Sneak Peek at the new Unreal 3 and Frostbite 2.0 engines.

[Shoultz101]

Unreal Engine 3

This is a demo reel of some of the features included in the new Unreal 3 gaming platform that will be available to developers. It's basically 3:00 of Epic Games tooting their own ultra-realistic looking horn.

http://youtu.be/7v2ExTxlf7c

Also announced last month, Epic's Unreal Engine 3 will power any games developed by Rocksteady Studios (Batman: Arkham City) and NetherRealm Studios (Mortal Kombat) through 2014 as part of a deal announced today by parent company Warner Bros. Interactive.



Unreal and Guile = Epic Win!

Whats is freaking awesome is that they are making these surprisingly simple development tools available for download on the Official Unreal Gaming website. http://www.udk.com/ So if you are a game creation hobbyist this is defiantly the bees knees.


Frostbite 2.0

http://youtu.be/foXVF7q035Y

Moving on, I am especially looking forward to DICE's new Frostbite 2.0 engine and Battlefield 3. The ability to perform fluid animation developed by EA Tech and to process on a much larger scale to manage large battle maps is impressive. The light bloom and motion blur effects are amazing and it really shines with the environment destruction features in BF3. From little chips or mortar flicking off due to bullet impact to large scale building demolition, the power of this engine really makes the physics of this feature something to behold. As far as other titles using Frostbite 2.0, none have been announced. Id love to see them license outside of the Battlefield franchise. A new Mirror's Edge title using this engine would be sick. Come on DICE/EA, make it happen.


Bloom and Motion Blur

It is becoming abundantly clear that the hardware limitations imposed by our outdated consoles are going to be felt this year as major titles utilize the impressive capabilities of graphics engines like Unreal Engine 3 (Gears of War 3), Cry-Engine 3 (Crysis 2), and Frostbite 2.0 (Battlefield 3).

My advice? Go PC baby!

[NamelessTed]

Yeah, we are at the point where game engines and rendering software is beyond what hardware allows. It is the natural back and forth that happens every generation. When a brand new console comes out there is more power than a developer really knows how to use to their advantage. Then they develop all sorts of awesome software to make the box render shit beyond what they originally thought it could. Just look at Gears of War and when Epic first announced Unreal Engine 3. The target renders that they put out looked fucking brilliant at the time and Gears of War looked amazing. But if you look back the first Gears game looks pretty bad in comparison to new games like Mass Effect 2/3 and the Call of Duty games.

Right now though we have gotten to the point where hardware is absolutely holding back the developers. RAGE isn't even out yet and John Carmack has already said there are things that he wants to be able to do in the id Tech 5 engine but will probably have to wait until id Tech 6 (he has designed id Tech 5 to extend into the next generation of consoles). This new stuff they are showing with Unreal Engine just isn't possible with current hardware. You should also realize that what Epic is showing looks great but a couple years after the next generation of consoles come out we should be seeing games that look even better.