Hatless Atlas

So, as can be inferred from the previous post, I’ve been playing around with the UDK. In particular, I’ve been looking at materials and the new lighting technology that UE3 employes, named Lightmass.

In real life, a beam of light entering a dark room does not just illuminate the patch of the surface it lands on; the light bounces around, and the rest of the room also gets illuminated in the process. Now, the earlier versions of the Unreal Engine 3 did not support this global illumination. Therefore, Illuminate Labs came up with their own lighting solution, named Beast, which provides features like global illumination, bleeding, shadows cast by semi-transparent objects and so on.

Since I’ve been playing around with the idea of a short horror game (kind of like a short story), lighting has been on my mind a lot recently, since the light sets the mood for any game, and the lighting is especially critical in a horror game. The reason Doom3 scared so many players, despite being not that “scary” (I mean, come on, it’s just monsters jumping out of hidden corners and startling you), the lighting combined with stencil shadows and EXCELLENT level design are what made it scary.

However, stencil shadowing is a rather old technique, not often-used today, because it gives rather hard-edged shadows. Instead, most modern game engines use a number of techniques to cast “soft shadows” which are more realistic. Hard shadows are ones which have hard edges all over the surface. In real life, a shadow which is closer to the surface casting it is hard, and as the shadow moves away from that surface, it gets softer and more diffused.

So, as I was saying, lighting has been on my mind quite a bit recently. I want to get the look of everything in the game just right, which means that the materials that I apply to BSP surfaces and meshes need to be very well-made, with proper normal mapping, emissivity, specular reflections, and what not. So, I’ve gotten into the habit of looking at everything very closely as I’m walking down the street, noticing how light bounces off certain surfaces, casting parts of objects into shadow and highlighting other parts.

The funny thing is, I think I’ve gone a tad bit too far. Because today, I off-handedly looked at the shadow cast by a moving bike, and I swear, the first thought that popped into my head was:
“Hey, it’s casting a perfectly anti-aliased soft shadow!! How are they doing that?”

I’ve been at a loss for quite a while about what to blog about. Never thought I’d see the day I’d get writer’s block, but I guess stranger things I’ve happened. Anyways, the reason I’m climbing my way out of the rut is because I’ve finally found something important enough to write about:

EpicGames has released the Unreal Engine 3 to all game developers worldwide.

Ok, let me explain. The way it works with most of the popular game engines, is that people buy one of the games written using that engine, and that game usually ships with its own “mod” tools: tools that allow you to make minor or major changes in the original game. Minor changes include new levels, or an amped-up weapon, and so on. Major changes include mods that are known as Total Conversions, or TCs. TCs are mods that completely change the gameplay, introducing new characters, new art, a new story, new gameplay modes and so on.

I believe the first game that was truly open to all modders was the original Doom made by ID software. That was the game that sparked off the whole modding culture, and.. ok, I’m getting carried away here. What I’m trying to point out here, is that most “mods” are usually made by enthusiasts who like a particular engine, purchase a game that uses that engine, and go from there.

Which is why this recent move by Epic Games is a game-changer: they have released their baby, the next-gen Unreal Engine 3 to the public in the form of the Unreal Developer Kit, saying “here’s our engine, do what you want with it. If you want to sell what you make, there are certain rules.”

If, by this point, your jaw has dropped to the floor and you’re about to open a new tab and google for “Unreal Developer Kit”, then let me save you the trouble. I will be posting a few links at the end of this post, but for now, here’s the download link.

For those of you whose jaws are not somewhere near the floor, let me explain in greater detail.

While there are quite a few mod makers who make mods for the sheer thrill of it, quite a few of us (yes, I said “us”) look at mods as means of getting a fingernail into the game development industry. You can make a mod, and then direct a prospective employer to check it out. It acts as your portfolio. The catch here being, of course, that your employer needs to have the particular game that you have modded, which might be a deal-breaker in a few cases.

Now, thanks to UDK, mod makers can make their mods, and distribute them independent of the original game. The kit allows you to package your mod and create an installer, which, then, is all you need to upload somewhere, and you’re all set to dazzle your employers-to-be.

The kit is also a blessing for indie (independent) developers. These are chaps who are not part of some big game development studio, who do not have some big publisher backing them. While some might prefer to make their own engines, making a game engine is a long, complicated and tiring process. Companies like Valve and Epic spend years and years of programmer-hours and spend millions of dollars on research to make the engines that drive today’s games. And, corresponding, the licensing cost for these engines is also a tad bit out of reach for your average Joe-indie-developer. So indies are forced to settle for other engines, like the C4 engine (which is very good, but graphically doesn’t even come close to giants like the Source engine or CryEngine 2) and the Torque engine (which, in my opinion, is crap).

With UDK, though, the indie developers can make their games, and (based on my meager understanding of the EULA) they have to pay Epic a sum of $99 if they wish to sell their product, and 25% royalty if their annual revenues are more than $5000. Which, in my humble opinion, is not too bad.

So, the way I see it, UE3 will most probably be leaving other engines in its dust, since its easy availability, combined with an active forum and regular updates, and some truly good things under the hood, will attract a lot more modders and indie developers. Sure, it has quite a few kinks at this stage, one being lack of documentation on getting started with making your own game using UDK, another being its close ties with UTGame, but from what I’ve heard Epic has always been good to the modding community, and I believe that it’s only a matter of time before the whole thing skyrockets.

If you’re still not excited, please close this tab, my blog is not for you.

Anyway, here are the links I promised:

• http://www.udk.com (The main website)
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitProgramming.html (Explains how to get started with programming on the kit)
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitGettingStarted.html (The Getting Started page. Kinda useless at the moment, guess they’ll fill it up as time passes)
• http://www.udk.com/forums (The forums)

I’m planning on purchasing the Neo Freerunner, the famous(?) open-phone. It’s one of the only two phones in the market (the other one being the Neo1973) which have open hardware (in addition to the obvious open software stack). I have three reasons for picking this phone over any other:

1. Awesome hardware specs.

With the exception of 3G connectivity, this phone has everything that every other phone in the market has. Sure, it might not have a 5MP camera like the N97, but whatever, who needs it anyway?

2. An active community

This is especially important, with respect to bug fixes as well as introduction of new features. When everything in the software stack is completely open, only the sky is the limit to what can be done.

3. It can run Android OS

Nuff said.