanks for sharing your experiences with unreal4 by the way.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Reconnoiter] #449291
03/12/15 12:54
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it is a bit difficult to compare them, but approximately:
- with lower quality stuff I use in MapBuilder (small lod and clipping distances, simple sky cube, simple fog, terrain lod with 2 times smaller vertex resolution, bone animation shader similarly with 400 similar characters, simple shaders especially for lods etc.) and with about max 1000 tree and building entities per level, 3dgs is faster. even if a few thousands of grass models are placed with short clipping (having no collision!).
- but over a certain scene size and detail level, I mean e.g. thousands of trees, 3dgs performance falls rapidly down to unplayable level (I've never used the model merging offered by the TUST library), while UE4 is more stable and optimized for such an environment, even beside an advanced sky system, better shadows, complex vegetation and terrain shaders with physically based rendering, longer view distance of terrain (I try to scale lod distances and clipping approx similarly). probably if I optimize the environment shaders I got from UE4 samples it would perform a bit better. and UE4 renders faster higher poly models thanks to its effective occlusion culling, and other many optimization tricks I don't know.
...and soon I will test it with a nice water, and with many moving and colliding characters on the navmesh (what I will probably replace with my own pathfinder).

basically, working with UE4 goes a bit faster after you get familiar with ue4 editor and its sub-editors:
- for your free subscription you get cool textures, models, materials, animations, and game play codes (or blueprints) you can use freely.
- I find blueprint visual scripting difficult to overview over a certain detail, but cool and fast for simple things.
- the programming side is much more complex! but there are UE4 helper solutions for everything (e.g. dynamic arrays) to make memory handling safer, which requires significant time to get familiar with, especially to build C++ and blueprint classes onto each other smoothly. it is very difficult comparing to lite-c, and requires more preliminary learning and planning!


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449300
03/12/15 18:35
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A some month ago, I downloaded Unreal engine and I started to make the same level that I already did in A8. I very carefully make complete level to keep everything the same like in my 3DGS level - position, size, settings, number of models,... everything. And fuck!!! A8 is faster?! Can someone explain to me HOW THIS IS POSSIBLE? All this time I was convinced A8 is an poor and outdated engine. I expected all will explode with Unreal Engine, but this has not happened frown
To make things worse for me, this Blueprint thing seems quite confusing and is not useful as I thought, and writing code with C++ is not funny - it's very complicated and hard for me, and Lite-C here have a big advantage.
I must admit that I not enjoy working with this Engine, maybe is too hard for my level of knowledge -> I do not know, but I belive that soon it will be removed frown

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: IDontLikeSoccer] #449303
03/13/15 08:47
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This performance gap can be explained very easily: A8 IS very, VERY outdated - that means there are only so many ways you can torture your hardware with it. If you build a scene that runs well in A8, it probably is not very complex by modern standards.
Now, you port this not very complex scene to UE4, an industrial-grade, state of the art engine, and suddenly it performs WORSE. How is this possible?
Well, the short answer is, UE4 is very very potent, offers A LOT of features, very modern technology, and these features simply come with a performance cost, even if you do not make full use of them. And if your PC is a bit older, it will have problems. UE4 is not designed to run on old machines out of the box, you can make it perform well on older hardware but you'll have to enforce some optimisations that it may not apply per default.

However, a very complex scene, using a lot of effects and features that UE4 offers you, and that runs well on a modern machine, will run very slow, if at all, when ported to A8, EVEN on the modern machine.

Long story short, UE4 has higher baseline hardware requirements than A8, yes. If your PC doesn't meet them, you will have poor performance no matter how complex your scene, and you may get better performance in A8 as long as your scene is not too complex.
To make use of UE4s potential you will have to upgrade your machine.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: the_clown] #449307
03/13/15 11:01
03/13/15 11:01
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@sivan @the_clown, interesting but makes sense. So basically GS3d performance is good enough unless you go for heavy first/third person shooters or high-budget games like graphics (which is harder to get right anyway as an indie unless you buy models or work with a team).

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Reconnoiter] #449312
03/13/15 11:58
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it really depends on what you need, what are your preferences. the best to test both laugh

---

with simple graphics and simple scenes 3dgs performs well, easy to use, flexible, basically I like it. you can start with very basic knowledge, and go forward, but if you want to make some high quality stuff, you have to make your own tools, development environment (I made MapBuilder because WED is from the nineties), and shader package, performance falls very rapidly with complexity (entity and view quantity), difficult to get high quality graphics assets for free/cheap price, difficult to establish a team. I need large open scenes, where 3dgs even with the Pro edition has certain limits I would like to break through.

---

with UE4 you get a huge complex high quality package, requiring much longer time to get familiar with, optimized for modern hardware, basically for the future, which is great as game development is not an instant thing. so your potential players are different (I would not say limited). it means you have a lower basic FPS, but it falls not so much as you increase quality or complexity, thanks to several optimizations. and in UE4 editor there are simple scalability options to decrease quality and get more power, I use it intensively, because my notebook is just over minimal requirements, but apparently I can approximate 3DGS performance beside a slightly higher quality and scene complexity (it is not possible to set the same test environment, the renderer is very different). I will see how it goes with a real RTS system after I port my pathfinding solution (the built in navmesh is fast but rather for 1st/3rd person games with relatively similar enemies, and with limited AI decision making possibilities).

when you start a new project with UE4 you can check the available templates both for Blueprints and C++, thus you can get a basic character with animation and movement stuff, and it is not so bad to set up simple enemy AI behaviour, which is a long work with 3dgs. and there are several free to use samples and sample games with free assets, and game-play related solutions, directly from professional developers.

moreover, there is a backward support for Win XP made recently, targeting lower end hardware by using OpenGL instead of DirectX, but I have not tested yet...


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449335
03/15/15 18:37
03/15/15 18:37

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Malice
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Now this is what I've been waiting for.. UE4.7.1 introduces blueprint components that stack in GUI drag and drop.
https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Videos/Pla...deo=qr4ZjieAQKY

This is what I spent YEARS trying to build for 3gds. Build basic functionality once in many small parts, then drag and drop them on to the Entity you wish to enable with the functionality.
How many time have you rewritten the same basic movements before adding the unique functions on top. Why would you want too? Tell the true, you can code a basic player blind at this point, right? Because every time you do a project, you had to either have a c file in you personal library or write it fresh, even if it is exactly the same every time. However if you wrote basic gravity and movement once for your library, you benefit yourself or level works by being able to drag and drop that basic script on to any entity.

The idea of this component script building will shoot UE4 into beginner friendly zones. Experienced programmer will build a library of these thing and newbies can collect and uses them to creat games in lightening time.

This is no different from me grabbing and hacking(modifying) code from the 3dgs wiki. However the implementation is so simple and visual that beginners will love it and modify-learners like me will quickly be hacking at these components to understand how they work and how to build custom behaviors on top of them.

Last edited by Malice; 03/16/15 00:12.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ] #449338
03/15/15 21:48
03/15/15 21:48
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Toast Offline
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I followed your link and read this:
Quote:
This intermediate level video introduces a way to break the functionality of your games

Now that's a neat feature... grin

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Toast] #449340
03/16/15 00:09
03/16/15 00:09

M
Malice
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Lol ok.
Quote:
This intermediate level video introduces a way to break the functionality of your games up into a series of modular Blueprintable Components. With this technique, you can quickly construct in-game assets with complex behaviors right inside your game world, just by dragging and dropping!


A8 templates do what besides take up space? However they should have worked like this..

Last edited by Malice; 03/16/15 00:11.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ] #449354
03/16/15 13:37
03/16/15 13:37
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Such a blueprints/templates system is only viable if the dev team is large enough. Not only to implement it, but also to update it to prevent it from becoming a broken mess after ~ >1 year. Better to just ignore such large templates for gs3d and add more short sed templates / code snippets (complex and/or often used). Those are always usefull.

Though to be fair, it might work for gs3d because gs3d doesn't get updated anymore* so such a system only needs to be implemented and never needs to be updated grin

*atleast for the time being

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Reconnoiter] #449355
03/16/15 13:47
03/16/15 13:47
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I think the UE API is quite mature and besides some very few minor fixes I would only expect added functionality but no changes breaking existing blueprints. As a result it is a lot easier to just use blueprints for small teams instead of writing code for everything.

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Slin] #449356
03/16/15 15:26
03/16/15 15:26

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@Reconnoiter - Small snippets is what I'm talking about. However if they had GUI drag and drop and the ability to stack then you could build 3dgs full games this way. Load the in game editor, drop gravity and basic movement on the player Entity and the editor writes out the actual lite-c file. Not Hard! The idea is sound, I've had it working. However 3dgs GUI choke point and my lack of skill in building a snippet library made it something I couldn't finish.
I am not talking about the blueprint system, I am talking about single GUI icons(Components Blueprints, if you viewed the video) that can be dragged and dropped and stack and represent snippets to build a full C file.
To be honest my old library had snippets from the forum and wiki and just person stuff people like Superku help me write. I would just copy and paste into SED and build my basic games in that way. I allowed me to focus on the new ideas and rapidly build a basic framework. Whats wrong with having a visual drag and drop of this copy and paste I was already doing?
However, creating the blueprint system is insane for 3dgs and if not for a lot of hard-work would be a mess for EU4...

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: ] #449372
03/16/15 21:17
03/16/15 21:17
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Quote:
However if they had GUI drag and drop and the ability to stack then you could build 3dgs full games this way. Load the in game editor, drop gravity and basic movement on the player Entity and the editor writes out the actual lite-c file. Not Hard! The idea is sound, I've had it working. However 3dgs GUI choke point and my lack of skill in building a snippet library made it something I couldn't finish.
, yeah 3dgs gui doesn't really help here grin . Though it is a good idea. I have thought about it for adding it to my own map editor but it would be too hard to make it flexible for all kinds of different games. For a map editor for a specific game it would work.

Quote:
Whats wrong with having a visual drag and drop of this copy and paste I was already doing?
, nothing wrong, it would be a nice addition. Though I must say having decent sed templates/code snippets and a decent map editor makes a world of difference compared to WED and default sed templates.

Quote:
However, creating the blueprint system is insane for 3dgs and if not for a lot of hard-work would be a mess for EU4...
, yup

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Reconnoiter] #449627
03/26/15 08:39
03/26/15 08:39
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some little info:

Terrain lod is like in 3dgs pro, but much faster, its lighting is somehow better, resulting in less visible artifacts, but high resolution (1vertex/1m) is required to get good dynamic shadows (with low resolution you will get grey triangles). And finally I could made my own far-lod billboard model material (meaning shader), that I will try to implement with 3dgs too.


navmesh pathfinder with Detour Crowd in action, with a very simple behaviour no more than 200 characters can be used, but it is really fine for a lot of game genres (except RTS):


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #449643
03/27/15 06:58
03/27/15 06:58
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hey nice


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: gri] #450014
04/04/15 16:48
04/04/15 16:48
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a link for photorealistic game fans (I know at least one here), how Epic made the Open World Demo (a lot of assets of it are available for free at marketplace): https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/creating-assets-for-open-world-demo


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #450148
04/07/15 11:52
04/07/15 11:52
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my boring adventures with bug reporting with final success: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questio...g-2-errors.html


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #450517
04/16/15 10:01
04/16/15 10:01
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Gosh.... grin

This is one of the reasons why at work we are not allowed to have crazy pathes and special characters on file system level... and why everyone mounts a virtual drive with a fixed letter, so pathes are always the same grin

Last edited by Firoball; 04/16/15 10:05.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: FBL] #450531
04/16/15 20:14
04/16/15 20:14
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thus your users can face such problems what you never tested tongue


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #450532
04/16/15 20:31
04/16/15 20:31
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We are not releasing our build environment laugh

Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: FBL] #450538
04/16/15 21:05
04/16/15 21:05
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Budapest
sivan Offline
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lucky bastards tongue grin


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #452390
06/11/15 08:00
06/11/15 08:00
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Budapest
sivan Offline
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last night I was unable to read through release notes of 4.8: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Support/Builds/ReleaseNotes/2015/4_8/index.html fortunately they spent a lot of efforts on optimizations.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #454278
09/03/15 09:10
09/03/15 09:10
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Experimental DirectX 12 Support has arrived with 4.9: https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-49-released


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #454289
09/03/15 11:49
09/03/15 11:49
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Ä°stanbul, Turkey
Quad Online
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That's probably as good as dx12 support gets anywhere. Dx12 support is added to engine by microsoft engineers themselves and going to be improved by microsoft&nvidia&epic.


3333333333
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Quad] #457887
02/05/16 08:40
02/05/16 08:40
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sivan Offline
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create a VR environment in VR, coming soon. crazy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKO9fEjNiio


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #457894
02/05/16 14:53
02/05/16 14:53
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Well... I can see this as a fun tech demo to work on but this seems super useless and highly uncomfortable to me otherwise.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Superku] #457896
02/05/16 16:01
02/05/16 16:01
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Bavaria, Germany
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I think it does have some really nice benefits and can help when designing levels, however, I guess it's not really suited for hour-long sessions of level editing with wearing all the gear.
It's more intuitive for sure and the spatial impression that you get will give you a good sense of all the proportions and positioning but I don't think it's going to replace the traditional way of editing levels, at least not in the near future.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Kartoffel] #457901
02/05/16 21:12
02/05/16 21:12
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I think it's completely useless, at least at this stage of development (as shown on the video), even the guy testing (using) it is having some troubles with placing/rotating objects accurately (as you can see by yourself manipulations are really inaccurate, objects are 'jerking' especially when rotating them). Even if on the other hand it looks refreshing and interesting, well... I'm wouldn't sacrifice the quality and speed of development in exchange for innovations and some fresh looking but useless things like that.

Edit: but well.. this is still better than WED grin hahahaa

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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: 3run] #457905
02/06/16 09:12
02/06/16 09:12
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Well I've seen the livestream and I was quite impressed, tbh. There are quite a few features for things like position/angle snapping placement helpers, and the guy showcasing it didn't seem as helpless as in the video sivan posted. They also said that navigating around is actually faster using the VR mode, not sure if that's true, though.
In the end you can't really tell whether it's garbage or super useful without having tested it.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Kartoffel] #457911
02/06/16 10:44
02/06/16 10:44
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Originally Posted By: Kartoffel
In the end you can't really tell whether it's garbage or super useful without having tested it.
Yeah, that's true. But I wouldn't bother myself buying and testing it cause I don't really see any sense in using it.

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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: 3run] #457912
02/06/16 11:37
02/06/16 11:37
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It would be nice to switch between traditional mapping and VR, so to keep your work more refreshing / fun to do. Perhaps it can also give your more ideas about your map cause your working with it through another way?

Last edited by Reconnoiter; 02/06/16 11:37.
Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: Reconnoiter] #457918
02/06/16 19:13
02/06/16 19:13
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sivan Offline
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for the 1st sight is was useless for me too, another serious toy to gain fame. but Epic seems to focus on VR technology in near future as a possible good business area (games, simulations etc.). and in VR level design is a bit different, e.g. from close view normal maps do not work, higher poly count is needed. so it can be finally a useful tool for finalizing level design.


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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #458337
03/05/16 11:30
03/05/16 11:30
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sivan Offline
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my little units are marching from the planet of 3DGS to the UE4 universe, using nearly the same system:




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Re: unreal engine 4 [Re: sivan] #469716
12/04/17 10:11
12/04/17 10:11
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for the C# fans: https://mono-ue.github.io/
btw currently there are several plugins in dev for different languages e.g. Python


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