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Unreal Development Kit - September Beta Available NOW

by Rainier on Sept. 23, 2010 @ 6:00 p.m. PDT

Epic Games launched the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), a free edition of Unreal Engine 3, providing the community access to the toolset like never before, and has now released an updated version.

Get the Unreal Development Kit September 2010 Beta off WP (820mb)

UDK is available to anyone interested in using 3D game engine technology, from game developers to students, hobbyists to researchers, and creators of architectural walkthroughs to digital filmmakers. Use of UDK is free for all schools and students, and anyone can release free UDK-powered games.

Extensive UDK technical documentation is available at the Unreal Developer Network, and community members can share ideas, show off projects and learn from UDK developers like Psyonix and The Prometheus Team.

3D Buzz will soon release dozens of free video tutorials specific to UDK to complement the company’s existing Unreal Engine 3 video training modules. Over 100 Unreal Technology videos are viewable at the 3D Buzz web site free of charge.

Individuals and companies wishing to develop software for commercial purposes should refer to licensing terms. Commercial terms have been structured to make it easy for independent developers, start-up firms and seasoned professionals to use UDK with minimal financial barrier from concept to deployment.

Are you working on something you want the world to see? Display your work in the Project Show-Off forums.

Don’t forget, you can now purchase a commercial UDK license over the web. It’s easy and secure.

This month’s build of UDK features significant additions, including:

· UDK users now have access to the gameplay profiler tool.

· Matinee’s movement tracks can now be split into individual translation and rotation components.

· Users can bulk edit texture properties within the Content Browser.

Upgrade Notes

· Due to changes in PhysX you should re-save all of your content.

UDKGame

· Fixed leaning during jumps in UDK.

· Fixed UDKVehicle crash.

· ‘AllowNVidiaStereo3D’ is false by default for UDK.

· Switched UDK maps over to use precomputed visibility.

· Resaved UDK maps for updated PhysX changes.

Profiling

· Gameplay profiler tool now available in UDK!

o ‘GamePlayProfiler’ is a tool that allows digging deeper into time spent in gameplay code.

Matinee

· Allow movement tracks to be split so that translation and rotation components can be individually manipulated.

You can now disable the audio radio filter effect in Matinee Kismet blocks.

Particle System improvements

· Now supports multiple ribbons per emitter.

· New 'RandomSeed' module in Cascade helps particles play back more consistently.

· Random size and lifetime can now be specified per ribbon in an emitter.

· Particle spawn rates are now clamped to prevent negative spawn rates.

Rendering

· Added ‘ImageGrain’ to ‘UberPostProcess.’

· Improved post processing.

o Uses less memory.

o Better CPU/GPU performance.

o Improved quality and consistency.

o New features such as HDR scale and film grain.

· Optimized distortion pass.

· Fixed multiple split-screen issues causing color leaking.

· 'F5' key now enables shader complexity mode by default.

Animation

· Added support for rotating Joint Bone to ‘SkelControlLimb.’

· Animation compression improvements.

o With automatic or the ‘CompressAnimations’ commandlet.

§ Savings of 30% over the previously compressed size are typical.

§ Can be much higher on some animations or with adjustments to the compression parameters.

Scaleform GFx

· Integrated fix for sRGB handling with fonts from Scaleform.

· GFx now supports Distance Field and RGBA UFonts.

· Added a sample GFxUI.int to Engine/Localization/INT/.

DCC Tools (Max/Maya)

· ActorX for Maya and Max 2011 is now supported.

PhysX

· ‘PhysXDestructible’ has been removed.

· APEX destructibles are replacing them.

Other Improvements:

· Workflow enhancements (e.g., find all materials using this texture, support for local collections to the Content Browser).

· Fixed hitches during gameplay caused by long processing times for zero length linechecks.

· OBJ mesh export now can generate a diffuse, specular and normal texture from the material.

· Alternate mesh bone weight import tool has been much improved and supports both low->high and high->low bone count swapping.

· Streaming texture stat enhancements including the new STAT TEXTUREPOOL command.

· Landscape editing improvements.

· The new color picker is now integrated into the mesh paint tool.

· The mesh paint tool now supports flood fill.

· Gamma can now be used even if the tonemapper is activated.

· Texture properties can now be edited in bulk via the Content Browser.

UDN Pages

- New

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UDKTrademarksAndLogos.html
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CapturingCinematicsAndGameplay.html
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/GameStatsVisualizerReference.html
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CreatingGameStatsVisualizers.html
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/InstrumentingGameStatistics.html
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/HitMask.html

- Updated

UDK includes:

The Unreal Editor toolset, complete with fully integrated game editing environment.
Unreal Gemini multithreaded rendering system with support for all modern rendering and shading techniques, advanced lighting and shadowing, ambient occlusion and a powerful material system for creating complex shaders on the fly.
Unreal Lightmass global illumination solver for high-quality static lighting.
Unreal PhAT visual physics modeling tool with state-of-the-art physics system powered by NVIDIA PhysX.
Unreal Kismet, an advanced visual scripting solution that facilitates rapid prototyping of ideas and gameplay mechanics.
AnimSet Viewer and AnimTree Editor, which give animators precise control over every muscle and bone movement.
Unreal Matinee, which includes movie director-class tools for creating in-game cut scenes and gorgeous cinematics.
UnrealScript, a fully integrated, high-level object-oriented programming language.
Unreal Cascade particle effects system for implementing explosions, fog, fire and smoke. Module-based system gives real-time previews of visual effects.
Terrain building tool for placing and customizing vegetation, structures and countless in-game points of interest.
Audio control through UnrealEd's visual Sound Cue Editor, plus support for major audio compression schemes; 3D sound positioning, spatialization and attenuation; multi-channel playback, and much more. Built-in Internet and LAN networking support for up to 64 players.
Integrations with leading game development middleware including NVIDIA PhysX, SpeedTree, FaceFX and Bink Video.

Included Content:

UDK ships with "UT Demo," which is demo content from "Unreal Tournament 3" consisting of four maps: Deck, Necropolis, Sanctuary, and Sandstorm; with deathmatch, team deathmatch, and vehicle capture the flag gametypes. Assets include one robot character, three weapons and four vehicles.

In "UT Demo," blood, gore and human opponents have been removed. Levels have been enhanced to showcase recent upgrades to UE3 technology. See udk.com/showcase-ut-game.html for comparison screenshots.

The "Unreal Tournament 3" Unreal Editor is widely used for learning UE3, and now UDK provides all of its game creation tools in addition to high-level engine features developed since the game?s release. "UT Demo" is an excellent starting point to explore UDK?s capabilities, especially for those looking to develop their own first-person shooter experience.

System requirements

Minimum:

Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
2.0+ GHz processor
2 GB system RAM
SM3-compatible video card
3 GB Free hard drive space

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Unreal Development Kit - September Beta Available NOW

by Rainier on Sept. 23, 2010 @ 6:00 p.m. PDT

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