January 2010 UDK Beta

Epic Games has released a new version of UDK (www.udk.com/download) that is packedwith toolset upgrades. There were hundreds of improvements but notable ones arethat developers can make decals (e.g., bullet holes, scorch marks, bloodstains, footprints, etc.) look better in the game environment than ever before,users can more quickly create trail emitters (a.k.a. ribbon emitters – thinkparticle effects that follow sword animations in RPGs), and portions of UTGame(sample Unreal Tournament 3 content we ship with each build of UDK) have beenseparated out more cleanly to make it even easier to create games for any typeof genre using UDK.

An extensive list of new additions and improvements includedwith this version is available at:

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitBuildUpgradeNotes.html#January2010: UDKInstall-2010-01-BETA

January 2010 Beta

Improved UDK Features andTools

• Decal improvements
  • Lit translucent decals are now supported.
    • Allows much better blending of decal edges into the environment.
  • Shadowmap support for decals
    • Works for both static and dynamic shadow maps and allows for decals to receive shadows from dominant directional lights as well as toggleable lights.
    • Works when decal is attached to texture and vertex lightmapped.
• Animtrails: Animation driven trail emitters
  • Allows artists to easily create particle trails following animations.
  • http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/AnimTrails.html
• Ongoing UTGame de-nativization
  • Moving UTGame specific C++ functionality that didn't need to be in C++ back into UnrealScript.
  • This makes it easier for UDK developers to see how we implemented this functionality, and has also resulted in new engine functionality being exposed to script.
    • Notable examples include the new SVehicle physics interface functions and making it possible to tick skeletal controllers and UTUIScenes in script.
• Fixed Lightmass generating directional lighting being flipped in the texture's V direction.

Updated UDN Documentation

• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DirectoryLayout.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/LocalizedTextFiles.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/LocalizationReference.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnrealScriptStructs.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnrealPackages.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/RemoteControl.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ScriptProfiler.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DialogSystem.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ParticleExamples.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ParticleSystemReference.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CollisionReference.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitFirstScriptProject.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DominantLights.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/FractureTool.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/PhysicalMaterial.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TerrainDesign.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TerrainEditorUserGuide.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/SettingUpTerrain.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UsingTerrain.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ParticleSpriteSubUVEmitterTutorial.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ViewModes.html
• http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/StatsDescriptions.html

Additional documentation, code samples and more are available atthe Unreal Developer Network (UDN):

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitHome.html

Community links:

UDK LinkedIn user group: www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2493123

UDK on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/UDK/183744733429