The Unreal Engine 4 has been started

[Everlost_MI]

According an interview (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/r/?page=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/news/news_story.php(que)id=123639) with Mark Rein the VP of Epic Games that's been posted at CVG (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/), the Unreal Engine 4 has been in development for the past two years.

Cool, but can we see and play with Unreal Engine 3 before we get excited over 4?

[mister_slim]

Who cares about UE3, let's just go to UE 361.

[Royal Fool]

Gee. Right now I'm thinking "How on Earth will Epic be able to produce screenshots and videos of their UE4 that could possibly topple the Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 2006 screenshots?"

:)

[kathode]

Gee. Right now I'm thinking "How on Earth will Epic be able to produce screenshots and videos of their UE4 that could possibly topple the Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 2006 screenshots?"

A better question would be why would they want to? Seeing as how those games aren't even that close to being out yet, wouldn't be a good idea to keep people looking forward even further. Article seems to be mainly to be a big (very big, oddly) job ad.

[Taco]

Does Epic make games anymore?

[Tricky Thumb]

Gee. Right now I'm thinking "How on Earth will Epic be able to produce screenshots and videos of their UE4 that could possibly topple the Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 2006 screenshots?"

:)

I believe you mean Unreal Tournament 2007.

[snubber]

2 years already? That's surprising. I'm no longer excited for any U3 games! Bring on U4 !

[SymetriX]

UE3 is so 2 minutes from now.

[Eric_T_Cheng]

Instead of pushing more polys and more realistic physics, how about concentrating on AI?

[Evil Avatar]

Instead of pushing more polys and more realistic physics, how about concentrating on AI?

That would require actual talented programmers, so don't go expecting that any time soon.

[Genital Eclipse]

My unborn son has started work on the Unreal Engine 7.

[hideouslywrinkled]

Uh oh... didn't they think about the Osborne factor.

I mean, why would anyone buy the UR3 engine when the UR4 engine is probably only six years away!1!!

:)

[SpectralWolf]

Will it be a multicore engine? Will it use the PhysX chip? Will it come out on this next current generation of consoles or is it even further out than that? Questions that need to be answered...

[Deadend]

wait... how many years ago did they start working on 3?

Wow, they seem to be wanting some more smart people who want to creat the future of games...

I think it would be kinda amusing for Carmack to go join Epic, as he is a very smart guy... no clue on how he would be as a team player.

[Teddeh]

Instead of pushing more polys and more realistic physics, how about concentrating on AI?

Gamers will eventually get really good AI, then find they didn't want it!

Imagine opponents in an FPS that are a better shot, that can guess where you'll hide, that use proper squad tactics. Imagine drivers with better reflexes and who aggressively block you.

The player will get their ass handed to them by the AI, and what kind of fun is that?

[bKangy]

I predict that in combination with a PS5 console, you can actually download your brain to a computer with UE6, and then play the games you know and love in the highest detail imaginable.

[MrMeatshake]

Gamers will eventually get really good AI, then find they didn't want it!

i read good ai to mean 'more realistic' not better at the games. there's already plenty of different ways the CS:S bots can hand my ass to me, i don't think it's even hard to make bots consistently better within known constraints than humans. i think it's about making bots better able to interact with the player, and respond to unexpected situations in a believable way. take that bot that's handing my ass to me consistently onto a level where he doesn't have any waypoints and let me kill it while it jumps at the wall! ;)

[themulf]

Epic has stated that they take the AI really seriously, and therefor the AI in U3 will be really good. They really want to add voice comm between the two (although that has less to do with AI, and more of voice recognition and processing). I am no expert, but its my assumption that AI has its current restrictions. After all its all IF and OR decisions i guess, which rely on player input.

[IagoTheHunted]

As was pointed out AI programming isn't about making the NPCs "good" at the game. That's easy, I mean everything is running in code, the NPCs can EASILY be set to play flawlessly so that no one could ever beat them. That's simple. AI is about realism and how humans interact with each other and other animals at an intuitive level, good programming should take into account flaws in normal human strategy and also certain base psychology pricipals which affect reflexive actions.
At any rate game engines don't need much more power than they have for good AI. Good AI doesn't mean that NPCs are thinking about what they had for lunch and if their leg itches and blah blah blah. Good AI is just smoke and mirrors, it has to look like it's intelligent even though it's not.

[RMan]

Wow, what a meaningless anouncement. Unreal 8 has been in development for over 10 years, as well, since they obviously wouldn't throw away the codebase. Wouldn't want to go too long without some kind of press anouncement, I suppose.