Unreal Engine 4

Unreal Engine 4
Engine Name
Developer Name	Epic Games
Max Supported Players
Games Made
Steam integration
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The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal. Although initially developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, fighting games, MMORPGs, and other RPGs. With its code written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability and is a tool used by many game developers today, with it being source-available. The most recent version is Unreal Engine 4, which was released in 2014.

History

Unreal Engine 4

File:UE4Arch.com - Viennese apartment.webm

Interactive architectural visualization made in UE4.

In August 2005, Mark Rein, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed that Unreal Engine 4 had been in development since 2003.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Until 2008, development was "basically" done by Sweeney.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The engine targets the eighth generation of consoles, PCs, and Tegra K1-based devices running Android announced in January 2014 at CES.

In February 2012, Rein said "people are going to be shocked later this year when they see Unreal Engine 4".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Unreal Engine 4 was unveiled to limited attendees at the 2012 Game Developers Conference,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and video of the engine being demonstrated by technical artist Alan "Talisman" Willard was released to the public in June 7, 2012 via GameTrailers TV.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

One of the major features planned for UE4 was real-time global illumination using voxel cone tracing, eliminating pre-computed lighting.<ref name="nvidia"/> However, this feature has been replaced with a similar but less computationally-expensive algorithm prior to release for all platforms including the PC due to performance concerns.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> UE4 also includes new developer features to reduce iteration time, and allows updating of C++ code while the engine is running. The new "Blueprints" visual scripting system (a successor to UE3's "Kismet"<ref name="rps"/>) allows for rapid development of game logic without using C++, and includes live debugging.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The result is reduced iteration time, and less of a divide between technical artists, designers, and programmers.<ref name=kotakuUE4>Template:Cite web</ref>

On March 19, 2014, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Epic Games released Unreal Engine 4 through a new licensing model. For a monthly subscription at Template:USD, developers were given access to the full version of the engine, including the C++ source code, which could be downloaded via GitHub. Any released product was charged with a 5% royalty of gross revenues.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The first game released using Unreal Engine 4 was Daylight, developed with early access to the engine<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and released on April 29, 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On September 4, 2014, Epic released Unreal Engine 4 to schools and universities for free, including personal copies for students enrolled in accredited video game development, computer science, art, architecture, simulation, and visualization programs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On February 19, 2015, Epic launched Unreal Dev Grants, a $5 million development fund aiming to provide grants to creative projects using Unreal Engine 4.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Unreal Engine booth (cropped).jpg

An Unreal Engine booth at GDC 2017

During the March 2015 Game Developers Conference, Epic announced that they would release Unreal Engine 4, along with all future updates, for free for all users.<ref name="fortune ue4 free"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In exchange, Epic established a selective royalty schedule, asking for 5% of revenue for products that make more than $3,000 per quarter, as well as establishing an Unreal Marketplace for users to sell content with Epic taking a cut of sales from this as well.<ref name="fortune ue4 free">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Sweeney stated that when they moved to the subscription model in 2014, use of Unreal grew by 10 times and through many smaller developers, and believed that they would draw even more uses through this new pricing scheme.<ref name="fortune ue4 free"/>

In an attempt to attract Unreal Engine developers, Oculus VR announced in October 2016 that it will pay royalty fees for all Unreal-powered Oculus Rift titles published on their store for up to the first $5 million of gross revenue per game.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

To prepare for the release of its free-to-play "Battle Royale" mode in Fortnite in September 2017, Epic had to make a number of Unreal Engine modifications that helped it to handle a large number (up to 100) of connections to the same server while still retaining high bandwidth, and to improve the rendering of a large open in-game world. Epic will incorporate these changes into future updates of the Unreal Engine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

With the opening of the Epic Games Store in December 2018, Epic will not charge the 5% revenue fee on games that use the Unreal Engine and released through the Epic Games Stores, absorbing that cost as part of the base 12% cut Epic is taking to cover other costs.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

UnrealScript

UnrealScript (often abbreviated to UScript) was Unreal Engine's native scripting language used for authoring game code and gameplay events before the release of Unreal Engine 4. The language was designed for simple, high-level game programming.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The UnrealScript interpreter was programmed by Sweeney, who also created an earlier game scripting language, ZZT-oop.<ref name="uhistory"/>

Similar to Java, UnrealScript is object-oriented without multiple inheritance (classes all inherit from a common Object class), and classes are defined in individual files named for the class they define. Unlike Java, UnrealScript does not have object wrappers for primitive types. Interfaces are only supported in Unreal Engine generation 3 and a few Unreal Engine 2 games. UnrealScript supports operator overloading, but not method overloading, except for optional parameters.

At the 2012 Game Developers Conference, Epic announced that UnrealScript was being removed from Unreal Engine 4 in favor of C++.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Visual scripting would be supported by the Blueprints Visual Scripting system, a replacement for the earlier Kismet visual scripting system.<ref name="gamasutra"/><ref name="rps">Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• List of Unreal Engine games

References

Wikipedia Unreal Engine 4 page

External links

• Template:Official website