📜 Post with us on Reddit
📝 Create a new article
🏭 Create a company page
🇬🇧 - in English
🇫🇷 - en Français (FR)
🇵🇹 - em Português (PT)
🇩🇪 - auf Deutsch (DE)
🇯🇵 - 日本語で (JA)
Sponsored articles

You can edit almost every page by Creating an account and confirming your email.

Kept on Wikipedia:Unreal Engine 4

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki
Unreal Engine 4
Screenshot of Unreal Engine 4.20
Screenshot of Unreal Engine 4.20
Original author(s)Tim Sweeney
Developer(s)Epic Games
Initial release4.0 / March 19, 2014; 12 years ago (2014-03-19)
Stable release
4.27 / August 19, 2021; 4 years ago (2021-08-19)
Written inC++
Engine
    Operating systemWindows, Linux, macOS, Playstation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, IOS, Android
    ReplacesUnreal Engine 3
    Replaced byUnreal Engine 5
    LicenseSource-available commercial software with royalty model for commercial use[1]
    Websiteunrealengine.com

    Search Unreal Engine 4 on Amazon.

    Interactive architectural visualization developed with Unreal Engine 4 (2015)

    Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) is the fourth version of Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games. UE4 began development in 2003 and was released in March 2014, with the first game using UE4 launching in April 2014. UE4 introduced support for physically based materials and a new visual programming language called "Blueprints". It was succeeded by Unreal Engine 5.

    History

    In August 2005, Mark Rein, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed that Unreal Engine 4 had been in development for two years.[2] "People don't realise this but we're already two years into development of Unreal Engine 4. It certainly doesn't have a full team yet, it's just one guy and you can probably guess who that guy is," he told C&VG.[3] Speaking in an interview in early 2008, Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games, stated that he was basically the only person working on the engine, though he affirmed his research and development department would start to expand later that year, developing the engine in parallel with Unreal Engine 3.[4] "In some way, we resemble a hardware company with our generational development of technology. We are going to have a team developing Unreal Engine 3 for years to come and a team ramping up on Unreal Engine 4. And then, as the next-gen transition begins, we will be moving everybody to that. We actually are doing parallel development for multiple generations concurrently," he said.[4] In 2011 Sweeney said he spends 60% of his day doing research work on Unreal Engine 4.[5]

    In February 2012, Rein stated "people are going to be shocked later this year when they see Unreal Engine 4";[6] Epic unveiled UE4 to limited attendees at the 2012 Game Developers Conference,[7] and a video of the engine being demonstrated by technical artist Alan Willard was released to the public on June 7, 2012, via GameTrailers TV.[8] One of the major features planned for UE4 was real-time global illumination using voxel cone tracing, eliminating pre-computed lighting.[9] However, this feature, called Sparse Voxel Octree Global Illumination (SVOGI) and showcased with the Elemental demo, was replaced with a similar but less computationally expensive algorithm due to performance concerns.[10]

    On March 19, 2014, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Epic Games released Unreal Engine 4 through a new licensing model. For a monthly subscription at US$19, developers were given access to the full version of the engine, including the C++ source code, which could be downloaded via GitHub. Any released product was charged with a 5% royalty of gross revenues.[11] The first game released using Unreal Engine 4 was Daylight, developed with early access to the engine[12] and released on April 29, 2014.[13]

    To prepare for the release of its free-to-play battle royale mode in Fortnite in September 2017, Epic had to make a number of Unreal Engine modifications that helped it to handle a large number (up to 100) of connections to the same server while still retaining high bandwidth and to improve the rendering of a large open in-game world. Epic said it would incorporate these changes into future updates of the Unreal Engine.[14]

    Unreal Engine 4 officially supports the following platforms as of 4.27 (August 2021):[15] Windows,[16] macOS,[16] Linux,[16] iOS,[16] Android,[16] Nintendo Switch,[17] PlayStation 4,[18] Xbox One,[18] PlayStation 5,[19] Xbox Series X/S,[19] Stadia,[20] Magic Leap,[21] HTC Vive,[22] Oculus,[23] PlayStation VR,[24] OSVR,[25] Samsung Gear VR,[26] and HoloLens 2.[27] It formerly supported Google Daydream[28] and HTML5.[29][30]

    Features

    Physically based materials

    Epic Games' Brian Karis, in a 2013 SIGGRAPH presentation, described improvements made to UE4's shading model.[31][32] According to Karis, Epic "decided to invest some time in improving [UE4's] shading model and embrace a more physically based material workflow".[31] One of the goals was to "make major workflow and quality improvements in how [artists] authored materials, by layering and blending pre-made materials from a library instead of authoring components separately and redundantly for every use".[33] The material model adopted by Epic was based on a similar model from Disney's Brent Burley, who outlined its use in Wreck-It Ralph at SIGGRAPH 2012.[31] The base parameters of the model consisted of "BaseColor," "Metallic," "Roughness," and "Cavity".[31] Cavity, a component not present in Disney's model, describes "shadowing from geometry smaller than [UE4's] run-time shadowing system can handle," such as the cracks between floor boards or the seams in clothing.[31] Parameters omitted from Disney's model were "Specular," "Subsurface," "Anisotropy," "Clearcoat" and "Sheen," which are instead treated as special cases.[31]

    UI toolkit

    A major focus for Unreal Engine 4 was creating tools that simplified the user interface. According to Sweeney, "with Unreal Engine 3 it was a big, complicated user interface. With Unreal Engine 4, the effort is to expose at the base level everything in a very simple, easy-to-use, and discoverable way and to build complexity on it so that the user can learn as they go".[34]

    With Unreal Engine 4, we really want to be able to build an entire small game on the scale of Angry Birds without any programming whatsoever, just mapping user input into the actions using a visual toolkit. This technology will be really valuable. We're also expanding the visual toolkit for everything: for building materials, for building animations, for managing content when we have a huge amount of game assets. We're just greatly simplifying the interface so that it's basically as easy to use as Unity.

    — Sweeney, Game Developer, 2012[34]

    Scripting

    In line with UE4's focus on simplicity, it included a new visual scripting system called "Blueprints" (a successor to UE3's "Kismet"[35]), which allows for rapid development of game logic without using code, resulting in less of a divide between technical artists, designers, and programmers.[36][37]

    I could say: 'I'm going to convert this pillar into a blueprint [in the Engine] and add some sort of trap to it.' It means I can really go in and start enhancing my world with interaction that just would not have been possible without a technical artist, a designer and a programmer and now any one of those three can do all of it, provided they have the assets handy. The fact that I can just go in and say, 'If you're within X distance of this thing, start to glow and take my distance to it, normalize it zero to one and then just lerp [linearly interpolate] between two different brightness values, so as I reach for something it gets hot'...that would have been something do-able but very difficult for anybody except a gameplay programmer. And he wouldn't have known how to set up the assets, but now any one of the three could do it.

    — Willard, Kotaku, 2012[37]
    An Unreal Engine presentation at GDC 2016

    Licensing

    On September 4, 2014, Epic released Unreal Engine 4 to schools and universities for free, including personal copies for students enrolled in accredited video game development, computer science, art, architecture, simulation, and visualization programs.[38] Epic opened an Unreal Engine Marketplace for acquiring game assets.[39] On February 19, 2015, Epic launched Unreal Dev Grants, a $5 million development fund aiming to provide grants to creative projects using Unreal Engine 4.[40]

    In March 2015, Epic released Unreal Engine 4, along with all future updates, for free for all users.[41][42] In exchange, Epic established a selective royalty schedule, asking for 5% of revenue for products that make more than $3,000 per quarter.[43] Sweeney stated that when they moved to the subscription model in 2014, use of Unreal grew by 10 times and through many smaller developers, and believed that they would draw even more uses through this new pricing scheme.[44]

    An Unreal Engine booth at GDC 2017

    In an attempt to attract Unreal Engine developers, Oculus VR announced in October 2016 that it will pay royalty fees for all Unreal-powered Oculus Rift titles published on their store for up to the first $5 million of gross revenue per game.[45]

    With the opening of the Epic Games Store in December 2018, Epic declared it would not charge the 5% revenue fee on games that use the Unreal Engine and are released through the Epic Games Stores, absorbing that cost as part of the base 12% cut Epic is taking to cover other costs.[46]

    Effective May 13, 2020, and retroactive to January 1, 2020, the royalty exemption amount has been increased to US$1,000,000 in lifetime gross revenue per title.[47]

    See also

    References

    1. ↑ "Unreal Engine End User License Agreement". Unreal Engine. Archived from the original on August 26, 2018. Retrieved 2018-08-26. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    2. ↑ Houlihan, John (August 18, 2005). "Rein: 'We've been working on Unreal Engine 4 for two years'". Computer and Video Games. Future Publishing Limited. Archived from the original on January 10, 2014. Retrieved August 19, 2005. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    3. ↑ Howarth, Robert (August 18, 2005). "Unreal Engine 4?". IGN. Archived from the original on January 5, 2022. Retrieved September 9, 2020. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Valich, Theo (March 12, 2008). "Tim Sweeney, Part 3: Unreal Engine 4.0 aims at next-gen console war". TG Daily. Archived from the original on April 14, 2010. Retrieved March 13, 2008. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    5. ↑ Gaudiosi, John (26 September 2011). "Epic Games Founder Talks Tech". IGN.
    6. ↑ Parrish, Kevin (February 11, 2012). "Epic Revealing Unreal Engine 4 Later This Year". Tom's Hardware. Archived from the original on February 28, 2012. Retrieved March 1, 2012. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    7. ↑ Shaw, Patrick (February 27, 2012). "Unreal Engine 4 Behind Closed Doors at GDC". Wired. Archived from the original on March 1, 2012. Retrieved March 6, 2012. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    8. ↑ "Unreal Engine 4 - GT.TV Exclusive Development Walkthrough". GameTrailers TV. June 7, 2012. Archived from the original on November 23, 2018. Retrieved August 22, 2018 – via YouTube. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    9. ↑ Burnes, Andre (June 7, 2012). "Epic Reveals Stunning Elemental Demo, & Tim Sweeney On Unreal Engine 4". Nvidia. Archived from the original on June 10, 2012. Retrieved June 12, 2012. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    10. ↑ Papadopoulos, John (April 20, 2013). "Epic Games' Tim Sweeney Explains Lack Of 'SVOGI' In Unreal Engine 4". Dark Side of Gaming. Archived from the original on April 11, 2020. Retrieved February 14, 2018. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    11. ↑ Orland, Kyle (March 19, 2014). "Unreal Engine 4 now available as $19/month subscription with 5% royalty". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on August 8, 2018. Retrieved August 8, 2018. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    12. ↑ "Zombie Studios Licenses Unreal Engine 4". UnrealEngine.com. 2012-12-18. Archived from the original on January 23, 2019. Retrieved 2019-01-23. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    13. ↑ "Making it in Unreal: How Daylight survived public pressure and became the very first UE4 game". PCGamesN. 2014-11-24. Archived from the original on January 23, 2019. Retrieved 2019-01-22. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    14. ↑ McAloon, Alissa (October 4, 2017). "Developing Fortnite: Battle Royale prompted engine-wide Unreal improvements". Game Developer. Archived from the original on February 24, 2018. Retrieved February 22, 2022. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    15. ↑ "Sharing and Releasing Projects". Unreal Engine Docs. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
    16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 Kumparak, Greg (April 3, 2014). "Unreal Engine 4 Gets Support For Making Linux And SteamOS Games". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    17. ↑ Skrebels, Joe (October 16, 2016). "Nintendo Switch Will Support Unreal Engine 4". IGN. Archived from the original on August 1, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Connors, Devin (April 24, 2014). "Epic Adds Xbox One, PlayStation 4 Support to Unreal Engine 4.1". The Escapist. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Unreal Engine 4.25 released!". Unreal Engine. Archived from the original on May 6, 2020. Retrieved May 6, 2020. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    20. ↑ "Unreal Engine Support for Google Stadia Now Available". Archived from the original on February 3, 2020. Retrieved February 3, 2020. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    21. ↑ Koolonavich, Nikholai (March 19, 2018). "Magic Leap Release Developer SDK, Unreal Engine 4 Support Announced". VRFocus. Archived from the original on March 19, 2018. Retrieved March 19, 2018. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    22. ↑ Kastrenakes, Jacob; Robertson, Adi (April 30, 2015). "Steam's virtual reality just got a boost from the maker of Unreal Tournament". The Verge. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    23. ↑ Sykes, Tom (June 9, 2013). "Unreal Engine 4 gets Oculus Rift support, could spell good things for future indie games". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    24. ↑ Feltham, Jamie (June 5, 2014). "Unreal Engine 4.2 Update Adds Project Morpheus Support On PS4 & PC". VRFocus. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    25. ↑ Matney, Lucas (March 15, 2016). "Native OSVR support comes to Unreal game engine". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    26. ↑ Lang, Ben (September 16, 2014). "Samsung Gear VR and Google Project Tango Support Coming to Unreal Engine 4". Road To VR. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    27. ↑ Ryan, Vance (May 31, 2019). "Unreal Engine 4 support for HoloLens 2 released in early access". Unreal Engine. Archived from the original on October 15, 2019. Retrieved June 11, 2019. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    28. ↑ Graft, Kris (May 19, 2016). "Google's new VR headset gets Unreal Engine 4 support". Game Developer. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    29. ↑ Cifaldi, Frank (March 29, 2013). "Interview: Epic goes all-in on HTML5 with UE4 support". Game Developer. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved February 22, 2022. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    30. ↑ "Developing HTML5 Projects". Unreal Engine Docs. Archived from the original on January 5, 2022. Retrieved 2022-01-05. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 31.3 31.4 31.5 Karis, Brian (2013). "Real Shading in Unreal Engine 4" (PDF). unrealengine.com.
    32. ↑ "Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice" by Hill, McAuley, Andersson, Hery, Hoffman, et al". siggraph.org. 2013.
    33. ↑ "Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice; SIGGRAPH 2013 Course Notes" (PDF). 2013.
    34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 Sheffield, Brandon (March 22, 2013). "The Old Guard: An Interview with Tim Sweeney". www.gamedeveloper.com.
    35. ↑ Grayson, Nathan (July 20, 2012). "Fortnite's Jessen Talks Minecraft, PC Gaming, UE4". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on May 1, 2018. Retrieved May 1, 2018. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    36. ↑ Thier, Dave (June 29, 2012). "Epic's Tim Sweeney on How Unreal Engine 4 Will Change The Way Games Are Made, and Why You Care". Forbes. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved October 4, 2014. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 Totilo, Stephen (June 8, 2012). "How Unreal Engine 4 Will Change The Next Games You Play". Kotaku. Archived from the original on October 24, 2012. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    38. ↑ Sykes, Tom (September 5, 2014). "Unreal Engine 4 now free for academic use". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on April 4, 2018. Retrieved April 4, 2018. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    39. ↑ Seppala, T. (September 5, 2014). "Would-be game makers can sell each other new levels, art in Unreal Engine 4". Engadget. Archived from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved 2021-07-19. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    40. ↑ Nutt, Christian (February 19, 2015). "Epic Games offers up $5 million in Unreal Dev Grants". Game Developer. Informa. Archived from the original on March 12, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2022. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    41. ↑ Sirani, Jordan (March 2, 2015). "Unreal Engine 4 is Free for Everyone". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on March 14, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2015. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    42. ↑ Nutt, Christian (March 2, 2015). "Unreal Engine 4 is now free-to-download for everyone". Game Developer. Informa. Archived from the original on March 15, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2022. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    43. ↑ Devin, Connors (September 3, 2014). "Epic Games Opens Unreal Engine Marketplace to Developers - Update". The Escapist. Archived from the original on September 5, 2014. Retrieved August 21, 2018. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    44. ↑ Gaudiosi, John (March 3, 2015). "Why Epic Games is giving away its game technology". Fortune. Time Inc. Archived from the original on March 8, 2015. Retrieved March 13, 2015. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    45. ↑ Graft, Kris (October 6, 2016). "Oculus, Epic make deal to give Unreal Engine devs a royalties break". Game Developer. Archived from the original on October 30, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2022. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    46. ↑ Frank, Allegra (December 4, 2018). "Epic Games is launching its own store, and taking a smaller cut than Steam". Polygon. Archived from the original on January 20, 2019. Retrieved December 7, 2018. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
    47. ↑ "Unreal Engine | Frequently Asked Questions". Unreal Engine. Archived from the original on September 6, 2021. Retrieved 2020-07-23. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)


    This article "Unreal Engine 4" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

    Page kept on Wikipedia This page exists already on Wikipedia.
    Retrieved from "https://en.everybodywiki.com/index.php?title=Kept_on_Wikipedia:Unreal_Engine_4&oldid=5954937"
    License CC BY-SA 3.0
    Powered by MediaWiki