Online Gaming News: Epic Games Releases September 2010 Unreal Development Kit Beta

Epic Games, Inc. has released the September 2010 UDK Beta, the latest version of the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free edition of Unreal Engine 3 that provides uncompromised access to the award-winning toolset used in blockbuster video games, 3D visualizations, digital films and more.

Epic is committed to providing the UDK community with regular software releases at no charge, and the latest beta is available now at www.udk.com/download.

Are you creating something great with UDK? Drop us a line in the Project Show-Off forums, where links to tech demos, gameplay videos and screenshots are always welcome.

We have a new UDK architecture forum. Are you using UDK to create 3D visualizations or simulations? Drop in and meet others who are using Unreal Engine 3 tools for similar purposes. Scaleform UI creation also gained its own forum.

It’s easy to sign up as a commercial UDK developer online. Our FAQ can help you determine which type of license is right for you.

This month’s build of UDK features significant additions, including:

UDK users now have access to the gameplay profiler tool.
Matinee’s movement tracks can now be split into individual translation and rotation components.
Users can bulk edit texture properties within the Content Browser.

Upgrade Notes

Due to changes in PhysX you should re-save all of your content.

UDKGame

Fixed leaning during jumps in UDK.
Fixed UDKVehicle crash.
‘AllowNVidiaStereo3D’ is false by default for UDK.
Switched UDK maps over to use precomputed visibility.
Resaved UDK maps for updated PhysX changes.

Profiling

Gameplay profiler tool now available in UDK!
- ‘GamePlayProfiler’ is a tool that allows digging deeper into time spent in gameplay code.
- Read more:
  - http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/GameplayProfiler.html

Matinee

Allow movement tracks to be split so that translation and rotation components can be individually manipulated.
- Read more:

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MatineeUserGuide.html#Separating Translation and Rotation

matinee

You can now disable the audio radio filter effect in Matinee Kismet blocks.

Particle System improvements

Now supports multiple ribbons per emitter.
New ‘RandomSeed’ module in Cascade helps particles play back more consistently.
Random size and lifetime can now be specified per ribbon in an emitter.
Particle spawn rates are now clamped to prevent negative spawn rates.

Rendering

Added ‘ImageGrain’ to ‘UberPostProcess.’
Improved post processing.
- Uses less memory.
- Better CPU/GPU performance.
- Improved quality and consistency.
- New features such as HDR scale and film grain.
Optimized distortion pass.
Fixed multiple split-screen issues causing color leaking.
‘F5’ key now enables shader complexity mode by default.

Animation

Added support for rotating Joint Bone to ‘SkelControlLimb.’
Animation compression improvements.
- With automatic or the ‘CompressAnimations’ commandlet.
  - Savings of 30% over the previously compressed size are typical.
  - Can be much higher on some animations or with adjustments to the compression parameters.

Scaleform GFx

Integrated fix for sRGB handling with fonts from Scaleform.
GFx now supports Distance Field and RGBA UFonts.
Added a sample GFxUI.int to Engine/Localization/INT/.

DCC Tools (Max/Maya)

ActorX for Maya and Max 2011 is now supported.

PhysX

‘PhysXDestructible’ has been removed.
APEX destructibles are replacing them.

Other Improvements:

Workflow enhancements (e.g., find all materials using this texture, support for local collections to the Content Browser).
Fixed hitches during gameplay caused by long processing times for zero length linechecks.
OBJ mesh export now can generate a diffuse, specular and normal texture from the material.
Alternate mesh bone weight import tool has been much improved and supports both low->high and high->low bone count swapping.
Streaming texture stat enhancements including the new STAT TEXTUREPOOL command.
Landscape editing improvements.
The new color picker is now integrated into the mesh paint tool.
The mesh paint tool now supports flood fill.
Gamma can now be used even if the tonemapper is activated.
Texture properties can now be edited in bulk via the Content Browser.