Game-Vet: Unreal Game Engine

Image 1: Unreal Logo

Unreal Game Engine is Owned and developed by Epic Games. The latest version available is Unreal 4.20 a stable release. It is a complete package of various development tools used by developers for all the real-time applications. It has a vast support for the platforms such as Consoles, PC, mobiles, etc. The implementation of standards tools and the workflows allows the user to iterate various prototypes regardless of Genre, style, theme, game-play, and Graphics. Unreal adds a plus point to the coding part where the blueprint concept of it allows the user to easily code the game without even touching a piece of code in the engine.

Unreal Game Engine is awarded as the Best Game Engine of the Year by the 2018 Develop Industry Excellence Awards.

Unreal Game Engine has various features all meant to reduce the efforts of the developers and easy making of high quality real time games. Some of the Features are:

Real-time Photo rendering: It has its own physical rendering system that allows user to achieve Film-Industry level standards.

Source Code in C++: Engine has its source code in C++. Any user can access these code line, debug or even customize it according to their own needs and lead their project to a thriving destiny.

Blueprints: Coding is the very important part in a game where most of the developers fail/find it difficult to deal with. Unreal’s Blueprint system allows a designer or any developer to easily create prototypes without even looking/editing a piece of code. You can create Interaction, object behaviors, or even just modify the UI (User Interface), or even like just manage the input mechanism in the game. It has a powerful inbuilt debugger in the Engine.

Powerful Multiplayer Framework: This framework has evolved into a booming, strong and sturdy framework, taking with an experience of over two Decades. It has a client server architecture that can support your project on any level and scale.

Particle Systems: Consisting various modules of various effects it has a cascade VFX editor which provides user a freedom of opportunity to mod those effects according to the user needs.

Post processing Effects: Unreal has a very standard PPE implemented which stands true on the very tough requirements of the Film Industry. Including various effect profiles allows a user to modify his scenes valiantly into a blossoming levels and make it stand out of the box.

Material Editor: Unreal has its physical based material editor that allows user to easily create different materials and gives the user a valiant control for the look and feel of the objects.

Animation Toolkit: It has state machines, kinematics, blend spaces and also physics based on animations via blueprints to allow users to craft various animations for characters with dynamic movement and allowing the user to perform edits using mesh editor and the animation editor.

Sequencer: This tool is especially designed and developed by the Film-Industry professionals for the user to reach the potential of the creativity using the Real-time animation and editing tools. Using this tool you ca edit lightning, camera blocks and set the dressing of a character according to the Shots. A user can create various cut-scenes.

Terrain: The terrain tool in unreal is Memory efficient and has a very powerful LOD system. It supports creation of mass terrain with support of foliage’s likes Flowers, grass, stones, etc.

Advance AI: You can give the AI relative movements with help of the unreal engine’s game-play framework and also with the artificial intelligence system. The navigation mesh is Dynamic and updates relatively at real time.

Unreal Audio Engine: Unreal Game engines Audio Engines is very robust compared to other game engines, it provides real-time synthesis. It also has Dynamic DSP effects implemented with physical audio propagation modelling system. Unreal has also tied up with the Valve team in order to implement Steam Audio which adds a unique realism to the platform independent audios.

History of Unreal:

Unreal Game engine was first developed by Tim Sweeney a 21 year old guy, being a student of Maryland University, he started his career as a programmer. Tim first developed a Game called ZZT, all designed and developed by himself. The image below should show a glimpse of the game ZZT.

Image 2: ZZT

ZZT was the first ever official game of the Epic Mega Games. After ZZT proving a very successful and important milestone, Sweeney swiftly shifted towards the development of Game Engine. Unreal Game Engine 1 was slowly growing towards its glory as Game developed by Epic games with collaboration of other projects. Notable Projects are like Wolfenstein 3D, Epic Pinball, Doom, etc.

At this moment Sweeney had an addition to his team noting to Cliff Bleszinski, Steve Polge and Mark Rein. After a huge success of these projects, Epic started development of its own In House projects. As Quake II was one of its serious competitors at that period, the development of the project Duke Nukem was shifted from Quake to Unreal. At that time, George Broussard was impressed by the statistics and performance of the Unreal Game Engine, so he decided to shift the development.

When Epic had completed and it was time for the End result of the Unreal, it took out the wave. At that time, Unreal Game Engine set a Standard for Gaming, where the developers had focused on developing a very supportive and cohesive tools. These tools with inclusive of creativity proved the Unreal Engines performance.

Image 3: Unreal first moments

During 1998, Unreal had decided its point of focused and continued the progression of Unreal Universe, they also had the production with inclusive to an expansion called Na Pali. Unreal Tournament was released by Epic Games in 1999 where was the original lore of the online Shooter. Unreal Tournament also became the center for the well-known and one of the most active online modding community throughout the world.

Epic had now planning for adding it support for the development of games for multi-platform. They had a plan to add support for the PS2, XBOX and many more. In this Industry it was first ever approach to add multi-platform support.

Image 4: Unreal Engine 3

Later to that when Unreal succeeded and the development of Unreal Engine 3 was in debut. The Unreal Engine 3 was proved by the release of the Game called Gears of War. It was the HD version of the Unreal Engine. Today we use Unreal Engine 4, which has evolved all over 2 decades.

Games Made in Unreal Game Engine:

Fortnite:

Image 5: Fortnite

Fortnite is a Third person Sci-Fi based survival shooter game. This game is developed and published by Epic Games. It was initially released on all major platforms like Box, PC, and PS4. It was released on 25 July 2017.

It has various gaming elements implemented such like Crafting, exploring the procedural generated terrain and scavenging. It has majorly two game modes based on a cooperative mission with 4 player in one lobby whereas the other one is played with 100 players in the lobby. These two game modes are named as Save the World and Battle Royale.

Epic games decided to cover other platforms and successfully released their game for IOS on 2^nd April, 2018. After a successful release for the IOS the development team released fortnite for Nintendo Switch which was on 12^th June, 2018. The release for the Android is under development and Epic games have decided to bypass the Google Play service where they claim that 30% royalty fee is not convenient for the game to be released on Google Play Store.

Hence, Epic games have decided to release it for android through bypassing the gates of Google Play. The Beta version for Android is out and soon stable build will be available.

Tekken 7:

Image 6: Tekken 7

Tekken 7 is developed by Bandai Namco. This game is suppose to the final on in the Tekken Series. After few serious leaks about the Game, it was declared officially by the creator of this game i.e. Katsuhiro Harada on EVO 2014, introducing the game to the public with a cinematic Trailer. The got released globally on 18^th February, 2018.

Once, during the Comic Con held in San Diego in the year of 2014, Katsuhiro Harada revealed this title is supposed to be the Final Chapter in the series of Tekken. The developer also revealed that the story would be more involving and more over involved in the main characters family issues.

Few of the cinematic trailer were released for the same, pointing towards the twist and changes of the game. The games is developed in Unreal Engine 4 and had great response from the Public. Being a major publisher for Asia, and operating from Japan, the games testing was all held in the Cities of Japan such as Tokyo and Osaka. The genre of the Game is Fighting and is themed on Martial Arts.

Street Fighter:

Image 7: Street Fighter

Street Fighter is developed by Capcom by collaborating with Dimps Corporation. It was majorly released by Capcom and Sony Entertainment. The genre of the game is Fighting and is themed on Martial Arts.

This game initially is a PS4 and PC exclusive game. This game stands to the latest edition to the Street fighter series. This game stands to be evolved around with having 2D background and 3D characters now this game is developed in Unreal Engine 4 and majorly is a 3D game.

This game ensures to keep the traditional behavior of the game as that of six key transitions. This game will be consisting of various new fixes and tweaks with are done considering the major factor as that of Player Engagement.

Vampyr:

Image 8: Vampyr

Vampyr is developed by Dontnod Entertainment and is published by Focus Home Interactive. The genre of the game is Role Playing, with some action in it and the game is themed as Horror. This is developed and released Cross-Platform and got released on 5^th June, 2018.

It is released for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 4.

The game has a very interesting plot where story stands such like the Vampyr player returns after the outrageous war of World War 1 and now is facing another major war of people is fighting with the Spanish Flu. The player has to struggle and make Moral Choices. They player will be purposely pushed and dropped between the people where his moral choice of healing or hurting will be in major intact.

Unreal v/s Unity:

Considering this topic as one of the major Debates going online. However, choosing an engine depends on the project a developer wants to work. The following points should convey the usage, pros and cons of the specific game engines.

Specifications:

Feature	Unity	Unreal
Console Targets	Xbox One, Xbox 360. PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch.	Xbox one, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.
Desktop Targets	Windows, Mac OS X and Linux	Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
Mobile Targets	Android, IOS, Blackberry, Tizen, Windows Phones	IOS and Android.
Television Targets	Android TV, Apple TV and Samsung Smart TV
Development Platforms	Windows, Mac OS X and Linux	Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
Virtual Reality Target	Oculus Rift, Gear VR, Google Daydream, Cardboard, Steam VR and HTC vive.	Oculus Rift, Gear VR, OSVR, Google Cardboard, Daydream, Steam VR and HTC Vive.
Distribution	Unity Web Player and WebGL	None.
API support	Direct X11.	Direct X10/11 Vulkan, OpenGL
API for Graphics	Direct X11 and Vulkan	Direct X10/11/12 Vulkan, OpenGL
License	Proprietary	Royalty
Programming Languages	C#, Java Script	C++ and Blueprint

Ranks:

These ranks are based upon the votes and discussions held all-around the web.

Subject	Unity	Unreal
2D Game Engine	#8	#17
3D Game Engine	#3	#2
2D Game Engine for Android	#3	#11
VR development	#2	#1
3D engine for Beginners	#2	#3
Game Authorizing	#2	#1
Game engine for IOS	#1	#3

Unreal is ranked #1 for the Best beginner Game Engines to develop FPS games whereas, Unity is ranked #1 in easy creation of 2D motroidvania games.

Unreal is ranked #2 for one of the best renders whereas, Unity is ranked #1 for one of the best multi-platform Game engine with an integrat4ed editor.

Unreal grasps an upper hand over Unity because of the Blueprint scripting Mechanism. This mechanism is for designers or artist who cannot hard code a game so with the help of this tool one can easily script his object using the visuals. Unity here has an integrated C#/JavaScript coding where a developer will have to hand-write the code.

Following images state the editor differences between Unity and Unreal.

Image 9: Unity v/s Unreal Editor