Down the Hatch
Earlier this year, we announced that our development would be shifting to the Unreal Development Kit. We did move to UDK very briefly, but it turns out the story doesn’t end there. Shortly after we made the transition to UDK, Epic announced the release of Unreal Engine 4, which would outdate and replace the engine we had just switched to. We didn’t want to commit to UE4 until we were absolutely certain that it would suit our needs, but after more than a month of testing, we are confident enough to announce that we will definitely be using Unreal Engine 4 from now on.
Unreal Engine 4 is better than UDK in almost every way, and yet they work almost the same. Thus, upgrading has been a breeze. It’s so pretty, it makes UDK’s graphics look like Uru. And what’s more, it has far more platform support than UDK did – as of today, we are finally able to officially announce the addition of Linux support to our platform roster, as well as SteamOS.
We’ve been working on putting together a demo of what the engine is capable of (and we actually showed you an in-engine screenshot from UE4 a month ago, without mentioning it!), so here’s a demo of interaction with the Jungle Island submarine, running in Unreal Engine 4. Please note that the sub is still untextured, and the animations/GUI/interactions are not final in any way. This is more of a programming test, to learn the ins and outs of Unreal 4.
We’ll keep you updated on our Unreal 4 development as it progresses!
May 7th, 2014 at 11:59 am
Nice!
Does this mean we’ll have to financially back you every month due to the subscription fees?
May 7th, 2014 at 1:04 pm
Not if they cancel the subscription. You can still use UE4 and release products even if you don’t have an active subscription. The only reason to keep a subscription up is to get bug fixes/new features and access to an as of yet (I believe) unreleased asset store like service.
So no major need for Starry Expanse to keep those subscriptions up.
May 7th, 2014 at 6:16 pm
Even if they did require us to foot the subscription that’s only $20/month
May 7th, 2014 at 12:45 pm
Nice…! Can’t wait to see the textured submarine in motion!
May 7th, 2014 at 1:21 pm
Looks great !
I did find the sound effect of shutting down the hatch a bit weird: too much echo. While inside the sub there should be just a small bit (the other levers were just fine) and while outside, there would be no echo at all. Also, lacking step sounds going up the stairs.
Good job 🙂
May 7th, 2014 at 3:56 pm
Is it just me or are the polygon counts on the rounded edges considerably improved?
May 7th, 2014 at 8:38 pm
One of the awesome features of UE4 is its geometry tessellation, which basically helps make polygonal objects appear to be a lot smoother and more round than they actually are 🙂
May 7th, 2014 at 9:36 pm
‘geometry tessellation’
Woohoo! I hope every feature of the UT4 engine is fleshed out for this remake!
RealMyst Masterpiece certainly lacked good bump mapping techniques e.g. http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/91797/model_comparision.jpg
May 9th, 2014 at 1:39 pm
How much are you planning to utilize UE4’s tessellation capabilities? In theory, you could tessellate virtually every object in the game, helping to bring the The Starry Expanse that much closer to the source game. Furthermore, this wouldn’t have to be as intensive as it would likely be since modern tessellation methods are programmable – meaning tessellation amounts can be changed based on distance (somewhat like LODs for models) or runtime parameters (such as animating liquids), models can have tessellation applied in specific ways across them (i.e. the handle of a hammer can be tessellated differently than its head), and so on.
However, given how much work can be involved in correctly setting up models to be tessellated, and given The Starry Expanse’s target audience may not own a graphics card powerful enough to properly utilize tessellation, I understand if tessellation were to be used sparingly, if at all.
May 9th, 2014 at 2:32 pm
So far, we have been allowing unreal to do all tessellation work on its own, based on its default settings. This means tessellation happens on the fly, with the level of smoothing adjusting on the fly, based on a number of factors (such as computational power available). We may decide to fine-tune this behavior in the future, but for now, Epic seems to have done a pretty good job.
May 7th, 2014 at 6:21 pm
Wow! Looks great guys, thanks for all the hard work and keep it up!
May 8th, 2014 at 9:30 am
Looking pretty good! Love it <3
May 8th, 2014 at 10:39 am
The way that lever vibrates after it springs back into position is downright magical. I can’t wait to get my hands on the finished product.
May 9th, 2014 at 10:30 am
We are living in a yellow submarine
May 12th, 2014 at 8:31 am
Extremely nice! You were right when switch on U4 from Unity3d. One question: is submarine material from U4 standard assets or you wrote own shader?
May 12th, 2014 at 10:59 am
That’s a built-in material!
May 14th, 2014 at 9:03 pm
Good lord, that is beautiful
May 21st, 2014 at 2:58 pm
How difficult would it be to re-create the Prison Island demo using the Unreal 4 engine – or at least getting some snapshots of it to compare to its previous incarnation?
May 21st, 2014 at 11:47 pm
It would not be too hard, but we are currently focusing all of our efforts on the production of the village basin area, in order to be ready for Mysterium.
May 28th, 2014 at 4:08 am
Does this change your funding requirements any? Isn’t any full UE version paid-subscription only?
May 31st, 2014 at 1:42 am
Beautiful work! I’m beyond stoked to have found this project!
Not to throw another wrench in your conflicted souls, but did you know the oh-so-beautiful CryEngine is half the price of UE and royalty-free? Of course, there’s also a free SDK to start on, akin to UE’s UDK.
May 31st, 2014 at 2:04 am
Rest assured that we gave CryEngine some serious thought before ultimately choosing Unreal, for a number of reasons. Even with CryEngine at its new low price, our commitment to Unreal is as solid as ever. No wrenches thrown! 🙂
June 21st, 2014 at 11:36 am
Hi! Looks great.
I have a question that I don’t know if it has been asked before.
Will the gameplay be limited to Riven “walk paths” or will we be able to wander around freely? If not please at least consider a special play mode for exploration so we can see all the Islands from all angles and in all their glory.
June 21st, 2014 at 12:01 pm
Our primary goal is to re-create the original game and its gameplay, including its walkway restrictions. Only once this is done can we evaluate adding additional content, like free roaming.
August 17th, 2014 at 2:33 pm
Muchas gracias por tu fantastico trabajo, besos!
August 25th, 2014 at 5:19 pm
I think you need to up the poly count. It’s clear as day that it’s a 3d model when you notice the facets in round surfaces, it breaks the illusion.