Topic: Unreal is going to be getting closer to real..

[sam]

E3 2005: EPIC'S ENGINE
(taken from http://www.pczone.co.uk/)

"Sheer dumb luck" - Epic's ever exuberant Mark Rein on how Unreal Engine 3 became the darling of the next gen.

16:54 You've got to take your hat off to Epic. Not only do they make great games like Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, but it looks like Unreal Engine 3 has become the engine of choice for not only Microsoft's Xbox 360, but also Sony's PS3. As the next generation of games are built, 'Powered by Unreal Engine 3' is probably going to be one of the commonest loading screens you'll see.

So it was good to catch up with Mark Rein, Epic's genial Vice President at this year's E3 to hear his take on how the show went, where he stood on the great Microsoft versus Sony showdown and why strangely, Unreal Engine 3 for Xbox 360 and PS3 is a good thing for PC gaming.

Here's what we discovered.

So, how's E3 been for you so far?

Mark Rein: (Laughs) Excellent, the world's first ever demo on PlayStation 3, Unreal Engine 3, UT2007! Need I say more?

It looked marvellous and you're on both Microsoft and Sony's machines. It seems that you've got the next generation sewn up already. Would you say that's a fair assessment?

Mark Rein: Yeah, well, we've got a lot left to do, we're certainly on the right path but this is not just something that's happened overnight. We've been working towards this goal, we've been working with nVidia on this chipset, you know, the Nv40 chips, for several years, and so we were always aiming for this kind of performance. To be honest it just turned out to be dumb luck that everybody rallied around where we were going anyway.

So I'd love to say it's brilliant planning, but a third of it is sheer dumb luck, about a third of it is planning and execution, and the final third is sheer dumb luck again. Sony signing up with nVidia: as soon as we heard that we were screaming and high-fiving around the office, that just kinda solidified it. We were worried about who Sony was going to go with, everybody was rumour mongering that Sony was just going to put another Cell in there.

Well, yeah, we are the masters of the software rendering, we proved that with the first Unreal and Unreal Tournament. It wasn't the most desirable place to be but Sony kicked it up a notch, and Xbox 360 is a great hardware design as well. So we're really happy because they're both systems we know well. I mean, just go through the components.

Power PC? Who won Apple's game of the year award? That would be us. We just won a special award from Apple this year, the worldwide design award for UT 2004 so we know the Power PC: It's our friend. Both the chips are based on Power PC cores. Even new demos next year will be based on Power PCs, though I have no idea if there'll be enough power there to run the Unreal Engine or not.

Is there one next-gen system that feels more like home though?

Mark Rein: There's been this whole thing about Sony doing OpenGL, but we've been doing graphics in OpenGL for years, so we're quite good at it, and Microsoft's obviously Direct 3D, clearly another area that screams expertise for us. The Microsoft SDK is basically an extension of what we did on Xbox one, so you saw Unreal Championship 2, so obviously we've played a little with that, and then Sony, well basically their dev kits are based on Linux, and we shipped Linux since the original Dk, so...

And then there's the graphics chips. Obviously we've been Nvidia's poster boy for a while, they built the theatre for us in their booth last year, and we're the only ones they've ever done that for. ATI? You see our PC games and how they run and play well on ATI, so it's a great mish-mash of parts that we run/play well on, and we're very good at taking those parts and running them together. So, technologically it's perfect. And the really cool thing is - the PC is gonna benefit from this.

So you're not exactly predicting the death of the PC in the midst of this next-gen frenzy?

Mark Rein: You know, it used to be id, and Epic, and a few others aimed at all those high-level games, but now because everybody's doing PS3 and Xbox 360, they're all gonna be doing high-level games. So when they do bring them to the PC, they're gonna be great.

And we actually adjusted our pricing structure on Unreal Engine 3 basically to say "you're paying for all three whether you're using it or not, so you may as well do PC!"

We're evangelising to all our customers, we want them to do PC, because we make royalties, so the more they do...[laughs]

Presumably you're going to sign Unreal Engine 3 to a whole bunch of other developers too?

Mark Rein: Oh, we already have, we've signed licences with more than we've announced. We've signed with NCSoft, Midway, Bioware, who was it... we did a big one last week, I'm totally out of it, uh...Namco? There was another one... Oh, Silicon Knights! Exclusively using Unreal Engine 3 for all their next generation titles.

So what about you guys as game developers?

Mark Rein: Well, we certainly have two of the best games of the show here. Go see Unreal 2007, it's spectacular, you will be blown away. Gears of War is already being described as 'The Killer App' for Xbox 360, so our games are stronger than ever. We're much better games developers than we've ever been in the past. We have a totally seperate engine team, so the games guys are really focused upon the game, and are customers of the engine like anybody else.

So what's your whole take on the Sony versus Microsoft debate at this year's show?

Mark Rein: You know, we love them both. They both did the right thing by us by creating the right hardware. You know, we hope they both sell a hundred million consoles.

A very diplomatic answer - so what's been your favourite part of the show so far? What've you seen that's excited you?

Mark Rein: I haven't had a chance to look at much. I got to see Huxley on my way in, that's from Webzen, that's very impressive. I hear Prey is excellent, and I get to see that later today. Obviously I love our demos of course, but I really haven't seen too much.

Obviously all the Playstation 3 stuff on Monday was phenomenal but I like both the presentations for different reasons. I thought Sony's was a technical tour de force and Microsoft was very much a "system" presentation. What kind of system it's going to be, as opposed to just this game or that game. But I like Nintendo too and I did glimpse a few of the PSP games. Man I love the PSP, what a great piece of hardware! nVidia has some nice games in their booth as well. What have you seen?

Alan Wake looked amazing when we caught it behind closed doors

Mark Rein: I haven't seen that yet, but you know Remedy are gonna do something great. If only those guys had used our engine, dammit!

A big thanks to Mark for that and we'll be bringing you a further, even more extensive interview in the very near future. Keep it pointed at C&VG.com for all things Unreal.

John Houlihan
(taken from http://www.pczone.co.uk/)