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Unreal Development Kit - April Beta Available NOW

by Rainier on April 11, 2011 @ 10:42 a.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, including iOS support.

Get the Unreal Development Kit April 2011 Beta off WP (1.2GB)

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.

April Beta Upgrade Notes Unreal Editor
  1. -    Unreal Content Browser now has an option to generate private collections containing the resources a specific asset references.
  2. -    We've added a new tool for quickly previewing the player's height while editing your level.  Just hold down the backslash key ("\") while moving the mouse over a perspective viewport to instantly visualize a predefined mesh right in your level."
  3. -   -    Organize your favorite properties any way you want using the up and down arrows.
  4. -    It is now possible to view each channel individually in the texture viewer.
  5. -    There are new buttons to toggle desaturation and the checkerboard pattern for transparent textures.
  6. -    Previewer padding is now adjustable as well.
Unreal Cascade
  1. -    The new particle collision module, CollisionActor, lets you pick specific actors to collide against.
  2. -    A new option to particle ‘LocationSkelVertSurface’ module allows for optionally specifying materials that limit spawning.
  3. -    A new option enables converting particle modules to their seeded equivalents if available.
  4. -    Cascade now has an optional display of approximate memory the particle system will use.

‘Template’ is the memory the particle system template uses.

‘Instance’ is the memory the modules use.

Unreal Matinee
  1. -    Matinee sequences with director tracks now disable some rendering features by default to make room for cinematic lighting and shadowing.
    1. o   Features disabled are SSAO, whole scene dynamic shadows from ‘DominantDirectionalLights’ and skinned motion blur.
    2. o   These can be re-enabled as desired. Settings are on the Matinee object.
  2. -    Matinee has a new preset group for lighting.  Adding a new lighting group adds tracks for movement, brightness, color and radius.
  3. -    A new ‘Move to end of track’ option moves the timeline to the end of the currently selected track.
  4. -    The AI Group in Matinee has been fixed so that no custom animation can overwrite current Matinee-driven animation.
Unreal Kismet
  1. -    New keyboard shortcuts for are now available for Kismet.
    1. o   ‘Ctrl-Shift-A’ selects matching actions and variables of the current selection within the active sequence.
    2. o   ‘Ctrl-A’ selects all sequence objects within the active sequence.
  2. -    The Kismet level sequences browser should no longer constantly close itself.
  3. -    When making a new comment box around a selection, the size of the box now fits properly around the selection.
Unreal Landscape
  1. -    Added ‘Flatten’ tool to the Landscape Editor.
  2. -    Landscape now has DX11 support!
Autodesk FBX
  1. -    Static meshes can be exported to FBX via Unreal Content Browser (vertex colors and UVs are exported as well).
  2. -    Whole levels or selected actors, including BSP, can be exported to FBX with world position.
  3. -    Fixed not being able to export lightmaps as FBX via the static mesh editor.
  4. -    Material auto-assignment now works for material instance constants.
Other Improvements
  1. -    Drag and drop of materials with multiple static meshes selected now applies the material to all selected meshes.
  2. -    Floating viewport configurations are now saved between editor sessions.
  3. -    Better undo and redo support has been added to the Sound Cue Editor.
  4. -    Custom triangle sorting information should now be retained when re-importing a skeletal mesh.
  5. -    The ‘SkinXX’ syntax for material order should now work correctly for meshes. 
  6. -    When using mesh paint, paint and erase should now influence the same vertices.
  7. -    Importing a mesh over another one no longer erases material assignments.
  8. -    There is new a ‘Copy to clipboard’ option in the materials section of the actor right-click menu.
  9. -    ‘Brush edges’ is easier to select in the perspective viewport while in geometry mode.
  10. -    UDK has been updated to FaceFX version 1.7.4.0.
  11. -    You can now toggle SSAO and visualize SSAO from the editor, as well as by using the 'show' console command.
  12. -    There are new ‘Snap Constraint To Bone’ and ‘Snap All Constraints To Bone’ buttons in UnrealPhAT Editor Rendering.

Updated UDN Pages

Community Links

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
Recommended for Content Development:
  • Windows Vista 64 SP2
  • 2.0+ GHz multi-core processor
  • 8 GB System RAM
  • NVIDIA 8000 series or higher graphics card
  • Plenty of HDD space
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