Category: Unreal engine

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Epic Games to Launch its Own Digital Store This Month

When it comes to buying videogames online Valve’s Steam platform has the market pretty sown up. There are alternatives, and now Unreal Engine and Fortnite developer Epic Games is entering the mix with its own digital marketplace, the Epic Games Store.

Epic Games is looking to shake up the industry – and possibly loosen Steam’s control – by offering developers a much better deal than they’d get elsewhere. Currently, on Steam the platform takes a 30 percent cut of sales revenues from each title sold. On the Epic Games Store however, Epic will only take a 12 percent cut of sales, leaving developers with a much healthier 88 percent share of the revenue.

And the videogames don’t specifically need to be made using Unreal Engine. Studios working with Unity or other engines can still put their titles on the store. If you do happen to be using Unreal Engine Epic Games will cover the 5 percent engine royalty for sales out of its own 12 percent.

To help further connect developers with YouTube content creators, Twitch streamers and bloggers with their fans, there’s the Epic Games Support-A-Creator programme. If studios opt into the programme creators who refer players to buy a videogame will receive a share of the revenue that the studio sets. To start this process off, Epic Games will cover the first 5% of creator revenue-sharing for the first 24 months.

Epic Games Store RevenueSplit

The Epic Games Store is due to launch by the end of 2018 for PC and Mac, with plans for Android support to arrive in 2019, aiming for as open a store as possible. In an interview with Epic Games’ CEO Tim Sweeny, Game Informer found that while the company would like to add support for iOS this doesn’t look likely due to Apple’s current policy’s. Additionally, the store won’t support consoles either.

When it comes to virtual reality (VR) the news is much better. VR compatible titles can be sold through the store if developers wish to, but the store itself won’t have a VR interface of any kind.

When the Epic Games Store arrives VRFocus will let you know, hopefully, filled with juicy VR experiences.

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Tim Sweeney: Games Released On Epic Games Store Can Support VR

Tim Sweeney: Games Released On Epic Games Store Can Support VR

The team behind Fortnite and the Unreal Engine which created it is going one level deeper and making a push for its own game storefront to challenge Valve’s Steam on PC and potentially Google Play on Android.

The Epic Games store promises more revenue per sale to developers than other options and “will launch with a hand-curated set of games on PC and Mac, then it will open up more broadly to other games and to Android and other open platforms throughout 2019,” an announcement post states.

Here’s the chart used to explain revenue split options to developers releasing virtual worlds made with Epic’s Unreal Engine 4 toolset or the leading competitor, Unity.

In an emailed Q&A with Game Informer, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney wrote “the Epic Games store doesn’t have any sort of VR user interface, however, games released on the store can support VR if they choose.”

We reached out to Epic Games representatives for more information about how VR support will be implemented, but we haven’t received a detailed response yet. Sweeney is quoted on the OpenXR website in support of the Khronos standard, stating “we’ll adopt and support the resulting API in Unreal Engine.”

We’ll update this post with any new information from Epic about how its store will enable discovery of VR apps or how end users can make sure their system can run an app available through Epic’s store.

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$50 Million Investment Fund SUPER.COM to Focus Support on Unreal Engine Developers

If you happen to be a developer who uses Epic Games’ Unreal Engine and you need some investment in your project, using the videogame engine was possibly your wisest choice. Not only does the Unreal Dev Grant exist, but today a new investment fund specializing in investments in interactive entertainment projects and companies called SUPER.COM has announced a new initiative that will see it focus support on developers using the software.

super

SUPER.COM is a $50 million USD fund that is open to all Unreal Engine developers, able to provide a range of investments up to and over $1 million depending on variables such as the size of the project, how experienced the team is, how far through development the project is and so on. The fund will even help with legal solutions whilst letting teams keep their independence.

And where needed, SUPER.COM can cover the cost of a custom Unreal Engine license which unlocks direct technical support and provides a reduced royalty for the engine.

“We’re excited to be providing this support to the Unreal community and helping to bring more great games to market. We look forward to working with the team at Epic Games to identify relevant projects and help fast-track growth and success,” said Director of Investments and Publishing at SUPER.COM, Anna Grigoryeva in a statement “We started out developing and publishing games ourselves, so we’re very familiar with the problems and challenges faced by any game studio. We’ve done it all, from designing original game concepts to distributing finished products, so we know the challenges developers face and how to tackle these hurdles. SUPER.COM will give the developers of games powered by the Unreal Engine an opportunity to concentrate on crafting amazing new games”.

“It’s great that successful entrepreneurial companies like SUPER.COM can see the tremendous commercial potential that resides within the Unreal development community. Providing access to these kinds of nurturing funds that can help guide developers through the potential pitfalls and triumphs of publishing is an essential part of the service we’re providing UE4 developers,” commented Mike Gamble, Head of Games Licensing EMEA, Epic Games.

For those interested head on over to the SUPER.COM website for further details on how to apply. VRFocus will continue its coverage of the latest investment opportunities for VR developers, reporting back with further announcements.

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SpatialOS GDK is now Available for Unreal Engine

Being able to create massively scalable online multiplayer videogames is no easy task which is why Improbable created the SpatialOS Game Development Kit (GDK). Today, the company has announced that the SpatialOS GDK is now available of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine as a free download.

The SpatialOS GDK will allow Unreal Engine users to grow any videogame in scale and complexity without the need for major changes to it or the engine code.

“It’s a platform for creating games that go beyond the limits of a single server, enabling you to implement new kinds of gameplay that would be impossible with the traditional client-server approach,” Epic notes on the Unreal Engine Blog. “What this means is that if you’re looking to make a multiplayer game using Unreal Engine, you can use the new SpatialOS Game Development Kit for Unreal to tap into Unreal Engine’s networking APIs to turn the client-server architecture into a distributed one, with your game hosted on Improbable’s global cloud platform.”

“We’re always excited to see new technology that gives developers using Unreal Engine more options,” said Nick Penwarden, Director of Engineering – Unreal Engine, Epic Games in a statement. “Now that SpatialOS works natively with our network replication APIs, it will be easier than ever for developers to explore how SpatialOS allows them to scale their game ideas seamlessly across multiple servers.”

SpatialOS

Titles already tapping into the power of SpatialOS included NetEase’s upcoming virtual reality (VR) project Nostos and PC videogame Scavengers by Midwinter Entertainment.

“Developers want technology to enable their vision and enhance their creativity,” said Improbable’s Aaryn Flynn, General Manager, North America. “The new SpatialOS GDK unlocks new possibilities within Unreal Engine, empowering developers to make many game servers work together and act as one in a way that is seamless to players.”

The SpatialOS GDK for Unreal is available from the Unreal Marketplace and is free to try, with a free sandbox allocation for prototypes and experimental deployments. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Improbable and SpatialOS, reporting back with the latest announcements.

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SpatialOS GDK is now Available for Unreal Engine

Being able to create massively scalable online multiplayer videogames is no easy task which is why Improbable created the SpatialOS Game Development Kit (GDK). Today, the company has announced that the SpatialOS GDK is now available of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine as a free download.

The SpatialOS GDK will allow Unreal Engine users to grow any videogame in scale and complexity without the need for major changes to it or the engine code.

“It’s a platform for creating games that go beyond the limits of a single server, enabling you to implement new kinds of gameplay that would be impossible with the traditional client-server approach,” Epic notes on the Unreal Engine Blog. “What this means is that if you’re looking to make a multiplayer game using Unreal Engine, you can use the new SpatialOS Game Development Kit for Unreal to tap into Unreal Engine’s networking APIs to turn the client-server architecture into a distributed one, with your game hosted on Improbable’s global cloud platform.”

“We’re always excited to see new technology that gives developers using Unreal Engine more options,” said Nick Penwarden, Director of Engineering – Unreal Engine, Epic Games in a statement. “Now that SpatialOS works natively with our network replication APIs, it will be easier than ever for developers to explore how SpatialOS allows them to scale their game ideas seamlessly across multiple servers.”

SpatialOS

Titles already tapping into the power of SpatialOS included NetEase’s upcoming virtual reality (VR) project Nostos and PC videogame Scavengers by Midwinter Entertainment.

“Developers want technology to enable their vision and enhance their creativity,” said Improbable’s Aaryn Flynn, General Manager, North America. “The new SpatialOS GDK unlocks new possibilities within Unreal Engine, empowering developers to make many game servers work together and act as one in a way that is seamless to players.”

The SpatialOS GDK for Unreal is available from the Unreal Marketplace and is free to try, with a free sandbox allocation for prototypes and experimental deployments. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Improbable and SpatialOS, reporting back with the latest announcements.

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Unreal Engine Creator Epic Games Secures $1.25 Billion Investment

Epic Games, the creator of titles such as Robo Recall, Fortnite, Unreal, Gears of War and Shadow Complex, as well as Unreal Engine has received a $1.25 billion USD investment the company announced today.

Unreal Engine 4.20

The funding came from investors KKR, ICONIQ Capital, Smash Ventures, aXiomatic, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.  They join Tencent, Disney, and Endeavor as minority shareholders, which will continue to be led by founder and CEO, Tim Sweeney.

“This investment creates powerful partnerships with highly strategic investment firms and individuals at the forefront of technology, entertainment, professional sports, esports, and live events,” Epic Games commented.

“We’re excited to partner with the finest minds in the financial, sports, and entertainment communities. This reinforces Epic’s position of leadership in real-time 3D technology, and accelerates our ability to improve the way people play, work, and interact with the world,” said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in a statement.

Unreal Engine 4 Reflections 04

While games like Fortnite have proven to be massively popular, raking in plenty of profit for the company, one of its biggest successes has been the Unreal Engine, which it, alongside many other developers worldwide use to create the very latest videogames.

The company has been heavily involved in the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) industries, supporting the technology from the outset through Unreal Engine whilst developing its own content like Bullet Train and Robo Recall. 

There’s no word on how Epic Games plans to utilise the investment, if it does then VRFocus will let you know.

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The Weather Channel Uses MR To Showcase The Dangers Of Rising Floodwaters

The Weather Channel has done it once again and used technology to present their viewers with an immersive experience that is both scary as it is interesting. The latest use of mixed reality (MR) technology comes in the form of a presentation from The Weather Channel showcasing the dangers of rising floodwaters earlier this week.

The Weather Channel Floodwater

The short video, which you can see below, was uploaded to The Weather Channel’s YouTube channel and provides viewers with a brief explanation and demonstration of what could happen as hurricane Florence hits the Carolina coast. Though only just over two minutes in length, the video is an eye opening show of what can happen when raising floodwaters hit the main land and the use of high-quality 3D content really brings the story to life.

As reported by Inquirer, it can be very hard to imagine how your local neighborhood could look when under nine feet of water. This is why the MR experience was created to give viewers a look at the impact of a storm that they otherwise would not be able to. All of this was powered by the Unreal Engine, which is capable of delivering high quality scenes with little impact on resources making it the ideal development platform for The Weather Channel to use.

The Weather Channel Floodwater

The video features Meteorologist Greg Postel who is standing in the middle of the floodwaters and as the explanation continues and the storm rages on, the danger becomes shockingly clear. With water up to 13 feet, Postel is under the water, which is full of it’s own dangers, with it nearly double his height. As cars and houses soon become submerged in the waters and are pushed around, everything becomes a danger in a matter of seconds.

Of course, this is not the first time The Weather Channel have used this technology to build an immersive presentation experience. They used MR technology back in June to show viewers the power of tornadoes following a bigger embrace of the technology back in April of this year.

You can see the video for yourself below and all more on The Weather Channel’s MR venture in the future, keep reading VRFocus.

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Unreal Engine 4.20 Ships With Native Mixed Reality Compositing for VR, New AR/VR SDKs

Unreal Engine 4.20 officially launched today with heaps of updates. In the VR realm, the new version brings native mixed reality video compositing for VR applications, and an update to a much newer Oculus SDK. On the AR front, UE 4.20 adds supports for Apple’s ARKit 2.0 and Google’s ARCore 1.2, along with Magic Leap support.

Mixed Reality Compositing

Mixed reality video compositing for VR allows applications to pull in video from the real world and mix it with the virtual world, which can lead to a really cool footage, like the work done for the Fantastic Contraption (2016) trailer; it’s also the preferred way for streamers to show themselves in VR.

Up to this point, mixed reality video compositing has generally required third-party programs and game implementations. Unreal Engine 4.20 brings this sort of functionality directly into the engine, simplifying the work required for developers to make their game support such features.

The feature supports video input, calibration, and in-game compositing (including occlusion), though it doesn’t directly handle capture, so a third party tool will still be needed for capture or streaming. The system also works with moving cameras, as long as they are tracked by a Vive Tracker or similar device. Documentation for the feature can be found here.

Updated Oculus SDK

For developers using Unreal Engine to build titles for the Rift, UE 4.20 moves to the newer Oculus Runtime 1.25, meaning that developers will be able to take advantage of capabilities and improvements that have come since the prior version (1.17 as of UE 4.19).

Updated AR SDKs & Magic Leap

As with the Oculus Runtime, Apple and Google have since updated their ARKit and ARCore SDK—the foundation for building AR applications on those platforms—and the newest versions are now available with UE 4.20:

ARKit 2.0

We’ve added support for Apple’s ARKit 2.0, which includes better tracking quality, support for vertical plane detection, face tracking, 2D image detection, 3D object detection, persistent AR experiences and shared AR experiences. Support for these new features enables you to place AR objects on more surfaces, track the position and orientation of a face, recognize and bring 2D images to life, detect 3D objects, and facilitate new types of collaborative AR experiences.

ARCore 1.2

We’ve added support for Google’s ARCore 1.2, which includes support for vertical plane detection, Augmented Images, and Cloud Anchors. Support for these new features enables you to place AR objects on more surfaces, recognize and bring images to life, and facilitate new types of collaborative AR experiences.

A special version of UE 4.19 with development support for Magic Leap was released earlier this year. Now UE 4.20 is the first “fully supported” release of the engine to support the Magic Leak SDK (Lumin 0.12.0), meaning developers can target the platform with a production-ready version of the engine.

The post Unreal Engine 4.20 Ships With Native Mixed Reality Compositing for VR, New AR/VR SDKs appeared first on Road to VR.

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Unreal Engine Gets Official Mixed Reality Video Support With Version 4.20

Unreal Engine Gets Official Mixed Reality Video Support With Version 4.20

Developers working with the Unity toolset to build VR experiences have enjoyed solid support for mixed reality video capture for around two years now. A mixed reality video seamlessly merges two realities in real-time, so this means that many Unity-based VR games, starting with Job Simulator and Fantastic Contraption, include features that let enthusiastic players use a webcam and green screen to show what it is like to play that game.

With the latest update to Unreal Engine exiting a preview period and releasing fully in version 4.20, VR developers updating their projects to the newest version of Unreal should be able to access similar capabilities. Epic’s Unreal Engine is what some of the world’s biggest game developers use to make their games and it is the same tool bringing Fortnite to devices ranging from iPhone to PS4. With VR, the 4.20 update likely means that future VR games will likely include this feature and that some developers using Unreal with their early access games might upgrade to the latest version and eventually integrate the feature. Epic’s latest addition to its toolset will “enable users to pull real world green screened video into the engine, and supported tracking devices can match your camera location to the in-game camera for more dynamic shots.”

Mixed reality videos are a powerful way to share virtual reality and draw in viewers who don’t need to know anything about the game to enjoy watching something like Beat Saber being played.  Startups like LIV and Blueprint Reality are working to make capturing and live-streaming mixed reality videos easier, and depth-sensing cameras like the Zed Mini open up the potential to do the same thing without needing a green screen. Here’s an example of a mixed reality video (with more than 3 million views on YouTube) using LIV’s technology:

Now that Unreal Engine makes it easy for developers to include mixed reality videos it is likely a larger percentage of VR games going forward may have this kind of feature. That means if we get more games as fun as Beat Saber in 2019 and beyond, there’s a good chance it will be entertaining to both play those games and watch those games being played in mixed reality.

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Unreal Engine 4.20 Released With Robust AR Support

After its usual process of releasing several previews, Epic Games has today launched the next version of its popular videogame engine, Unreal Engine 4.20, making it easier and more seamless for developers to build realistic characters and immersive environments across videogames, film and TV, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) and enterprise applications.

Magic Leap One Reveal

Unreal Engine 4.20 features hundreds of optimisations, especially for iOS and Android, as well as Magic Leap One. Having previously announced Early Access support for Magic Leap One: Creator Edition during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2018 as part of a larger partnership between the two companies, Unreal Engine 4.20 fully supports development for the AR headset.

Continuing with the AR support, Unreal Engine 4.20 has added support for Apple’s ARKit 2.0 and Google ARCore 1.2. For ARKit 2.0 this includes better tracking quality, support for vertical plane detection, face tracking, 2D image detection, 3D object detection, persistent AR experiences and shared AR experiences. While for ARCore 1.2 the engine includes support for vertical plane detection, Augmented Images, and Cloud Anchors.

Unreal Engine

In the release notes for Unreal Engine 4.20 VRFocus found a plenty of other VR and AR related items which you can read through below:

  • New: Added a label to the VR spectator screen render call so it is distinguishable in profiling tools, such as RenderDoc.
  • New: Added the ability for Motion Controller components to track/display HMD devices by using “HMD” as the source name.
  • New: Added experimental support for lens calibration on MR projects using OpenCV.
  • New: Updated SteamVR SDK to version 1.0.11, this includes improved Vulkan support.
  • New: Improved SteamVR compositor timing and overall engine performance through more accurate CPU utilization data.
  • New: Added Render Bridge base class, FXRRenderBridge, to reduce code duplication when creating an XR Plugin with a Custom Present implementation.
  • New: Added initial support for omni-directional stereo captures.
  • New: Made Oculus code-scheduling functions available for use by other XR Plugins through the “Head Mounted Display” module.
  • New: Added virtual curves for head rotation from FaceAR’s face tracking LiveLink streaming.
  • New: Added support for instanced stereo translucent rendering.
  • New: Added support for enabling the ARKit 1.5 auto-focus setting.
  • New: Added checks for ARKit 1.0 availability when creating the AR session, preventing calls to invalid selectors on older iOS devices.
  • New: Added functions for checking ARKit version availability at runtime.
  • New: Refactored how ARKit supports #define, simplifying wrapping individual features by ARKit version.
  • New: Added a console command to change where Face AR is publishing LiveLink curve data. “LiveLinkFaceAR SendTo=192.168.1.1”.
  • New: Wrapped vertical plane detection in an “if iOS 11.3” check, since ARKit 1.5 is only available in 11.3 and later.
  • New: Added orientation to the “AR Candidate Image” object for passing to the detection system.
  • New: Added support for handling “AR Image Anchor” notifications from ARKit.
  • New: Added a friendly name to UARCandidateImage objects.
  • New: Added base types for detecting images in an AR session.
  • New: Added the name from the candidate image when creating the Apple side representation.
  • New: Added support for configuring which images to detect during an AR session.
  • New: Improved debug layer rendering on Oculus, circumventing a superfluous blit by rendering directly to the layer.
  • New: Added models to the Oculus plugin for HMD and Sensors.
  • New: Added “Use Camera Rotation” feature to “Stereo Panorama” Plugin. Now this plugin can take the current camera’s rotation. To enable this feature, use the console command “SP.UseCameraRotation 7”.
  • New: Updated Camera Component can now tell the “Late Update Manager” to store that we don’t want to do a late update this frame. Default XR Camera checks this flag before applying the late update to the camera.
  • New: Refactored PSVR Minor reprojection for Frame Counter comparison.
  • New: Added a new PSVR API function for getting a transform between “floor” and “eye” tracking spaces.
  • New: Added a new PSVR delegate that can detect when an app changes between “floor” and “eye” tracking space.
  • Removed: Unused Stereo Rendering function “Get Custom Present” method has been removed.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Epic Games and Unreal Engine, reporting back with the latest updates.