Epic's Gorgeous Unreal Engine 4 'Elemental' Demo Video

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By Kevin Parrish
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Unreal Engine 4 sure is purdy!

During E3 2012, Epic Games finally revealed to the public the "Elemental" demo using the upcoming Unreal Engine 4. The company states that its architecture offers fully dynamic lighting features, thus cutting down on development time and ensuring less iteration on creative ideas.

"Artists and designers can bring their creative visions to life directly in game without programmer assistance via the new Unreal Kismet," the company said on Friday. "This offers programmers the freedom to focus on core gameplay features and sophisticated systems. With significant new visual features, Unreal Engine 4 enables you to achieve high-end visuals, while remaining both scalable and accessible to make games for low-spec PCs."

As listed on the Unreal Engine website, the new version includes Hot Updates which allows developers to quickly find and edit C++ code and see those changes reflected immediately in game -- gameplay doesn't even have to be paused. After an update is made, Instant Game Preview allows the developer to spawn a player and play anywhere in game without needing to wait for files to save.

"The all-new Code View saves you time by allowing you to browse C++ functions directly on game characters then jump straight to source code lines in Visual Studio to make changes," Epic explains. "Live Kismet Debugging enables you to interactively visualize the flow of gameplay code while testing your game."

With Epic's new Simulate Mode, developers can now quickly debug and update gameplay behaviors when they happen. This tool lets them run game logic in the editor viewport and inspect AI as the game characters perform actions. Also new in Unreal Engine 4 is Immersive View which allows programmers to complete iterations on gameplay changes without added UI clutter or distractions -- all done in full-screen mode within the editing environment.

"Possess/Eject Features allow at any time while playing in editor to easily 'eject' from the player and take control of the camera to inspect specific in-game objects that may not be behaving properly," Epic states.

The Unreal Engine 4 demo was reportedly shown running off a single Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 card. For more information about Unreal Engine 4, head here.

Kevin Parrish
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52 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tomfreak
    didnt I recall some guy in Epic said something silly that "Xbox360/PS3 have the best graphic available"?
    Reply
  • jkflipflop98
    Tomfreakdidnt I recall some guy in Epic said something silly that "Xbox360/PS3 have the best graphic available"?
    If you did, it was some idiot underling. Sweeny talks non-stop about how bitchin powerful PC's are. Unless he was at some xbox sponsored event or something stupid like that.
    Reply
  • dormantreign
    You did hear that, it was in a video on here i think or Gametrailers. I'm pretty sure he was talking in the context of Console systems overall though. That being said, "IF" that was rendered in realtime that is defentally next generation stuff. It was beautiful.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    jkflipflop98If you did, it was some idiot underling. Sweeny talks non-stop about how bitchin powerful PC's are. Unless he was at some xbox sponsored event or something stupid like that.
    Actually it was Sweeny. He also said that a Nintendo Wii U wont be able to handle the U4 engine but the next gen PS and XBox can, yet they have what is currently rumored to be HD6670 equivalents in GPUs and he states it takes at least a GTX680 to run the U4 engine.

    Still that was pretty awesome. My first though was Overlord. If only he had a jester to kick around.
    Reply
  • mazty
    Epic have done a fantastic job and UE4 looks brilliant but until I see ingame footage its hard to register it as anything more then a cutscene.
    Reply
  • Epic Games vice president Mark Rein recently teased that the company will show off Unreal Engine 4 sometime this year. Whether or not the next generation consoles will even be powerful enough to take full advantage of it, though, is another story entirely.


    Speaking at DICE (via Kotaku), Epic Games' Tim Sweeney said that the impressive "Samaritan" demo would require 2.5 teraFLOPs, while the current Xbox 360 can only handle .25. So to handle that in real-time, the next iteration of the Xbox would have to be ten times as powerful as the current generation. That's for a particularly impressive "Unreal 3" demo; the computational power needed for Unreal Engine 4 could vary.

    Rumors have placed the next Xbox at six times the 360's processing power, short of the ten-fold increase required for Samaritan. Given Epic's intent on making sure UE4 ready on day one of the next generation, something will have to change. Epic did push Microsoft into raising RAM on the Xbox 360, and has been vocal about memory for the next generation, so the company has proven it can sway hardware decisions.
    Reply
  • alidan
    take out the partical physics, and the lighting effects (things we can fake now, but to do real time is a waste) and i see not a single intresting thing in this tech demo.

    can anyone else? and keep in mind the framework of this is a tech demo, they are going to polish and throw everything into it they can.

    all that i can see is unreal 4 is so wasteful that it takes a 680 to run it, and if you faked most of the effects, could be done currently in unreal 3 for less processing power, minus the physics stuff, but that at least in the demo, is eyecandy stuff... not things that need to be there.
    Reply
  • cybrcatter
    alidantake out the partical physics, and the lighting effects (things we can fake now, but to do real time is a waste) and i see not a single intresting thing in this tech demo. can anyone else? and keep in mind the framework of this is a tech demo, they are going to polish and throw everything into it they can. all that i can see is unreal 4 is so wasteful that it takes a 680 to run it, and if you faked most of the effects, could be done currently in unreal 3 for less processing power, minus the physics stuff, but that at least in the demo, is eyecandy stuff... not things that need to be there.Who needs physics ? Who needs shadows? Who needs textures? Who needs 3D? Who needs vidya?


    Reply
  • mazty
    BigMack70The demo is the equivalent of in-game footage. You should check out the developer video too, which shows off some of the features in real-time. IMO that's even more amazing than this.Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOvfn1p92_8People have clearly misunderstood me. I'm not saying this is a cutscene; I know this is 'in game' footage but the level of graphics is so high that it's hard to realise this as actual in game footage as opposed to just being a cutscene. Without a HUD etc there is nothing that distinguishes it from pre-rendered footage making the distinction between ingame graphics as opposed to a cutscene almost impossible.
    Reply
  • mazty
    alidantake out the partical physics, and the lighting effects (things we can fake now, but to do real time is a waste) and i see not a single intresting thing in this tech demo. can anyone else? and keep in mind the framework of this is a tech demo, they are going to polish and throw everything into it they can. all that i can see is unreal 4 is so wasteful that it takes a 680 to run it, and if you faked most of the effects, could be done currently in unreal 3 for less processing power, minus the physics stuff, but that at least in the demo, is eyecandy stuff... not things that need to be there.You don't know what you're on about. If you were to shoot something colourful across a room e.g. a laser, that should have an effect on the lighting in the room. Dynamic events such as unscripted player interactions can't be faked because they can't be predicted. This engine is incredibly impressive and for it to run on a GTX680 is testament to the good work of both Nvidia and Unreal.
    Reply