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Over 160 Tutorial Videos Created For Unreal Dev Kit

Posted by Soulskill on from the how-it's-done dept.

As a follow-up to Epic Games' release of a free version of the Unreal Engine last month, the company has now posted over 160 video tutorials which demonstrate the various uses of the Unreal Development Kit. Roughly 20 hours of footage were created by technical education company 3D Buzz, with topics ranging from user interface to game physics to cinematics.

48 comments

  1. Videos by sopssa · · Score: 5, Informative

    And here are the videos:

    User Interface
    Simple Level
    Lighting
    Geometry Mode
    Kismet
    Materials
    Terrain
    Fractured Static Meshes
    Sounds
    Particles
    Fluid Surfaces
    Physics
    Crowds
    Cinematics
    UI Scenes
    Top-down Game Types

    They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

    1. Re:Videos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is really cool man ...

    2. Re:Videos by SaMe3R · · Score: 1

      Hey Thanks for posting links

    3. Re:Videos by citizenr · · Score: 1

      ahaha zipped movies, are they retarded?

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
    4. Re:Videos by nitroyogi · · Score: 5, Informative

      You missed 'Skeletal Mesh Pipeline' videos.
      Here they are -
      Skeletal Meshes: Intro
      Skeletal Meshes: Skeletal Meshes Import/Export
      Skeletal Meshes: Mirror Tables
      Skeletal Meshes: Sockets
      Skeletal Meshes: Physics Assets

      kthxbye

    5. Re:Videos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      probably not. zip files with no compression to simplify downloading multiple files perhaps? it's basically tar, haven't checked that that's what they've actually done though.

    6. Re:Videos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So much truth in so few words.

    7. Re:Videos by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      You also get built-in integrity testing when you unzip. I prefer everything to be zipped (or gzipped or bzipped, etc) even if it doesn't make it smaller for that reason.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
  2. GNU/Linux support? by GNUPublicLicense · · Score: 1

    Is the GNU/Linux support ready?

    1. Re:GNU/Linux support? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 3, Informative

      No.

      Minimum Requirements:
      - Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
      - 2.0+ GHz processor
      - 2 GB system RAM
      - SM3-compatible video card
      - 3 GB Free hard drive space

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    2. Re:GNU/Linux support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Minimum requirements?

      I have a Ubuntu 9.10 Linux 2.4 Ghz Quad Qore which gives me at least 4 times more then minimum! GNU/Linux support is implied by the minimum Windows.

    3. Re:GNU/Linux support? by wed128 · · Score: 1

      HAHAHAHA ...seriously. that joke was old back in like 1999.

    4. Re:GNU/Linux support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have ceased all development using the Unreal technology.

      They used to at least support Linux clients even if the development tools didn't. As of the Unreal 3 engine Linux client support is in limbo and it looks like it will never be supported. Bye bye EPIC!

    5. Re:GNU/Linux support? by GNUPublicLicense · · Score: 1

      well... that's unfortunately the way to go...

    6. Re:GNU/Linux support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those GNU/Linux supporters did look fishy to me.

    7. Re:GNU/Linux support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What development did you do previously? Oh right, none. You could never have used the dev toolchain on Linux anyway, and you wouldn't have had any significant number of customers on Linux. I'm sure Epic is crying in their beer over losing a customer they never had.

      Go lean on Torque to finish their Linux port. Good luck with it.

    8. Re:GNU/Linux support? by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 1

      UE 2 did run on Linux (downloadable as UT 2004 for Linux), IIRC UE 2.5 was only on xbox (Unreal Championship) and UE3 doesn't have a Linux version at all (which is why the UDK doesn't support Linux).

    9. Re:GNU/Linux support? by neumayr · · Score: 1

      Bye bye EPIC!

      I'm sure they'll be crying themselves to sleep tonight.

      --
      Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
  3. Terrain generator? Aerodynamics? by Ceriel+Nosforit · · Score: 1

    Anybody know of a free terrain generator? How about a physics engine that does basic aerodynamics? I want to create a non-gore FPS game where indestructible robots from the far future go about their business Tribes-like, but it's sport instead of war and they leap 1 000 ft and glide through the air instead of using jet-packs.

    It sounds so easy in my mind... And why shouldn't it be since so much of this stuff is already developed?

    --
    All rites reversed 2010
    1. Re:Terrain generator? Aerodynamics? by ZeroExistenZ · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I remember reading a 90s published book "3D game design" which walks through (in 2000 pages) the creation of an 3D FPS shooter.

      The terrain generator described inthere, is just a grid with random height vertices, smoothed with interpolation and stored in a grayscale bitmap to represent the "height variation". The parser of this bitmap hence could also be fed by a simple image in which you drew your landscape's height variation and overlay a texturemap.

      For this you just need to be able to draw vertices and creative use of randomized numbers.

      But for todays high-res gamedesign, I think there are more involving techniques needed...

      --
      I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
    2. Re:Terrain generator? Aerodynamics? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perlin noise works very well.

      Perlin Noise

      It's psuedo-random. It's also extremely controllable. It's been used in textures and heightmaps for quite a long time. What's great about perlin noise is that all of the values are influenced by their neighbors, such that you won't get any unusual extremes in your data set (i.e. 255 pixels, which would be mountains, right next to 000 pixels, which would be seabed).

      simple heightmap with perlin noise

      You can adjust the contrast to adjust the variability of the land. You can also "seed" your map with gradient patterns (for example, a gradient white circle ANDed to the perlin noise) to get specific island shapes. You can use "turbulent" distortions to make even more changes to the terrain.

      And last, but not least, if you roll your own heightmap / terrain generator... Path-finding and collision detection may be easier or more accurate for one's purposes.

    3. Re:Terrain generator? Aerodynamics? by lobsterdude · · Score: 1

      When I played around with this using another 3d engine (panda3D) I explored Perlin noise and the Diamond-Square algorithm. I found that perlin noise was good for getting rolling hills, but the diamond square produced better "mountains".

    4. Re:Terrain generator? Aerodynamics? by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 1

      You can use a few popular 3d Modelling programs to create terrain, depending on what engine you are using. I know a few engines have plugins for 3dsMax and Maya. Mind you, those programs don't come cheap but you can line yourself up with a free trial and try to get all your Maps done in a month, which helped me set deadlines for myself in my experience. (Try not to laugh, its a good business strategy. Get your work done before your trial is up!)

      As for physics engine - You can take just about any engine already out there and tweak it to fit exactly that. I use source but I think something along the lines of Tribes 2 or Torque might be better suited for that. (Let me just spew off some features here)

      Torque Engine Features
      Built-in level terrain and GUI editors
      Built-in terrain generator
      Sophisticated C++ based scripting language
      Built-in physics engine supporting basic physics, collision detection, rigid body and vehicle physics
      Supports bone animation
      Networking system for online games
      In-built particle systems, weather effects, layered volumetric fog and water engine.
      Features continuous terrain, allowing for massive world design

    5. Re:Terrain generator? Aerodynamics? by Toonol · · Score: 1

      A couple more notes:

      Keep everything tied to a particular seed, and replicable; that way, you can create an infinite number of random worlds, but always return to one that was previously created. I use that in a space game to generate random sectors of the galaxy... the seed is the sector coordinates, which is used for generating the stars... the coordinate of the stars is the seed for generating the planets, planets are used for generating the cities, etc. That way I have every planet in the galaxy, reproducible at will, but don't have to store a bit of permanent data. (Idea is pretty much shamelessly stolen from Elite.)

      For terrain... you can use these generation techniques for much more than height. I would suggest, for instance, that you create a similar grid for vegetation... maybe start it off with values based on attitude and proximity to water, and randomly tweak it a bit, then overlay it.

      One feature that fractal generation WON'T get you is erosion, and things like river paths. If you want that, you'll have to do some post-processing work. I think you could trace potential river courses by just analyzing heights, maybe simulation of simple water flow.

  4. Terrain generator? Use fractal landscapes! by thijsh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Random generated is soooo 90's... in this century they use fractals (which is just a simple formula with some more random added in it). ;-)
    But seriously read more about fractal landscapes here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_landscape

    1. Re:Terrain generator? Use fractal landscapes! by ZeroExistenZ · · Score: 1

      Thijsh I love you. You have given me something new to play with this weekend! yay!

      --
      I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
    2. Re:Terrain generator? Use fractal landscapes! by ProblemWithAmerica · · Score: 0, Troll

      You see, this is the problem with America these days, people throwing around the word love so carelessly...

    3. Re:Terrain generator? Use fractal landscapes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used to throw feces around, but that didn't really bring me far in life...

    4. Re:Terrain generator? Use fractal landscapes! by ZeroExistenZ · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry buddy, I'm European. The word "love" was for me to indicated a warmhearted felt appreciation for new information and a decent upgrade in knowledge which I anticipate to start in 4-5 hours. I don't consider that a problem.

      --
      I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
    5. Re:Terrain generator? Use fractal landscapes! by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry buddy, I'm European. The word "love" was for me to indicated a warmhearted felt appreciation for new information and a decent upgrade in knowledge which I anticipate to start in 4-5 hours. I don't consider that a problem.

      4-5 hours is good, because doesn't it take some time for those ED treatments to kick in?

      --
      Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
    6. Re:Terrain generator? Use fractal landscapes! by ZeroExistenZ · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh no, it takes another 4-5 hours to finish work :)

      If you want me to, I can forward my ED-spam to you. "forward (to IndustrialComplex)" is just one button away from "mark as spam".

      --
      I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
    7. Re:Terrain generator? Use fractal landscapes! by Ceriel+Nosforit · · Score: 1

      Oooh... Very purty. An purtyness is important because everybody loves bright colours moving around. Just think about how many people stop to watch a house burning down.

      I suspect with some qualifiers you could generate terrain which yields interesting tactics. High mountain ranges and water are obstacles to be reckoned with; quite unlike artifical and invisible barries which determine the end of the map. This way you could make an entire planet's worth of map and not have it take up eleventy terabytes.

      How about automatically generating cities, roads, bridges, powerlines, pipelines, and whatnot? Population centers are weighted towards waterlines, preferring rivers... Rivers? So we need another algorithm to erode the landscape. This is getting complicated. >_>

      --
      All rites reversed 2010
    8. Re:Terrain generator? Use fractal landscapes! by 2short · · Score: 2, Interesting


      Ahh, the random midpoint displacement algorithm. Thanks for pointing out that neat thing they do this century. Mind you, it's genuinely cool stuff, and you shouldn't be less excited about it just because other people were excited about it previously. But that "soooo 90's" is pretty damn funny, since what you're describing is probably the same thing the OP is talking about, and it is actually... soooo 80's.

      At least, I wrote a little program to play with it in 1991 after reading about it in a book published in the late 80s.

  5. Epic by Steauengeglase · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've got to give Epic credit, they've taken a lot of criticisms about developing for Unreal to heart and went miles beyond what anyone could have expected.

    1. Re:Epic by pckl300 · · Score: 1

      I wish they would apply the same excellent effort to their most recent game. The damn thing has been broken for over a year now.

      --
      In the beginning, there was null.
    2. Re:Epic by electrosoccertux · · Score: 1

      I've got to give Epic credit, they've taken a lot of criticisms about developing for Unreal to heart and went miles beyond what anyone could have expected.

      If they would have just spent 6 months tweaking the PC version of UT3 none of this would have been necessary. Practically the entire UT fanbase was excited about UT3 when they played the demo until they found out the demo was basically the final thing, User Interface and all.

      10 years ago in UT99 the UI was capable of browsing for different servers while currently connected in a game. You could select a new one and start downloading the map in the background while continuing to play in the current game.
      With UT3, you have to stop what you're doing, disconnect from the current game (and hope you'll find a better game), get back to the server browser, pick a server, and if you need the map, watch it download. For the usual 40MB map, you're staring at the download screen for, say, at least a minute if you're on a standard DSL connection. In other words, lots of downtime.
      They can run all the $5 Direct2Drive promos they want, but if the game is a pain to run, people just won't play it. The gameplay is great but the interface design is so ... well I would say y2k, but even stuff that came out 10 years ago was better than this.

    3. Re:Epic by pckl300 · · Score: 1

      I suspect the lackluster PC interfaces may stem from them designing the game for consoles.

      --
      In the beginning, there was null.
  6. They have already done something similar.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unreal Tournament 2004 was released on March 16, 2004 for the PC ..... At release consumers could purchase the game on CD, or a limited-time special edition DVD version that came with a Logitech microphone-headset and a second DVD filled with video-tutorials on how to use the included UnrealEd

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Tournament_2004

  7. Videos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about some good WRITTEN documentation (the half-assed, inconsistent documentation available for it doesn't count) so I can read and follow at my own pace, instead of watching some goddamn annoying videos that are more difficult to follow along for anyone that can actually, you know, read?

    Sorry, but I'm really annoyed at the trend toward "video/audio > good writing and images".

    AC because I know people that "mod" /. don't know the different between trolling and disagreeing.

    1. Re:Videos? by elysiuan · · Score: 1

      I agree pretty much 100%. They have a large amount of decent reference documentation up but little to no 'process' documentation.

      I'd settle for 2 pdfs: the creation of a fixed camera 2d-style game from start to finish that's much more in depth than the Whizzle design doc, and the same but for a first person type game.

  8. Re:Terrain generator: L3TD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've had really good experience with L3DT for terrain generation and Aaron, the guy who created it, offers really strong support. It's free with some reasonable size restrictions. (Although I ended up popping for the full version, but its cheap.)

  9. Re:Terrain generator: L3TD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Forgot that the internet lets you link... http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/

  10. EPIC not EPIC by DRAGONWEEZEL · · Score: 1

    Epic is also a large company that Makes software for medical institutions.

    But now that fact is out of the way, I've used UED, and found it to be amazingly simple and intuitive for someone who has little design experience. Just learn what the tools do, and use them. (Ie: subtract, add, intersect, etc..)

    --
    How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
  11. Guarenteed Failure by spektricide · · Score: 1

    Do they a tutorial on making yet another mediocre FPS with stunning RPG elements like experience and +2% to damage? (Can somebody get original?)

    1. Re:Guarenteed Failure by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

      ``Do they a tutorial on making yet another mediocre FPS ...''

      I think they used to, but they accidentally it.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.