Computex 2013 / E3 2013: Unreal Engine 4 Partners Program

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Shows and Expos | June 6, 2013 - 05:42 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: unreal engine 4, ue4, E3 13, E3, computex

We are bleeding through the overlap between Computex and E3 media windows; this news has a somewhat relevant fit for both. Unreal Engine 4 is coming and I expect we will see one or more demos and UE4-powered titles over the next week. In fact, I would be fairly shocked if we do not see the end of the Elemental Demo with the Xbox One E3 keynote. We may also potentially see Unreal Engine 4 running on mobile devices and maybe even HTML5 at some point throughout the tradeshow, either canonically through Epic or via a licensee product.

This morning, Epic opened the Unreal Engine 4 Integrated Partners Program (IPP). Of course they already have a couple of members, most of which were partners with Unreal Engine 3.

The founding IPP partners are:

• Wwise from Audiokinetic
  • Manages large databases of sound effects and voice-overs
  • Manages subtitles and multiple dubbings of voice clips
• Autodesk Gameware from Autodesk
  • Contains multiple packages including Beast, Navigation, and Scaleform
  • Scaleform is a Flash rendering engine for HUDs, menus, etc. developed using Flash Professional in 2D or 3D. It is what StarCraft II, Mass Effect, and Borderlands uses.
  • Beast is a lighting toolkit for global illumination, radiosity, etc.
  • Navigation is an AI solver, predominantly for pathfinding.
• Simplygon from Donya Labs
  • Reduces polygon count of models so they take up less processing resources especially as they get further away from the camera.
• Enlighten from Geomerics
  • Another Global Illumination solver, most popular usage being Battlefield 3.
• SpeedTree for Games from IDV
  • Makes a bunch of efficient trees so studios do not need to hire as many minimum wage peons.
• Intel Threading Building Blocks (TBB) from Intel
  • Helps developers manage C++ threading for multicore systems.
  • Deals with memory management and scheduling tasks
• morpheme from NaturalMotion
  • Animation and physics software for designers to create animations
  • Works with NVIDIA PhysX
• euphoria from NaturalMotion
  • Simulates animations based on driving conditions via the CPU, most popular usage being GTA IV.
• PhysX and APEX from NVIDIA
  • You probably know this one.
  • GPU-based rigid body, soft body, fluid, and cloth solvers.
  • Allows for destructible environments and other complex simulations.
• Oculus Rift from Oculus VR
  • You probably also know this one, especially if you keep up with our Video Perspectives.
  • Head-mounted display with motion tracking for VR.
• Bink Video from Rad Game Tools
  • ... is not included! Just kidding, that stuff'll survive a nuclear apocalypse.
  • Seriously, check in just about any DirectX or OpenGL game's credits if it includes pre-rendered video cutscenes or video-textures.
  • I'll wait here.
  • In all seriousness, Rad Game Tools has been licensed in over 15,500 titles. It's been a meme to some extent for game programmers. This should be no surprise.
• Telemetry Performance Visualizer from Rad Game Tools
  • Allows developers to see graphs of what their hardware is working on over time.
  • Helps developers know what benefits the most from optimization.
• RealD Developer Kit (RDK) from RealD
  • Helps game developers create stereoscopic 3D games.
• Umbra 3 from Umbra Software
  • Determines what geometry can be seen by the player and what should be unloaded to increase performance.
  • Sits between artists and programmers to the former does not need to think about optimization, and the latter does not need to claw their eyes out.
• IncrediBuild-XGE from Xoreax
  • Apparently farms out tasks to idle PCs on your network.
  • I am not sure, but I think it is mostly useful for creating a pre-render farm at a game studio for light-baking and such.

We still have a little while until E3 and so we do not know how E3 will be, but I highly expect to see Unreal Engine 4 be a recurring theme over the next week. Keep coming back to PC Perspective, because you know we have a deep interest in where Epic is headed.