Pictures of Unreal Engine 3 games

A gathering of images using the Unreal Engine 3. There are also titles that weren't released yet.

[Herbert tholdpervert]

Unreal Engine 3=the easy way

[MK_Red]

True.
Also, UE3 = the grey, colorless, lifeless, cheap and looking alike way.

Seriously, aside from Mirror's Edge, every single UE3 powered game looks like some cheap Gears mod. Hopefully more people will start working with their own engines.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Unreal engine does tend to have that same look in games.

[Syronicus]

Taking a look at games like Gears and MOH, yeah, the color palette looks similar but then you compare them to Bioshock and Rainbow Six and you have something totaly different. Not sure but the recent title by SE looks to be a bit different too. Sure you have some similarities but if the developer uses their own art direction then the games look so much different.

[kewlkat007]

Agreed..

Lost Odyssey didn't look like what MK was describing..

This is one of the best "lisenced" engines. I'm sure it has it's problems when it comes to devs and support.

The thing is, it has to be optimized for each platform to get the best results.

[MK_Red]

Gotta admit that Lost Odyssey looked good and different from UE3 powered games but aside from that, we have Army of Two, Turok, Fall of Liberty, BlackSite, Hour of Victory, Stranglehold and many others that look just like Gears of War and UT mods. Even Fatal Inertia, a cyber racer game has the UE3 look to it.

Mirror's Edge and Lost Odyssey are the real exceptions.

[ar]

ME uses a different light engine ( http://www.illuminatelabs.c... , http://www.illuminatelabs.c... ). Might be the reason it looks different.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Yeah some do use the engine well, and make great games, but you realy can't get passed taht wet look UE3 games have. One thing about UE3, games made with it get done faster. I would bet we all have about 2-10 EU3 games in our library on PC's, 360's and PS3's. Like it or not, there are some great games made with it, that still provide hours of entertainment.

[MK_Red]

ar, thanks for the links and info. Bubbles for you. Kudos to Dice and Illuminati labs.

[ar]

NP

[PR0F3TA]

lol, is it just me or do all the games look the same? maybe its just me

[strongbad1441]

I thought the two best looking ones were Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge, but maybe that's because they just have really different art direction. Either way, the Unreal Engine has done a good job this gen of powering some beautiful games.

[Tyetan]

Did anyone else notice that the Stargate Worlds 2007 picture was just concept art?

[Xi]

for example

APB will be using the unreal engine
fatal inertia uses the unreal engine
lost odyssey
undertow
MK vs DC
last remnant

but they only chose fps games, so of course they're all going to look similar. It's like pointing out that all the fps games that use the source engine look like half-life 2.

[kewlkat007]

Agreed..

[MK_Red]

Well, aside from Lost Odyssey, all of them look like generic UE3 games. Fatal Inertia literally looks like the racing version of UT3 and MK vs DC looks like a generic UE3 shooter but with fighting instead of shooting.

UnderTow has is a sidescroller but the textures and effects scream UE3 and finally, ABP looked kinda UE3ish though still better than others.

Last Remnant!? Seriously, did you see the gameplay clips? They were more colorless and UE3ish than Gears itself!

[CViper]

Well it doesn't really strive to be powerful in the first place. The specifications for even the latest unreal engine title is remarkably low even for recommended.

Anyone that has touched UnrealEd can see why developers choose it. Its very simple to turn the key and push out things.

The problem with the unreal engine, which they have yet to improve upon:

- Heavy Reliance on Normal Maps.
All of the games are SATURATED with Low polygon models(by todays standards) then all the detail Ropes/Bullets/Clips/Swords/Arm or is all done with a normal map to where the uv's stretch when the character does his movement. I have yet to see the engine be capable of running medium res game characters with only aiding normal maps for curves/bends/wrinkles the body. It chugs when the polygon count gets too high.

- Terrible Lighting
I was very disappointed to find out that in the Latest Unreal Engine there is no light cache, global illumination, or even lighting with an HDRI. You have to still fake light bounce, but adding in low level ambient lights. i'm sure you can bring in lighting baked textures like COD4 did, but its just shocking that in 2008 the Unreal Engine lighting hasn't changed a tick enough to even trump Source engine features, which can still give UnrealEngine a run for its money any day of the week. You still have to FAKE God Rays by using models of them. Unlike what we have seen In Crysis\Killzone to where they are cast as particles cut in front of light beams. They try to hide this by adding in everyones favorite "BLOOMING EVERYTHING TO HELL" filter to soften everything to all hell and make it look like I have glaucoma.

-Terrible Shaders.
Shiny Metal. Check.
Shiny Metal. Check.
Shiny Metal. Check.
Shiny Metal. Check.
Even for the skin shaders? Shiny Metal. Check.

This is why most HalfAss unreal titles all hide in the dark. In the dark you can't see all of the mess. I really wish the Source Engine would have enjoyed the Success the Unreal Engine has.

To this day it still puts everything the Unreal Engine can ever do to shame, because EPIC found a nice niche. They don't have to push their engine's capabilities because they have to just optimize it to work on 1 set of specifications. Which currently, are of the xbox360. Specifications that haven't changed since 2005. They can keep adding meaningless "Extra" features like soft body dynamics, and explorable crates to keep people thinking that "wow look its improving!" It hasn't. Especially in a world to where Gears of War is still the best looking Unreal game and we are going on 2008 with this statement sitll being true, they have YET to improve on it after all of this time. I don't think they need to either financially speaking. Why bother? Anything that they do to push the engine further.. will still have to run on an Xbox360 without an HDD.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

So basicly you just don't like UE3?

[CViper]

Its not any more remarkable than it was before, its just well documented. Tools are made for it to make transitioning from 3dstudiomax/Maya into the engine AMAZINGLY even more simple.

Dev's dont have to spend nearly as much $ to get a game up and running with the unreal engine than others because of the huge community supporting it constantly.

Its a fine engine to make a game on, but I don't like when EPIC/ANYONE shows off Things the engine CAN'T DO like Object motion blur 50xAA, and amazingly soft shadows:

http://scr3.golem.de/screen...

And says its "WITH OUR NEW UNREAL ENGINE"

Its just complete BS. Epic ALWAYS does it. Engine is fine though, just not some advanced marvel of modern technology. Epic knows this, and is realllllly getting by well with this.

[CNIVEK]

You REALLY need to educate yourselves on game design, before making such an ignorant comment. An engine is a backbone toolset, NOT a box of LEGOS, with predetermined shapes and colors. The things which define a game's look, like colors, level design, character models, textures, lighting....they're ALL completely customizeable. Sure, some devs take the shortcut of going with a "look" that they know works, and sells well. After all, when Gears came out, very little had been shown of other games using UE3; since it sold 5+ million, it was sure to have copycats.

To say something like "Unreal Engine 3=the easy way", is just plain stupid. ALL gaming engines are SUPPOSED to make development easier...if you know what you're doing to BEGIN with. But, I'd challenge ANY of you..who have the million+ $$.. to take a UE3 license, and make ANY game; I honestly doubt you could.

But, the fact is, hundreds of games are being made with UE3, and they DO NOT all "look the same". 'Xi' mentioned some of those already...Undertow, Fatal Inertia, Lost Odyssey, etc. There's also a great, little-known XBLA title called 'Robo Blitz', that uses UE3...and the game is only 48mb. UE3 is a very adaptable, customizable engine, with a TON of middleware features already built in, but what a dev DOES with that engine, after buying the license, is largely up to them. Funny thing is, some games were ORIGINALLY going to use UE3...like Too Human and Lost Planet...but the devs ended using their own engine. Those 2 games arguably LOOK a lot like some UE3 games...but it's just a coincidence.

[CViper]

Unreal Engine is the choice, because of all the AMAZING documentation out there. Everything is customizable. But when you are limited to what the engine can actually crunch, you end up using around the same polygon budget as previous titles did, because the engine just plain cant handle it. It would be different if they decided not to rely heavily on Normal Maps, but well.. They did. And here we are. There are rules for game engines, and because of those RULES you get what comes out of unreal titles.

You will never get remarkable Crysis like lighting out of the engine, because its not capable. So all of the titles end up with the SAME dull lighting.

You will never get high polygon characters running on the screen in a high polygon set, with dynamics, and amazing never before seen particles, because the engine isn't capable of handling the load. The framerate would bog down to all hell, adn this is on a machine that runs Crysis perfectly fine.

You can make a game for Free. Join the Epic forums, and you will see how many people int he community are pushing out Epic quality LEVELS/Characters/Scripts.

THe "UNREAL ENGINE LOOK" is pretty much what you have described with Too Human and Lost planet.

Bland generic Graphics. Bland, meaning that the Unreal Engine really cant push out complex shaders. It has Complex material tools, yes. but I cant even change the index of refraction for materials. Any Unreal Engine FPS could be under the same title, and no one would know the difference because they all generally do look the same.

Low Poly models, with Normal maps stamped all over them, add some bloom and you've got an Unreal title.

Of course not every SINGLE UNREAL GAME LOOKS THE SAME. Generally speaking, they do. All of the severely popular ones, share the same limitations.

[CNIVEK]

"THe "UNREAL ENGINE LOOK" is pretty much what you have described with Too Human and Lost planet "

I think you missed my point....those aren't UE3 titles.

The thing is, the limitations you described, are more hardware-specific, rather than flaws in the engine. UE3 was designed, first and foremost, with the 360 and mid-range PC in mind...and later the PS3. For it to be widely adopted, and profitable, EPIC wanted an engine that could be used for just about any game, and on the most popular platforms. PC's that can run Crysis on max, DO NOT fit in that demographic. To compare EPIC to Crytek is pointless, because Crytek doesn't give a sh1t about console gaming (well, they actually have been forced to change that stance, but another time...); their agenda is centered around building an engine that will cripple the average PC and sell a ton of new hardware for Nvidia, Intel, etc.

EDIT: @ MK_Red: Well, it sounds to me, like the REAL problem is with the lazy devs...and NOT UE3. What was your point exactly?

[MK_Red]

Well, after Doom 3's engine, UE3 is the only engine which all of it's games look the same.

Were all of RenderWare games the same? Did UE2 games look the same? NO!
Among modern and advanced engines, UE3 is the only one that has similair look in all games and as I mentioned in other comment, only LO and Mirror's Edge look different. All others including Fatal and Undertow scream UE3 with their effects and textures.

Also, while pre-made engines are meant to make developement easier, UE3 is just like a cheap short-cut for many lazier devs though there are some decent and good devs that actually try to add something instead of making the next Gears mod in first person.

[CViper]

I'm saying that the definition of what people call the "Unreal Engine Look" is that of bland/generic looking graphics.

I'm aware that those two games aren't Unreal engine titles, but since they fit the bill as far as graphics goes, They DO look like Unreal Engine titles.

I'm saying that the ENGINE cant handle the loads, and Its a coding problem. Not Hardware, because my system that I run crysis sdk on runs.. perfectly fine. Once I try to really push Unrealed. It bogs.

I agree with everything you are saying as well. But thats why the Unreal Engine isn't remarkable. Its made with the 360 and Mid range PC's in mind. But those specs remain the same for the 360 since 2005. Its not like there is ever going to be a reason for the Unreal Engine to ADVANCE beyond what the limitations already are. Yea im sure they can add more features, but it will definitely be at the cost of something else, be it fps or resolution.

None of this is to say that it can't make decent looking games, but the decent looking games generally end up looking the same way, because of the limitations of the engine.

Crysis like visuals aren't impossible in a console. And for one I'm really just talking about the lighting model. Which I do suspect Killzone 2 is approaching from just what i've seen. Lets not fool ourselves, Crysis is the leader of visuals right now. And its where game improvement is ultimately leading. Its the end that is going to justify the means. Uncharted\Gt5\Gears2 is all aiming in the direction to provide players with good graphics, good lighting, good dynamics. The best you can do as a developer right now, is definitely Crysis.

Unreal Engine games should hold their own against other titles. Instead of "Well it looks good........for an unreal engine game." But again, I really don't see the point in Epic really trying to push the engine when they have pre-defined walls that can't be upgraded with videocards and ram. It would just be creating more work, when they are selling just fine. I do feel that epic can't have their turnkey engine solution card, as well as a "wow look at our graphic capabilities" card because time is showing that the Unreal Engine cant keep up with the present and coming future.