Unreal Engine 4.0 – the next generation of graphics

13th June 2012

Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, and first used in the 1998 shooter game Unreal. Although primarily intended for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in other genres. With a high degree of portability, it is very popular and used in many of today's most well-known video games. Each new version has allowed more detailed and sophisticated graphics.

The latest iteration, Unreal Engine 4.0, has been in development since 2003. It will target the next generation of PC hardware and consoles after the seventh generation. It was unveiled to limited attendees at the 2012 Game Developers Conference back in March, and now a demonstration video has been released to the public. The first games to use this new engine are expected to be released in 2013.

One of the major features of UE4 is the support for real-time global illumination via voxel raycasting, which no longer requires any precomputation of the lighting.

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