Worth pointing out for HN that Epic should soon release a significant update to UE4 so you won't need to download UE source and emscripten (like you do now) and can just export to webGL, like you were packaging for Windows / Android / iOS etc. It's in QA right now. So soon you could wander around here instead of playing the video. Source is the UE YouTube channel on Thursdays.
If you're into creating stuff on a computer and feel like a break from programming, UE4 is great fun.
If you want to do archvis lighting like this, check out koola's scenes in the forums and the Berlin Apartment which is free in the marketplace.
Without any motion blur at all the jerkiness of panning in the video is tremendously apparent. If you're a gamer used to 60fps in this engine, this hurts the eyes in the same way listening to a symphony through laptop speakers hurts the ears.
This is all good, but when are games going to get AIs more advanced than just attacking you on sight and otherwise just standing around serving up pre-made speeches? While I think view distances can certainly get better, last console gen was otherwise adequate in the graphics department.
This is of course an impressive achievement, but I just view it as a curiosity.
Agreed. Interesting games were never about fancy or realistic graphics.
Also, I'd bet all the fancy lighting and such in this scene is all pre-baked so the scene is totally static. Not the best state for interesting gameplay.
Though this sort of thing would be awesome for virtual tours of proposed buildings or faraway places and so on.
Nice work. The only thing that bugged me (a lot) was the range top: It looked like a flat image of a range, while everything else in the flat was textured to perfection.
Only other nitpick: How many copies of Photoshop magazine does that apartment dweller need to own? ;)
> Only other nitpick: How many copies of Photoshop magazine does that apartment dweller need to own? ;)
This is something you'll see in lots of virtual environments, there is only a limited number of objects of a certain class so you'll see lots of repetition. Personally, I blame the teapot.
I was surprised that there was no depth-of-field effect. Everything is in focus all the time. Is that feature not available in UE4, or did they just skip it for this demo?
Definitely, a bit of hand-held camera motion can do wonders for realism, in the same way that an ultra-smooth camera can add an unreal feeling to a real scene. And modern 3D software suites often include excellent features for realistic camera motion:
Most of the substances are convincing, though the drapes around the last windowed room are weak and the reflective pot in the far corner of the room immediately prior is unnatural as you transition between them. At this point, I feel the unnatural motion is a greater stumbling block to believability than the vision, even despite the virtual eyeball type light/dark adjustments we see at the end when swinging between the final bright room at right and the darker doorway.
I think the purpose of the keyboard and mouse control is to underscore that it's "in-game", rather than a pre-rendered cutscene. That's what I got out of it, anyway.
Couldn't sit through the whole thing because of the weird camera movement. I assume they're trying to simulate an in-game style movement but it doesn't feel like a human operating the camera. Other than that, very impressive!
I thought the whole point was that it was an "in-game style" real-time rendering of somebody using keyboard/mouse to walk around inside the virtual environment. That's what makes it impressive and noteworthy.
Am I wrong about that? If it's a pre-rendered animation, it's certainly not state-of-the-art.
The other big missing thing is movement. All the textures look so real, you'd expect to see the curtains rustle in the wind, the bedsheets wrinkle when touched, etc. But that's a whole other level of difficulty.
I've seen some beautiful UE4 screenshots and well-composed videos, but this was the first video I've seen of someone just walking through a scene with a controller, and it blew me away.
Very cool. The one thing that stood out to me is the transition from screen-space to cubemap reflections. If I understand how these are typically implemented, screen-space reflections sample existing parts of the current frame. These are good for real-time reflections at shallow angles. Cubemap reflections are for the rest of the environment, when there is nothing "on screen" to sample from, and so you must resort to a pre-baked image of the environment to represent your reflection.
This made the rounds this AM on the Oculus reddit sub.
The demo is currently 404'ing if you try to download, developer posted that he's bug-fixing and updating tomorrow. (1) but of course a redditor posted a mirror (2)
I must say, that the sense of realism in that was really good! Allow me to just point out a few things that would help it get nearer to perfect! (This is good heart'ed feedback obviously!):
1. The bathroom door was somehow unnaturally bent backward, it really was the only thing that clicked instantly (even in 144p!) [Perhaps its just me :/ ]
2. Near the end of the video, the hallway was a bit too dark, global lights suddenly dimmed, the transition was unnatural (slightly ..), but it is not as noticeable as point no1.
3. From a artistic point of you, I would have preferred if the sofa in the second room (living room) would have had a slight shade of yellow (sun effect).. just a tiny bit to separate it from the bedroom scene. The reason I feel is perhaps because of nature of both rooms, Bedrooms have a blue sleepy appeal, living room are a bit cheerful, and since here the source of light was sun, it should have had that warm hue for the sense of realism to be even better. The other reason is perhaps because the set contains only 3-4 rooms plus lobby, that slight tone of diversity would have had a profound artistic uplift.
PS: Please take it as just feedback, and not as criticism. Dude! I can't even though half of that.. so salute to you and best of luck :)
I love it. Ever since I saw a recreation of Fallingwater in the Half Life engine (1), I thought this would be the future of architectural design (or at least delivering design to clients). Is this becoming common now?
As a guy who works in an Architectural office, I know people who are pushing for this, however in my office specifically we still have quite a few directors who still refuse to use Revit / Autocad and still design with pencil and paper, so there is very strong push-back.
I'm actually downloading UE4 as I type this, I'm going to have a play around with importing AutoCad maps and then demo to the Directors, in an effort to show them how visually impressive UE4 could be as opposed to dry meetings with clients showing them floor plans. It's quite a rare skill to be able to properly visualize projects in 3d from floor plans, and I've often seen clients going cross eyed in attempts to hold all the info in their head at once.
Last I looked into this 6 months ago, there were a few things keeping me away from Unreal Engine and keeping me on Unity. I need to be able to deploy to the web and have the client execute there. And I definitely need to deploy to iOS and Android. Last I checked, the workflow for deploying to web was very wonky, not something to stake a business on for things that must deploy in summer 2015. And similarly, deploying to iOS and Android yielded really battery hungry apps that didn't feel best of breed. Are things better now?
Not really. Android apps are still HUGE (~60MB for an empty project). I'm waiting for them to optimize for mobile before getting into it.
About the HTML5 build, I read that they were waiting for a fix on Emscripten itself.
In modern euro style kitchens the fridge is always built in to hide it. On the last link you can see the vertical door of the fridge. It is probably not US size.
72 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 182 ms ] threadIf you're into creating stuff on a computer and feel like a break from programming, UE4 is great fun.
If you want to do archvis lighting like this, check out koola's scenes in the forums and the Berlin Apartment which is free in the marketplace.
I'm happy they thought to make a youtube link.
How so?
This is of course an impressive achievement, but I just view it as a curiosity.
Though this sort of thing would be awesome for virtual tours of proposed buildings or faraway places and so on.
Only other nitpick: How many copies of Photoshop magazine does that apartment dweller need to own? ;)
This is something you'll see in lots of virtual environments, there is only a limited number of objects of a certain class so you'll see lots of repetition. Personally, I blame the teapot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyoY4_iGFcM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNmmkqtiw-A
Am I wrong about that? If it's a pre-rendered animation, it's certainly not state-of-the-art.
[1] https://mega.co.nz/#!nIJSmT6K!BRKQBDb0uB9V9Xbtz13c_3QZjokq_3...
The demo is currently 404'ing if you try to download, developer posted that he's bug-fixing and updating tomorrow. (1) but of course a redditor posted a mirror (2)
And if you want to be truly stunned and still have an Oculus DK1 check out his first demo: https://share.oculus.com/app/redframe-environment-demo
Even with the DK1 screen door it's damn near photorealistic.
(1) http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147851
(2) https://mega.co.nz/#!nIJSmT6K!BRKQBDb0uB9V9Xbtz13c_3QZjokq_3...
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
1. The bathroom door was somehow unnaturally bent backward, it really was the only thing that clicked instantly (even in 144p!) [Perhaps its just me :/ ]
2. Near the end of the video, the hallway was a bit too dark, global lights suddenly dimmed, the transition was unnatural (slightly ..), but it is not as noticeable as point no1.
3. From a artistic point of you, I would have preferred if the sofa in the second room (living room) would have had a slight shade of yellow (sun effect).. just a tiny bit to separate it from the bedroom scene. The reason I feel is perhaps because of nature of both rooms, Bedrooms have a blue sleepy appeal, living room are a bit cheerful, and since here the source of light was sun, it should have had that warm hue for the sense of realism to be even better. The other reason is perhaps because the set contains only 3-4 rooms plus lobby, that slight tone of diversity would have had a profound artistic uplift.
PS: Please take it as just feedback, and not as criticism. Dude! I can't even though half of that.. so salute to you and best of luck :)
Love from India ~
(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqsk4WARk2I
I'm actually downloading UE4 as I type this, I'm going to have a play around with importing AutoCad maps and then demo to the Directors, in an effort to show them how visually impressive UE4 could be as opposed to dry meetings with clients showing them floor plans. It's quite a rare skill to be able to properly visualize projects in 3d from floor plans, and I've often seen clients going cross eyed in attempts to hold all the info in their head at once.
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/10/28/the-future-of-web-publis...
Here's the "Berlin flat" mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AMY7I_eHjk (Great video, annoying voice-over.)
Another apartment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTt7AGIpV2I
None of these have a refrigerator, for some reason.