October 27, 2011

Epic Games Releases October 2011 Unreal Development Kit Beta

News

By Unreal Engine

Epic Games, Inc. has released the October 2011 UDK Beta, the latest version of the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free edition of Unreal Engine 3 that provides access to the award-winning toolset used in blockbuster video games, 3D visualizations, digital films and more.

Epic is committed to providing the Unreal Engine community with regular software releases at no charge, and the latest beta is available now here.

UDK projects are promoted to the community in the Works in Progress and the Released Projects forums. Our full showcase galleries are available here.

UDK Showcase: Gyro 13 - Steam Copter Arcade HD

This month’s showcase features the critically acclaimed Gyro13 - Steam Copter Arcade HD for iOS by Cinemax. InGyro13, players pilot a steam-powered helicopter through cavernous mines, save stranded miners and evade heavy mechanical obstacles.

The App Shack rates Gyro13 a 10 out of 10. “It’s incredibly immersive, has amazing graphics, superb animations, intelligent level design, great music, top notch physics matched with outstanding controls, and, of course, awesome gameplay.” Touch Arcade gives it a 4.5 out of 5 stars, noting in its round-up of the best iOS games of September 2011, “The graphics and sound are great, and the skill requirement makes completing objectives feel like a major accomplishment.”

Cinemax CEO Lukáš Macura remarks, “We have always considered the Unreal Engine to be one of the best AAA engines available, so when UDK came out and we found that it suited all our needs perfectly, we saw no reason to look anywhere else. For us, the choice was obvious.” Read more.

Unreal University

Epic Games will host the next Unreal University at the Montreal International Game Summit on November 1-2, 2011. Unreal University is an academic initiative that offers professional guidance to anyone using Unreal Engine 3. Sessions are free, and topics include level design best practices, mobile game development tips and tricks, and more. Thanks to Autodesk, these learning sessions will be streamed live via the Autodesk AREA community portal. Unreal University’s next stop will be the Dubai World Game Expo, which will be held November 30 through December 3.

October 2011 UDK Beta Upgrade Notes

iOS

  • Facebook

    • Added dialog support for creating wall posts
    • Added friends list download support
    • Added support to request additional permissions from a user

  • Input changes

    • Added support for tilt/touch outside of MobilePlayerInput, moved support up to Input/PlayerInput (MobileInputZone handling is still in MobilePlayerInput)
    • Added Kismet events for generic key/axis input (for key presses and mouse/tilt)
    • Added a new Kismet event for touch handling
    • SeqEvent_MobileMotion/MobileRawInput still work, but they are now marked with [Old]
    • Added aTouch and aBackTouch axes to PlayerInput.uc, so script code can get touch events easily
Foliag5 Settings Paint Tool
  • Added a new paint tool for applying settings to foliage quickly and easily!
  • The following foliage settings can be painted:
    • Slope alignment, randomized angle and scale settings
    • Cull instances based new on slope, height or landscape layer criteria
    • Minimum radius between foliage instances
    • General density of foliage instances (add new foliage, or thin out areas)
New Un5eal Landscape and Foliage Features
  • Paint tool: Added feature to paint layer weights to a certain fixed weight amount, with stroke history to handle falloff for overlapping strokes
  • Flatten tool: Changed behavior for painting layers to be the same as when painting heights
  • Noise tool: Added painting to a specified noise value and scale
  • LandscapeLayerBlend node now supports order-independent height-based blends between layers
  • Added dialog to the move-to-level tool to allow the user to move shared resources (material, layers) out of the persistent level into a shared package
  • Prevented painting on landscapes in locked and hidden levels
  • Component tool now considers brush size
  • Added a landscape info panel to UI, with component count, size, etc.
Other 5mprovements
  • Unreal Editor
    • Matinee recorder now works in DX11 mode
    • Static mesh LOD now works on InstancedStaticMeshComponents used for foliage
    • Unreal Kismet: Added a debugger callstack window
    • Added hotkeys Ctrl+G for grouping, Shift+G for ungrouping and Ctrl+Shift+G for group mode toggle
    • Added options in the Tools menu to Lock/Unlock read-only levels so they can’t accidentally be modified
    • Node connections can now be moved from node to node or connector to connector by dragging a connection between to ‘like’ (input/input or output/output) connectors in the Material Editor
    • “Copy TranslationBoneNames to Selected AnimSet” now copies to all the selected animsets, not just the first one selected
    • Added new confirmation prompt when placing Actors into hidden levels
      • Objects added to Layers now have their visibility updated immediately
  • FBX
    • Fixed morph targets not importing when using “T0 as Ref Pose” option
    • Fixed Matinee cameras importing with wrong orientation
    • BSP surfaces can now be selectively exported
    • Added subtractive brush export support
  • Particles
    • Added a new option to ribbon particle emitters that, when enabled, will spawn a particle as soon as the emitter begins to move
    • Added MacroUV override to the particle emitter’s Required Module so that it can now be applied on a per emitter basis
  • Misc
    • Settings are now saved in UnrealFrontend any time a setting is changed
    • Flurry analytics implementation for game stats added
    • Audio feature: Ability to add EQ presets to a Volume similar to the Reverb Volumes Paint tool
New an5 Updated UDN Pages