Epic Games Releases January 2012 Unreal Development Kit Beta

[Stefan]

Epic Games, Inc. has released the January 2012 Unreal Development Kit Beta, the latest version of the free edition of Unreal Engine 3 that provides access to the award-winning 3D game engine and toolset used in blockbuster video game development, architectural visualization, mobile game development, 3D rendering, digital films and more. The latest UDK beta is available now at www.udk.com/download.

Unreal Engine Showcase: Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

Developed by Torn Banner Studios using UDK, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is a multiplayer melee combat game that was recently named a top pick in IndieDB's "Best Upcoming Game" category in its Indie of the Year competition. The studio's president, Steve Piggott, explained how UDK allows his team to stay on the cutting edge of visual technology thanks to regular updates. "Instead of developing a game with an engine for two years and then releasing it with two-year-old technology, developers have the opportunity to launch with the latest version and keep updating it even after release. That's a really powerful thing." Read more.

We have showcases of some of the most outstanding video game, architectural visualization, and mobile apps using UDK at www.udk.com/showcase and www.unrealengine.com/showcase.  Also be sure to check out the Works in Progress and the Released Projects forums.

January UDK Beta Upgrade Notes
Simplygon Mesh Proxy Tool

    New Simplygon Merge Tool for combining static meshes

        Grouped static meshes can be combined into a single static mesh
        This can greatly improve rendering performance
        Materials/textures are automatically collapsed and new UVs are generated
        This tool is fully "non-destructive" - you can modify meshes and remerge, and roll back changes if needed
        Documentation can be found here

Unreal Landscape

        Holes of any shape can be cut into the landscape, allowing designers to create entrances to caverns and other features under the landscape
        The visibility tool can remove or replace individual quads at the highest LOD resolution, with collision added or removed accordingly
        Holes are rendered per-pixel, independently of LOD, so distant holes retain their shape
    Added the ability to save foliage settings to packages and to share them between levels
    Added tool to change component size for existing landscapes
    Hide unused landscape UI when no landscapes are available

Pivot Painter

    A new 3ds Max tool that automatically generates pivot points for mesh vertices, allowing for advanced foliage animation and other effects

        Documentation can be found here

iOS Rendering

    Added support for color grading

    Documentation can be found here

Unreal Editor

    Added a "Reconnect" button to the "Checkout packages" dialog
        The function is disabled when a valid connection is established
        Upon reconnect, the login screen will appear if the connection failed
        Once the connection is restored, the "Checkout" dialog is reloaded
    Altered behavior of the "Convert to Static Mesh" operation
        It not only builds a model from the selected static brushes
        It also builds dynamic brushes (which includes volumes) and builds from the builder brush (if selected)
        It treats these as if they were like additive BSP brushes
    The autosave time is now simply paused during PIE instead of reset
    The editor is now more responsive during lighting builds
    Added a context menu option when selecting multiple actors for assigning the material selected from the content browser
    Auto content saving is now enabled by default for new users and 'content packages to save' can now be specified in the ini
    Lens flare visualizations will now appear when a lens flare actor is created and will update if any visualization properties are changed on the template lens flare
    Made the color picker dialog not modal when changing preview background color for textures
    Unreal Matinee slow-mo tracks will no longer effect viewports in other sub-editor windows (such as Unreal Cascade)
    Made the wireframe rendering in orthographic viewports consistent in both DX9 and DX11
    New packages in Unreal Content Browser are now removed from the "New Packages" collection once they've been saved
    Fixed the "Touch Input Kismet" event in Unreal Kismet so that it sends the proper X and Y values
    When in Kismet's hit-testing mode, the Kismet block nubs are drawn bigger to make them easier to select without taking up more screen space visually
    Enabled the "Paste Here" right-click menu option for nodes in the Material Editor

Misc

    Added support for importing multiple animations from a single FBX file: http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/FBXAnimationPipeline.html
    Added new option to ignore missing bones when importing
    Fixed FBX issues with morph curves and animation ranges