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.