new game engine for uru?

[Floydman]

Does Unreal have support for skyboxes? Minkata's suns always make me very sad.

[andylegate]

@Floydman: Oh yes! There are TONS of pre-made, animated, and shaded skyboxes that come with the Unreal SDK, or you can make your own, and animate it anyway you like. You could have the Minkata dust storms in it just fine. It can do all that.

@Aloys:

For a large Age, my first thought was the Cleft. But it's quite huge. You would think it would be one large, sculpted terrain, with parts of it broken up of course, but the small parts contained only inside the fence perimeter. But instead, even the outside of the fence is really broken up into small pieces. Rather puzzling since normally you can't get out to there.

However, there is just one tiny problem, and while small, it has a major impact: You can not import terrain as static meshes and have collision on them, nor can you import into the UDK's terrain editor.

What I can do, is make a Height Map of the Cleft in blender (just the ground, the volcano will import fine), and then use that to actually build the terrain in the UDK.

But again, the Cleft is huge. So I was thinking of something smaller, like say Ahnonay Sphere 1 (and yes, you an make swim regions in Unreal). Water is pretty cool in Unreal. You can have like a small puddle or pond, be absolutely still and reflect like a mirror. Along comes a player and steps in it. However, unlike Plasma, where we have to make the water disturbances, sort of like the foot prints, in Unreal, the fluid mechanics will react to players and objects in the water automatically. The more violently you move around in it, the more ripply the water gets. And I don't mean a ripple decal. I mean what looks like a full blown waveset!
You can have a particle drip too, and when it hits the water's surface, it will make the ripple rings automatically. I mean it's just too cool to work with as an artist!

Or, I could do the outside of Gahreesen (and this is the one I'm leaning to). All sorts of things to explore really as far as Unreal goes.

Again, I want to reassure everyone that I'm not pushing for everyone or the GoW to adopt the Unreal SDK for Uru. This is just a bit of exploration. Seeing what it can do, what it can't do, etc, etc. So far I have to say I'm very impressed with it, and if a group did decide to make a shard using it, that's where I'd most likely be. It's just too darn fun to make stuff in the Unreal SDK, especially when you can take character skeleton meshes, and skin them with say the Bahro skin, or your favorite DRC member, and actually put them in your Age, where the AI will have them walk around and even react! Just too cool.

[Aloys]

In related news, the CryEngine SDK was just finally released, for free (like Unreal).
It is available here. And to have a good idea of what that engine is capable of have a look at this gorgeous video. (This particular map is included in the SDK)
Right now if I had a couple million dollars I'd give them to Cyan for them to make RealRiven with this engine.. Or maybe just a new version of realMyst. That lighthouse in the video obviously reminds me of Stoneship.

[D'Lanor]

Apart from the mysterious atmosphere the thing that attracts me to Uru most are the puzzles. How hard would it be to recreate those with the Unreal (or Cry) engine?

[Chacal]

And to have a good idea of what that engine is capable of have a look at this gorgeous video.

/picks up lower jaw on floor
Wow!

[andylegate]

If it is a puzzle that involves animations and keeping track (think the pillar room in Kadish), button sequences, all that neat stuff, then the answer is: No sweat! They can be all done.

Kismet is how the "scripting" for the Age is done. Here is an example from Ahnonay. I have 2 scripts, one to slow the player's walk down, and the other is for opening the doors:



Heck, to have the sound for the doors opening, I didn't even have to put in a sound emitter! I just had to tell the doors that they have an opening sound:



I was on the road today (down to Florida and back) so I have not messed with anything on it, however, other than trying another Age, I'm thinking of following the tutorials for replacing the player actor (I mean who wants to play Uru as a robot?) mesh, the tutorials for changing the HUD and UI, (I mean we don't want guns to go frag stuff.....at least I'm pretty sure most people don't want to play it as a FPS, hehehe), and also the tutorials for changing player character behavior (I'm sure you noticed that bouncy gait that the robot has).

@Aloys: Oh goody! I've been wanting to mess with the CryEngine! And after looking at the video, even more so (hehehe love the Obilivion music!)

Edit: YES! Just checked out the system requirements for CryEngine SDK, my 'puter kicks the recommended list's butt! :Very Evil Grin:.........heh, between this and Unreal's SDK, I may not be back, you'll find me as a skeleton at my computer because I could not pull myself away to go eat! heheheheheheh.

[Aloys]

Did you get to play with Matinee the cinematics editor? I see it mentionned on the shots. This thing should be tons of fun for rides and fly-by animations..

we don't want guns to go frag stuff.....at least I'm pretty sure most people don't want to play it as a FPS, hehehe

Well; I still have in a drawer an old game design doc of Myst as a CTF game where we fought with books as melee weapons and the goal was to get red/blue pages..

Just checked out the system requirements for CryEngine SDK, my 'puter kicks the recommended list's butt! :Very Evil Grin:.........heh, between this and Unreal's SDK, I may not be back, you'll find me as a skeleton at my computer because I could not pull myself away to go eat! heheheheheheh.

I'm stuck on an old laptop these days and it probably can't run decently either UnrealEd or CryEngine's Sandbox.. it's not like I have the time for that anyway..

[andylegate]

Oh yah baby!!!!

This is going to be FUN to say the least! Here's the CryEngine SDK running on my computer with the Forrest demo loaded! Woo Hoo!



The 3D scene window is real time WYSIWYG! And the effects are stunning! It's not just how it looks either! All the ambient sounds are playing too!

Now to look at loading an Uru Age into it, hehehehehehehehehe.

[diafero]

That's looking awesome

Andy, could you please put the images directly into the post instead of using spoiler tags? The forum will automatically make them smaller and add scrollbar, and if you click the image, it expands to the full size. Currently actually viewing the image you posted requires to open it manually, in a new tab.

[andylegate]

That's looking awesome

Andy, could you please put the images directly into the post instead of using spoiler tags? The forum will automatically make them smaller and add scrollbar, and if you click the image, it expands to the full size. Currently actually viewing the image you posted requires to open it manually, in a new tab.

Most certainly!

Sorry, was thinking of MOUL forum where large images mess up the forum layout.........Or I think it was....man, getting old sucks! 45 in October and already my memory is going!

Edit: btw - importing Uru into the CryEngine 3 SDK is going to be a pain for some. They have plugins that come with the sdk, but they are for Max 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.
If you are using Max 9 or 8, you have to get the plugins from the old CryEngine mod (another 400 MB download, huh!) but they are compatible with the new SDK. Which is self extracting, BUT if you do not have a CryEngine game on your computer, it will fail the extraction. So I opened up my Handy Dandy 7z and manually extracted the plugin files.

There are also plugin files for exporting for Maya.

However, Blender useres are out in the cold I think (not 100 percent sure on that). So if you only use Blender, you won't be able to export the actual Uru ages from MOUL into CryEngine SDK. But you can still learn to build from scratch in the SDK itself and make new content that way.

I'm going to drop everything I'm working on to try and import a Uru Age, specifically an outside one like Aloys suggested (sorry, but in the video, when the sun went behind the light house and that sun beam shot out of the window.....I about fell out of my chair!!!). I want to see what it can do.....er, game logic wise. I mean just opening up the SDK and the demo level tells me it's outstanding as far as making things look good (I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!). But we have to make sure it can do the puzzles too (I bet it can, but only one way to find out).

Oh, and I'll come back and post a video of the SDK on my screen top. A pic just does not do it justice!

2nd Edit: here is a link to a video of the SDK running on my computer, screen capture was a bit jerky, it's actually much smoother than it looks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLkzjlQqEZA