Unreal Engine gets another fun feature.

[scumble]

I just picked up an item from BeyondUnreal about the integration of SpeedTreeRT into Unreal Engine 3.0

Seems like you just dump a Speedtree actor in the map, and off you go...

lookie here

Makes you wonder what the thing will have in it by 2010.

[d'Spair]

Thanks for the info. These shots look quite good.

But by 2010 John Carmack will have achieved a photo-realistic graphic, so this is not very important

[Renzatic]

And you didn't even show the cool screenshots to go along with the announcement...

Like this!

[Shadowcat]

I was quite impressed by the SpeedTree Unreal demo a while back. I hope that they've fixed the rubber branches, though. That looked pretty weird.

[scumble]

I wasn't aware of that demo. I suspect you can alter those parameters. I think the main point here is that it's integrated, and I assume you can use them with decolayers to generate a forest of unique-looking trees.

[scumble]

I've just been playing with the SpeedTreeCAD demo. It's worth a look just to see how it works.

[Dario]

Wow, that's amazing. If they can do trees that fast, why not buildings?

Drag-n-drop a building or object into the editor, and POOF!, a new mesh.

[Dr. Dumb_lunatic]

I think the Pariah level editor has exactly that kind of feature. I'm not sure what engine it's based on, but I think it's Unreal-esque at least..

God, it would be nice, wouldn't it. Imagine if you could just add 'house generators' around the place that would randomly create realistic houses complete with items in cupboards etc etc....

"Here is my city map."

"How long did it TAKE?"

"Twelve minutes."

[Dario]

Yeah, Pariah is an Unreal Engine game.

[ancient_scars]

Thanks for the info. These shots look quite good.

But by 2010 John Carmack will have achieved a photo-realistic graphic, so this is not very important

Actually, Carmack will not even be close to photorealistic by then (to much bickering and arguing in that company. I don't even think ID will be around that long. ). D3 has great shadows, but everything looks like plastic. Unreal and Source are the ones to look out for. When UT 2007 will be out next year it's quite possibly leaps and bounds ahead of the rest.

In the end the graphics engine race is to our benefit.

*edit*
SpeedTree will probably be in every bleedin engine by the end of 2006.

[Dario]

I agree that Id software's days are numbered,... at least until they wisen up and expand their company, or get their heads out of the clouds and make a REAL game.

One thing to note is that the company was far, far larger than ever before with Doom3, so at least they could potentially make deeper games in the future... unless the n00b game designers on top keep on their current track record and enforce more paper-thin games.

[New Horizon]

The plastic look in Doom 3 is easily gotten rid of since it's not a problem with the engine. Just don't over do the specular maps.

Just because doom wasn't the 'best' game ever doesn't mean the engine isn't capable of much more than you might imagine. We haven't even begun to push it to the limit with Dark Mod yet.

As for id software going away anytime soon...I don't see it. They make much more money licencing their game engines. I'm sure they have made their money back on Doom 3, with Ressurection of Evil and Quake 4.