Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo!    Sep 14, 2002 - by Tim Sweeney

The Unreal Tournament 2003 demo has been released!  Download it here.   Here are some important issues:

• You need to have DirectX 8.1b installed to play the game successfully.  If you get a crash on startup or at a random time during gamplay, this is likely to be the cause.   Download it from Microsoft's DirectX site.
• We'll be releasing a small patch tomorrow.  This will fix a number of reported bugs, and also serve as the first public test of UT2003's new auto-update feature.
• There was a bug in the server browser that caused it to crash frequently under heavy load.  This wasn't triggered until thousands of servers came online.  We found a master server-side fix for this so the problem should be gone now.  Sorry for the inconvenience!
• Server admins, if running multiple servers on one machine, please give each server a port number differing from the others by at least 20: for example, 7000, 7020, 7040, ...   To work around the bug mentioned above, we had to ban servers that are running on consecutive port numbers.  Restarting servers using the new port number guidelines will bring them back online.
• The master server was intermittently down or unresponsive earlier because Epic's Internet connection was flooded.   We've moved it to a much faster server offsite and it should be running fine now.
• Several other crash bugs have shown up significantly in the bug reports.  We're looking into these.  Thanks to everyone who has submitted bug reports to ut2003bugs@epicgames.com.
• UT2003's global player statistics tracking system will be coming online tomorrow.   To use it, you'll need to turn on stats tracking from the settings menu, and choose a unique name and password.
• Yes, UT2003's Joystick support needs work.
• Be sure to read the UT2003 Demo Frequently Asked Questions for information on other known issues and workarounds.

Also:

• We'll be updating the master server tomorrow so it exposes the server list publically, and working with the All Seeing Eye guys and QTracker guys and others to have them hooked up to UT2003 shortly.

More updates will follow.

-Tim

 

Unreal Tournament 436 OpenGL renderer fix    Sep 6, 2002 - by Daniel Vogel

The below replacement OpenGLDrv.dll fixes extension detection with very large extension strings. I also uploaded the (embarassing) source for people who want to tinker with it.

• files/UT436-OpenGLDrv-090602.zip (33KB)
• files/UT436-OpenGLDrv-Src-090602.zip (254KB)

Linux UT 436 Server Denial of Service Fix (really, this time)    August 20, 2002 - by Jack Porter

Sorry, it took a little longer than expected!  Ryan informs me this patch is good to go, and we've had some server administrators testing it for a few days.  We suggest all server admins running on Linux install this patch.

• files/IpDrv-436-Linux-08-20-02.zip (103KB)

Unreal Tournament 436 Server Denial of Service Fix    July 18, 2002 - by Jack Porter

All UT server admins are encouraged to install this replacement IpDrv.dll

• files/UT436-IpDrv-070902.zip (74KB)

This fix causes the UT server to correctly process ICMP port unreachable messages, and disconnect any connection it receives one for.  This solves the Windows 2000 creeping ping problem and the denial of service attack mentioned in this article.  Users not running UT servers do not need to apply this patch.

Gameplay Programmer Position    August 31, 2001 - by Steven Polge

My crappy mail program ate a number of submissions.  If you have sent mail to gameprogrammer@epicgames.com, please resendit.

Gameplay Programmer Position    August 22, 2001 - by Steven Polge

See this page for details.

 

Updated beta OpenGL renderer    May 9, 2001 - by Daniel Vogel

This is a zip with latest beta version of the OpenGL renderer which fixes the black screen at exit bug. Thanks to NVIDIA for helping me track it down. There have been no changes which could affect performance or visual quality.

For bugs please email utbugs436@epicgames.com

 

 

Updated beta OpenGL renderer    March 11, 2001 - by Daniel Vogel

This is a zip with latest beta version of the OpenGL renderer. It mostly fixes a bug in parsing the ini file options. The previous released D3D driver was very buggy and as it only resulted in a performance increase on a very limited range of cards the zip doesn't contain an updated version. If you want to use D3D please use the D3D renderer from the 436 patch. To install the new OpenGL renderer simply unzip it into your UnrealTournament/System directory and modify your UnrealTournament.ini file so the OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice section looks like below. If you want to use the compressed textures from the 2nd UT CD simply copy them over replacing existing textures and if you have problems using the textures from the 2nd CD in online games you might want to ask the server administrator to update his/her server. If you have a TNT or TNT2 you might have to set UseTNT to 1 depending on the version of the drivers you are using. If the game runs at ~ 1 frame per second it is a clear sign that UseTNT=1 is needed. Also please make sure that your desktop is set to 32 bit before starting the game.

[OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice]
RefreshRate=75
DetailTextures=1
UseTrilinear=1
UseS3TC=1
UseTNT=0
LODBias=0
UseMultiTexture=1
UsePalette=1
UseAlphaPalette=0
Translucency=1
VolumetricLighting=1
ShinySurfaces=1
Coronas=1
HighDetailActors=1
MaxAnisotropy=0
AlwaysMipmap=0
UsePrecache=0
SupportsLazyTextures=0

 

For bugs please email utbugs436@epicgames.com

 

New beta D3D and OpenGL renderers    January 19, 2001 - by Daniel Vogel

This is a zip with beta versions of both a new D3D and OpenGL renderer. The new D3D renderer uses DirectX8 which should result in improved performance due to improved texture management. It also now supports the DXT1 compressed textures from the 2nd UT CD. The OpenGL renderer is now up- to date with the D3D renderer and needs some settings added to the OpenGLDrv setting of your UnrealTournament.ini file.

[OpenGLDrv.OpenGLRenderDevice]

RefreshRate=60
UseTrilinear=False
UseS3TC=True
UseTNT=False
LODBias=0
UseMultiTexture=True
UsePalette=True
UseAlphaPalette=False

 

For bugs please email utbugs436@epicgames.com

 

Where to find the 436 "no delta" patch    January 15, 2001 - by Steven Polge

If you are looking for the "no delta" version of the 436 patch (if you have the Creative Labs bundled UT version 428 or are having problems patching where the installer keeps asking you to insert the UT CD), check out 3d Gamers.

 

NGStats approved mods    January 5, 2001 - by Steven Polge

A number of popular mods are now officially supported by NGStats.  This means that results from servers using these mods will still count towards NGStats rankings.  The approved mods include:

 

Assault Bonus Pack by Stefan Schwarz http://www.planetunreal.com/eavy/assault.html 

Boden's Toys by Brent Barrett http://home.pacbell.net/brent983/ 

UT Reporter www.fury.co.uk/ut 

CSHP2 by Dr. Sin http://www.creativecarnage.com/CSHP

UTCV by ocr|mr.frost^badct; http://www.badct.de/utc/ 

DE Mutators by Digital Extremes http://www.digitalextremes.com 

CCProtector by Dr. Sin www.creativecarnage.com/unreal/mutators 

Spawn Protect by Stefan Schwarz  http://www.planetunreal.com/eavy/ 

BDBMapVote by BDB http://www.planetunreal.com/BDBUnreal/mapvote.htm

 

New 436 PKG Commandlet    November 13, 2000 - by Warren Marshall

A few  people have been asking for this for quite some time now and it finally got to the top of my todo list, so here it is.  This is a new ucc commandlet which will prove useful for some people ... particularly those creating things like skins and texture packages.  This commandlet will import/export data from packages into/from directory structures.  For example, this is useful for people making new skins who don't want to have to start up UnrealEd to import the skin into a package and so on.

Rather than explain it here, I've created a separate page with full docs on it's use.

Read about it here.

Download it here.

Just unzip this file into your Unreal Tournament system directory.  That's all there is to it.  Of course, it's recommended that you backup your current directory in case something goes badly.

NOTE : This is built on top of version 436, so this is only usable if you have that version installed.  It MIGHT work on other versions, but it seems doubtful.

- Warren

 

Alternate D3DDrv.dll for 436 patch   November 8, 2000 - by Steven Polge

This d3ddrv.dll will solve the problem some TNT1 and TNT2 users are seeing with text on their menus and HUD.  Unzip the file into your UnrealTournament\system directory.

- Steve

Unreal Tournament Patch version 436 released!   November 7, 2000 - by Steven Polge

We've released the patch version 436 for the Win32 version of Unreal Tournament.  Simultaneously. Westlake Interactive is releasing the Macintosh patch to version 436 and Loki Games is releasing the Linux patch.  Version 436 clients are network compatible with all previous public releases of UT, but version 436 servers support only 432 and above clients, so we encourage everyone to upgrade as soon as possible!

We also have the server-only version of 436 available.  Finally, we have the "no delta" version of the 436 patch.  Its much larger (33 MB vs. 7.2 MB), and is intended for people having problems installing the normal patch - in particular customers with the Japanese version of UT or the 428 version bundled with certain Creative Labs products, or customers who get errors when trying to install a patch along the lines of : "The file system\botpack.u from the CD-ROM is not the expected version.  Therefore, Unreal Tournament can't be patched."  

Check the Unreal Tournament Versions Page for download locations.  Here are the release notes.     Send bug reports to utbugs436@epicgames.com.

- Steve

Epic Games Appoints Bruce Shankle Director, Unreal Engine Technology and Support

Raleigh, NC -- November 6, 2000 -- Epic Games today announced the appointment of Bruce Shankle as director, Unreal Engine Technology and Support. Bruce oversees the creation, organization and promotion of information, tools and resources for supporting and empowering developers using the Unreal Engine technology.

"On the Unreal development team, we've always taken pride in supporting our partners directly by having Unreal Engine licensees get answers straight from the developers who created the technology," said Tim Sweeney, lead programmer and company founder. "Bruce's extensive experience in support, training, and development tools enhances this team and allows us to continue the expansion of our licensing program."

Bruce became deeply involved with the Unreal technology was when he developed UnDox, an Unreal Engine developer productivity tool which generates HTML navigational maps and documentation from UnrealScript source code, enabling development teams to manage and navigate large projects.

"There is an unlimited amount of power and potential in the Unreal Engine and I am looking forward to helping developers further their games with this industry-leading technology," said Shankle.

As co-founder of CodeMarine, Inc., a developer training company in Raleigh, NC, Bruce created developer tools and assisted in complex software design projects for such companies as Microsoft, IBM, and Orbital Sciences. Bruce created courseware and delivered classes to developers on emerging software technologies. His articles and essays on software development have earned him a place on the cover of several Microsoft developer journals, and his documentation, samples, and source code can be found in the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN).

"Now that Unreal engine supports the PC, X-box, and PlayStation2, and can render unprecedented character animation and large outdoor environments with ease, the market potential for licensing our engine has increased exponentially," said Epic Vice President Mark Rein. "Epic is highly committed to expanding our engine licensing business and through moves such as hiring Bruce to support our developers, we will continue to aggressively expand our market share."

The Unreal Engine includes the Unreal Editor for level creation, Unreal Script programming language, source code for the engine, editor & all Epic-created tools, complete game source code for Unreal and Unreal Tournament, unlimited support from Epic's award-winning technology team and access to updates and new features, such as the new skeletal animation system and large-scale terrain system.

The Unreal Engine is being used to power games from several top game developers including 3DRealms who are using the Unreal Engine to create Duke Nukem Forever and renowned role-playing designer Warren Spector at Ion Storm who created Deus Ex which recently won the prestigious Best PC Game title at the annual British Academy of Film and Television Arts Interactive Awards.

Epic is the only major 3D game engine provider with games available for the PC and PlayStation 2. The unified codebase employed by the Unreal Engine allows developer making games for PC, Xbox and PlayStation®2 console platforms to effortlessly retarget their code and content between platforms. Because of the unified codebase Epic was able to, during the development of Unreal Tournament for PlayStation 2, recompile and run the exact same version of the game on both PC and the console platform. The provided a real cost savings and huge productivity boost. Unreal Engine source code for Sega Dreamcast, Apple Macintosh and Linux versions are also available at no extra charge to developers.

Epic Games Inc., based in Raleigh, N.C., and established in 1991, is a developer of cutting-edge PC games. The company is best known as the creator of hit PC 3D action games Unreal, an award-winning blockbuster hit having sold more than 1 million copies, and Unreal Tournament which has been recognized as the Game of the Year by leading gaming media outlets including Computer Gaming World, the No. 1 PC games magazine. Epic's Unreal Engine has been licensed to several top PC game developers for games in a variety of genres. In the past Epic was well known for it's shareware games including Jill of the Jungle, Jazz Jackrabbit and Epic Pinball. Additional information can be obtained through Epic's Web site at http://www.epicgames.com.

UT Custom Skins   October 25, 2000 - by Steven Polge

As part of the skin cheat fix in recent versions of UT, skin packages must now be prefixed with the meshname + "skin".  For example, the skin package FCommandoAsia.utx will be rejected for use in online play.  Renaming the package to FCommandoSkinsAsia.utx will fix the problem.

Job Opening   October 11, 2000 - by Steven Polge

We have a job opening for an Unreal Engine Senior Technical Support Manager.  Check this page for the qualifications and responsibiilities.

UnrealEd v432 Fix   October 9, 2000 - by Warren Marshall

A few people have reported a weird crash with the dockable browsers in the new UnrealEd included in the 432 patch.  I believe I have a fix for that, and a few other things I noticed.  You can grab that file here ...

UnrealEd_432_fix.zip

To install this, just unzip it into your system directory.  Here is a quick list of what is included ...

- the "TextureLock" option should work 100% now
- fixed the crash that some people were getting when docking a browser and getting a crash when trying to restart the editor
- rewrote "UEditorEngine::polySelectMatchingBrush" because SHIFT+B was crashing at random times. Should be stable now.
- brush clipping was merging faces on the resulting brush
- may have fixed the random "WinMain/message pump" crash

The first item may raise an eyebrow or two.  :)  TextureLock is something I put in a while ago, but just haven't made a UI button for it.  What it will do is stop the editor from resetting texture alignment on brushes that you manipulate vertices on.  To access it, go into Advanced Options, open up "Editor", then "Grid", and you'll see the option there called "TextureLock".  Change that to TRUE and restart the editor.  It should work for you now.

I'm 99% sure that I've fixed it, but if you still get the crash related to docking browsers, please email a copy of your "editor.log" file to unrealed2@epicgames.com.

Thanks!

- Warren

Unreal Tournament Patch v432 Released!   October 5, 2000 - by Steven Polge

We've released version 432 for the Win32 version of Unreal Tournament.  It is completely network compatible with all previous publicly released versions.  Check the Unreal Tournament Versions Page for download locations for the Win32 patch, which is about 6 MB.  Here are the release notes.   We're also releasing new public headers for version 432 - check the downloads page.  Send bug reports to utbugs432@epicgames.com.

- Steve

Editor Status Update   September 22, 2000 - by Warren Marshall

Been a while since I did one of these so I figured I would just take a moment to show you a few of the new features that are coming in the next version of UnrealEd ...  and I brought pictures!

Texture Browser

You can now go into an "actual size" mode, similar to the texture browsers in some of the Quake editors.

Old Way

New Way

You can still use the old way if you prefer it ... it's totally configurable.  Also notice that the texture names/sizes are much easier to read now.

Sky Boxes

You can now view sky boxes in the editor when you go into the real time preview mode.

Old Way

New Way

2D Shape Editor

You no longer have to export a texture, convert it  into a BMP file, then load it  into the 2D shaper in order to get a background image.  Now, you can simply follow  the steps shown in this series of pictures.

1. Select a texture.
2. Choose the "Get From Current Texture" menu option.
3. Texture appears as your background image.

The 2D shaper will also support zooming in the next version.  You can stop asking me for that now.  :)

-Warren

Latest Unreal Engine News   September 8, 2000 - by Tim Sweeney

Check out:

• New Unreal Technology Preview (Daily Radar)
• NVidia and Epic Announce Strategic Partnership (Yahoo)

-Tim

"Creeping Ping" bug with Windows 2000    August 31, 2000 - by Jack Porter

Some server admins have reported that after a while all of the players get increasingly
lagged out when the UT server is running on Windows 2000. This seems to happen only
when the remote administration webserver is running. We believe it may be related
to this Win2K issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q258/1/00.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=tech&FR=0

The workaround is to only run the remote admin webserver when you actually want to administer your
server. Disable the remote admin webserver by removing the line which says

ServerActors=UWeb.Webserver

in your server's INI file. To activate the webserver, join your server as an admin and
type the following command:

admin summon uweb.webserver

When you've finished administering your server, you can disable the webserver with the command

admin killall webserver

- Jack

A Note to Modmakers    August 25, 2000 - by Jack Porter

A lot of people have noticed that it takes the UT menus a long time to start up when you have lots of mods installed.  This is because the code which creates the Mod menu loads all of the mod packages into memory to add them to the mods' items to the Mod menu.  We've addressed this for the next UT patch, but we need modmakers to make a small change to the way they add items to the Mod menu.  Previously, mod menu items were created with an .int file entry something like this:

Object=(Name=ChaosUT.ChaosUTModMenuItem,Class=Class,MetaClass=UMenu.UMenuModMenuItem)

To make your mod load quicker when UT starts up, you need to add a Description field on the end.

Object=(Name=ChaosUT.ChaosUTModMenuItem,Class=Class,MetaClass=UMenu.UMenuModMenuItem,Description="ChaosUT Config,Configure ChaosUT")

The stuff after the comma is the text that appears on the help bar at the bottom of the screen.  If you don't make the change to your int file, your mod will still work with the next UT patch, but it won't load any faster - so please make the change for the next release of your mod.

- Jack

Editor Status Update   August 25, 2000 - by Warren Marshall

Just wanted to take a moment here to let everyone know about some of the editor stuff that will be in the next patch that comes your way.

2D Shaper

The 2D shaper can now handle multiple shapes, like the old one did.  But the coolest thing is that it can now handle bezier segments (you can have as many as you want).  You select a side, turn it into a bezier segment and you get 2 control points that you can use to control the shape of the segment.  The segment has multiple detail levels so you can control how smooth the curves are.  It also allows you to create whatever kind of shape you want, and it will triangulate the shape automatically when the time comes to create a brush from it.

The file format has changed, so any shapes you've currently saved won't be usable in this new one ... so print them out or something.  :P

Movers

When you right click a mover there is a new menu option called "Show Polys". What this will do is add the movers polygons into the current BSP.  You can then change the texturing, surface flags, etc of those polys and those changes will be reflected on the mover itself.  So you don't have to recreate movers anymore to change the way they look.  The only drawback to this is that the polys it stuffs into the BSP -- they're just temporary, but you will have to rebuild your map to get rid of them.  But I think that's a more than reasonable trade off.  :)

Modes

"Brush Clipping" has been made into it's own mode ("MODE BRUSHCLIP").  This allowed several good things to happen ..

-  You can place clipping markers anywhere you want to now.  On top of brushes, actors, etc ...
-  Placing clipping markers will no longer deselect the currently selected brushes
-  Many bugs have been fixed, including the ever nasty "can't clip a brush that you've vertex manipulated"
    - NOTE : this mainly applies to any NEW brushes you create after getting this version.  Old brushes may work OK if you transform them permanently before trying the clip though ...

"Vertex Editing" is also it's own mode now ("MODE VERTEXEDIT").  Mainly for ease of use reasons.  It's also got all of the dragging weirdness worked out of it.

And there's a brand new mode, called "Face Dragging" ("MODE FACEDRAG"). This mode allows you to resize brushes much like QER.  You select the brush(es) you want to drag faces on and enter this mode.  CTRL+Left clicking and dragging in a 2D viewport will grab the faces on the selected brushes which are facing the mouse cursor and drag them.  So resizing a cube becomes a simple affair without having to resort to the snap scaling tool.  It's also great for skewing brushes.  The important difference is that the entire brush doesn't scale evenly while you drag ... only the specific faces it grabs will move.

Misc

Some of these might be repeats from above, so if you see any that are, just pretend you didn't see them ...

* Actor grouping (like vis groups in Worldcraft)
* made all browsers dockable inside of a master browser window (individually configured)
  * you can have a mix using this system ... have some browsers docked, others floating
* added ability in texture browser to rename textures
* all browser windows will fill in a default filename when saving packages or exporting items
* 2D shape editor
  * you can build shapes however you want - no more worrying about triangles
  * shapes will auto-triangulate when you create a brush
  * now supports multiple shapes
  * supports bezier segments
  * had problems with beziers on the left hand side of the shape
  * would have problems with tons of polys in the shape
  * now has the ability to scale shapes up or down
  * brush pivot point should now be in the correct place after creating a brush
* "Radii view" will now work in the 3D window by rendering the collision cylinder as an 8-sided wire cylinder
* "Radii view" will also show the radius of things like lights in the 3D window
* made the "snap vertex" graphic on the bottom bar larger
* various vertex editing fixes/improvements
* Brush Clipping
  * changed the marker to a little push pin
  * clip markers are now numbered as you add them in - like QER
  * clip markers have a circle drawn around them that doesn't scale with zoom distance
    * you can select clip markers by clicking the circle as well as the actor itself
* fixed MeshBrowser not playing individual animations
* changed vertex editing color to always be white
* may have fixed the way the tabs would overlap each in the "surface properties" and "build options" dialogs
* turned the mesh viewer into a regular browser window - it can be docked and is treated the same as the other browser windows
* cleaned up the UI on all the browsers - things are much more consistent and cleaner now
* when an image is loaded into the 2D shaper, the lines should be dark gray instead of black
  * the image also shifts around when you move the origin.  It shouldn't - lock it at the origin.
* box selection mode will no longer occasionally leave the box sitting there until you move the camera again
* fixed the "can't clip brush after using vertex manipulation on it" bug. If something goofy DOES happen with the brush clipping it can be fixed 99% of the time by transforming the brush permanently, and trying the clip again.
* CTRL+E hotkey for "Save As"

- Warren

Latest UT Buzz   August 23, 2000 - by Tim Sweeney

Lots of cool stuff is happening with Unreal Tournament.

First, check out the latest preview at IGN PS2!

IGN also has coverage of Infogrames' upcoming product lineup.  Infogrames has been a great partner and we're thrilled to be a major part of their plans.

Next, according to GameWeek, Unreal engine games are holding two of the top ten spots, even 2 and 9 months after release!

1. Diablo 2
2. The Sims
3. Roller Coaster Tycoon
4. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
5. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 2
6. Unreal Tournament
7. Slots
8. Deus Ex
9. Age of Empires II
10. SimCity 3000 Unlimited

A big congratulations to the ION Storm Austin team for creating a great game, and for their project's commercial success.

-Tim

Unreal Tournament Full Server-Only v428 Released!   August 14, 2000 - by Steven Polge

We've released a full server-only version 428 for the Win32 version of Unreal Tournament.  It is completely network compatible with all previous publicly released versions.  Check the Unreal Tournament Versions Page for download locations for the 72 MB zip.   Send bug reports to utbugs428@epicgames.com.

We *strongly* recommend that server admins upgrade to version 428.  We've made a lot of improvements to server CPU utilization and network performance, as well as fixing a lot of bugs and cheats.  We've also added cool new features like file download redirection (added in version 413), which allows users to download files from another server at high speed, getting them up and playing faster without sucking bandwidth and CPU cycles from your server.

Here's the server specific changes made since version 400:

Version 428

- fixed 'killall bot' working on servers even if not admin.
- fixed creeping ping problem with Win2K. 
- fix for occasional accidental port changes on servers using NGStats.

Version 425

- fixed the skin cheats
- fixed creeping pings problem for passworded servers 
- fixed problems with passwords with spaces
- improved server CPU utilization
- improved prioritization of network traffic for low bandwidth users
- fixed ActorLineCheck() crash
- fixed suicide spamming
- Last Man Standing now can have time limit
- fixed collision bug which cropped up in 420 (overlord)
- lowered NGStats thread priority on dedicated servers, so NGStats doesn't hold up level changes.
- Added bExternalBatcher configuration option to [Engine.GameInfo]. If true, the game doesn't try to run the NGStats world log batch process.

Version 420

- fixed security holes with ServerRestartGame() SwitchLevel() and SwitchCoopLevel()

Version 413

- fixed problem causing !Bunch->IsError() assertion which was causing some server crashes
- fixed last man standing late entry cheat
- fixed head gib not replicated on headshot in network play
- fixed die at start of feign death and can't respawn in network game
- Servers can adjust the minimum compatible version number reported to clients using:
[IpServer.UdpServerQuery] MinNetVer=405.  This can be used to prevent older
clients from seeing your server if you are running a mod which requires a UT
version newer than 400.
- ngWorldStats version 1.5.5 is included in the patch.
- The UT server now queries ngWorldStats log batcher to determine if it is
correctly processing stats logs.   413 servers report this information
to UBrowser, and shows both whether ngWorldStats is enabled on the server, and
whether it is actually working correctly.
- Server admins can now redirect auto-downloads to a remote HTTP (WWW) server. 
Custom content such as maps, skins and texture packages can be stored on the remote
website either uncompressed or in a compressed file format (.uz) for
faster downloads.

Version 405

- fixed problem with one of the 402 server optimizations causing pickups to be shown when they should be hidden if high packet loss
- fixed gold players showing up in CTF
- fixed deathsounds and hit sounds from other players not being heard in net games
- downloads from server are now rate controlled
- Servers can deny auto-downloading of content by setting AllowDownLoads=false in the [IpDrv.TcpNetDriver] section of the Unrealtournament.ini file.
- reduced how long carcasses hang around on servers
- Improved bit packing for network packets (server performance improvement)

Version 402

- fixed guided warhead blowing up if no client response with 300 msec after spawning
- players can no longer switch to illegal team if server is full and force team balance set
- Major server CPU utilization improvements

- Steve

Unreal Tournament Patch v428 Released!   August 13, 2000 - by Steven Polge

We've released version 428 for the Win32 version of Unreal Tournament.  It is completely network compatible with all previous publicly released versions.  Check the Unreal Tournament Versions Page for download locations for the Win32 patch, which is about 6 MB.  Here are the release notes.    Send bug reports to utbugs428@epicgames.com.

- Steve

D3D performance  August 5, 2000 - by Erik de Neve

We plan to quickly address any performance, networking, and editor issues people may have with version 425 in an upcoming patch. If you have any issues with the Direct3D support in patch 425 and would like to help test the latest revision, download this d3ddrv.dll to replace the file that is in your UnrealTournament\system folder. All feedback welcome at utbugs425@epicgames.com

- Erik

UnrealEd2 Trick  August 4, 2000 - by Warren Marshall

Just a quick note about the 425 patch. You can now add your own buttons to the button bar on the left hand side, but I failed to document this fact in the patch readme file. So here's how to do it ...

To create an example button, add this to the end of your unrealed.ini file ... 

[UserDefinedGroup]
NumButtons=1
Button0=Align Camera on Selected Actors,AddMover,CAMERA ALIGN

This sets up 1 user defined button, defined by the "Button0" line. There are 3 fields, that break down like this... 

1.  Tool tip text ("Align Camera on Selected Actors").
2.  The filename of the bitmap you want to display on the button ("AddMover"). This bitmap MUST be the "system\EditorRes" directory and be 30x30 pixels in size (for best effect). The color depth is not really important, but the UnrealEd ones are 24-bit.
3.  The "exec" command that you want the button to execute ("CAMERA ALIGN"). This command gets sent to the editors command parser and executed. In the example, the command "camera align" will align all the viewport cameras on the selected actor.

And that's it!  Adding more than 1 button should be self explanatory. :)

On another note ... I'll likely be posting updates to this page on a somewhat weekly basis letting you guys (specifically the editing community) know what I'm doing in regards to the editor and what to expect in future versions.  Who knows, maybe even a screenshot or two.  :)

UPDATE : It was brought to my attention that 425 has a small bug in it which prevents you from creating more than one user defined button.  I made a quick fix here for the people who want to use this feature.  Make sure you make a backup of your original unrealed.exe file before copying this one into your system directory.  You can download the fix here : UnrealEd425-UserButtonFix.zip.

- Warren

Cool Web Sites  August 3, 2000 - by Tim Sweeney

I just wanted to point out the web site UnrealEd.exe, an awesome resource for Unreal level designers.  The site has an active set of Forums and, for beginners, a very thorough Tutorials section!

While I'm plugging web sites, FlipCode.com also deserves mention; it's a cool leading-edge site for game programmers, with an emphasis on 3D graphics.

Also, the frequently-updated Unreal community web sites, Unreal Universe and PlanetUnreal, are great resources for Unreal Tournament players, and UnrealEngine.com follows the broader scope of Unreal engine based games.

- Tim

Epic partners with Loki for Unreal Tournament Linux support   August 2, 2000 - by Steven Polge

Here's the press release.  You can also get Linux version 425 from Loki here.  You must have the UT Windows CD to install the Linux version.

- Steve

Unreal Tournament Patch v425 Released!   August 1, 2000 - by Steven Polge

We've released version 425 for the Win32 version of Unreal Tournament.  It is completely network compatible with all previous publicly released versions.  Check the Unreal Tournament Versions Page for download locations for the Win32 patch, which is about 6 MB.  Here are the release notes.   We've also released a full server-only version of 425.  Send bug reports to utbugs425@epicgames.com.

- Steve

Final Unreal 1 Patch Released  July 13, 2000 - by Erik de Neve

Yes - hell froze over, allowing the cows to skid home - we released the final Unreal 1 patch. Based on version 226 from July last year, it includes the latest Direct3D and sound code from Unreal Tournament. Click here for download locations.

- Erik

Unreal Tournament Patch v420 Released!   May 22, 2000 - by Steven Polge

We've released version 420 of Unreal Tournament.  It is completely network compatible with all previous publicly released versions.  Check the Unreal Tournament Versions Page for download locations for the Win32 patch, which is about 5.6 MB.  Here are the release notes.   This version includes the new UnrealEd version 2.0, described in this press release.

- Steve

IpDrv.so Update for Linux 413   Apr 17, 11:25 AM - by Brandon Reinhart

I've also put together a new version of the patch for people who haven't downloaded it yet. This is version 413a:

• UT-Patch413a-Linux.tar.gz
• UT-Patch413a-Linux.tar.gz

- GreenMarine

UT 413 for Linux Patch!   Apr 16, 1:25 PM - by Brandon Reinhart

• Music! If you have libmikmod you can now play music inside of UT.
• SDL input! SDL adds a lot finer control over the game.
• SDL mesa GL support! Mesa support now in very good condition.

HUGE HUGE HUGE PROPS for the following hackers from the OpenUT project:

OpenUT Programming

• John Fulmer
• Joshua R. Kaldon- Garvin
• Chris Gilbert
• Jeroen Janssen
• Jeremy Muhlich
• Marcus Sundberg
• Nicholas Vinen
• Daniel Vogel

• Doug Dahl
• Andreas Ehliar
• Albert K T Hui
• Jeffrey H. Ingber
• Matt Matthews
• Andy Piper
• Dustin Reyes
• Andy Ward
• Jeremy Weatherford

Speaking of open projects, I plan to put up a new version of the UT headers for Windows and Linux and all of the rest of the Unreal Tournament public source in a couple days. Also, I'll put up new debugging libs for 413 at the sourceforge site.

- GreenMarine

Bright released  Apr 10, 9:15 PM - by Erik de Neve

Buckling under popular demand from the UT skinning/mod community we are releasing a public version of 'Bright', our trusty old command-line-based texture palettizer tool. Get it right here. Documentation included in the zip file. We used this throughout development of Unreal and Unreal Tournament to convert source art textures into 8-bit formats with minimal loss of quality. 

- Erik

413 Patch Issues  Mar 30, 2:15 PM - by Steven Polge

Several issues with the 413 patch have been pointed out. We will have an updated patch as soon as possible to address these issues.  In the meantime, if you are having D3D video performance problems, see Erik's update below.  If you are having problems installing UT, or getting an error after installation that "UnrealTournament.exe is not a valid Win32 application" or "UnrealTournament.exe is too big to fit into system memory", try installing into the default directory for UT (c:\UnrealTournament).  Our patch installer seems to be occasionally corrupting files when installing into different directory structures.  We are still working on the problems of the 413 patch not working with minimum installs, and problems patching the Spanish/Italian version of UT.

- Steve

Direct3D support in 413  Mar 29, 9:00 PM - by Erik de Neve

The latest Direct3D code in version 413 was changed to be compatible with more cards. However, if your Direct3D experience after applying patch 413 is less than optimal, you may want to replace the d3ddrv.dll file in your Unrealtournament\system folder with this version of the file. Thanks to everyone who has given us feedback on D3D compatibility and performance so far. For detailed instructions and more options, refer to our Direct3D troubleshooting page.

- Erik

New Version of Unreal Tournament Mar 27, 4:30 PM - by Steven Polge

We've released version 413 of Unreal Tournament.  It is completely network compatible with all previous publicly released versions.  Check the Unreal Tournament Versions Page for download locations for the Win32 patch, which is about 5.6 MB.  Here are the release notes.   We will shortly be releasing the patch for Linux, as well as free, downloadable standalone version of the Win32 and Linux servers.

- Steve

News Tidbits Mar 8, 7:45 PM - by Tim Sweeney

Happy birthday to Unreal Universe, the cool Unreal Tournament news site run by Robert "Apache" Howarth!

And, at GameSpy.com, it's Engine Week, featuring a series of interviews with engine developers pimping their wares.

Tomorrow, we're headed out to the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California to show the latest Unreal engine goods.

-Tim

GameSpy Mod Developers Week Feb 28, 10:30 PM - by Tim Sweeney

Check out the keynote article on the state of mod development, by our own Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart.  This is the first feature in GameSpy's new Mod Developer Week feature.

Upcoming articles in the series feature Jesse Taylor from the Infiltration mod team for Unreal Tournament, and David "crt" Wright of Rocket Arena for Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament.

Now is an exciting time for mod development, as the best teams of enthusiasts are earning tremendous praise, opening up serious biz opportunities.  This dynamic reminds me of the shareware game business around 1991 when Epic, Apogee/3D Realms and id Software were born.  Back then, we were just a handful of kids making games for our own enjoyment, and releasing them online for others to enjoy -- hoping that we might be able to make some money to pay the bills.

Today all three companies are industry leaders.

Now, think about where today's best mod authors will be in 9 years!

The advantage that enabled id, 3D Realms, and Epic to rise to the top is something that today's mod authors have too: we're in the middle of a thriving community, and that gives us an awesome feedback loop.  If we release something that sucks -- whether it's something big like Unreal 1's network code, or something subtle like weapon balancing -- then thousands of people will email us complaining until we fix it.  Thousands of smart people besides ourselves are expanding the game universe by running web sites, making mods, building levels, and running servers, and they let us know what they like and dislike.  In this kind of pressure-cooker environment, only good games and good ideas survive.

-Tim

UT Bonus Pack Released! Feb 25, 5:25 PM - by Brandon Reinhart

• GameCenter

C:\UnrealTournament\System\Setup.exe install C:\temp\UTBonusPack.umod

Hungarian translation of UT available Feb 25, 12:00 PM - by Steven Polge

Tibor Kaszás created a hungarian translation of Unreal Tournament, including player and narrator voices.  It is available at www.extra.hu/magyar_ut.

Common Questions Feb 22, 6:20 PM - by Tim Sweeney

9 out of 10 doctors say now would be a good time to prune the Unreal tech page, and that sounds like a good idea to me. I'd like to start over by talking about a bunch of things I've been meaning to cover, but never found the time.

Common Questions I'm Asked

Q. I'm an aspiring game developer and I want to get into the business.  What's the best way to be hired?
A. The single most important thing game companies will look for is past experience: what cool stuff you have worked on previously.  This might sound like a Catch-22: "You need experience to get a job, and you need a job to get experience".  But nowadays, the mod communities around leading games like Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, and Quake 3 Arena are great proving grounds where aspiring game developers can work on projects freely (mostly in their spare time), and build levels, mods, and other game-play enhancements.  In the past few years, the majority of new talent Epic has hired have been people from the Unreal and Quake communities:

• Steve Polge, creator of the ReaperBot mod for Quake.
• Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart, early Unreal mod maker and writer of cool UnrealScript programming tutorials.
• Jack "mek" Porter, Unreal mod maker and PlanetUnreal news correspondent.
• Alan Willard, maker of cool Unreal and Quake levels.
• Shane Caudle, amazing artist and level designer who was building his own Quake TC.

While past work on cool projects is the number one criteria for most game developers, having a University degree is a major advantage.  While this isn't a must at Epic, most larger game developers place more emphasis on having a degree.  Besides that, college is a great opportunity to learn useful stuff.   My degree is in Mechanical Engineering (University of Maryland) -- by the time I was in college, I had been programming for about 10 years and didn't feel getting a computer science degree would be challenging.  So, I chose engineering, and that turned out to be a major challenge, and incredibly valuable.

The math I learned there, including vector calculus and finite element analysis, which are directly applicable to 3D games, is something I never would have studied independently.  Self-taught programmers pick up algorithms just by looking at other code and reading the occasional book (that's how I learned to program).   But differential equations are just not the kind of thing you're likely to rediscover on your own, though understanding them brings clarity to lots of real-world problems you'll encounter.

Q. What do I need to get started making mods for popular games?
A. Just a copy of the game, the editing and compiling tools, and access to the web sites that contain information for mod authors.  For Unreal Tournament, you just need a copy of UT, which includes the editor (on CD#2) and all the UnrealScript code for the entire game; visit the Unreal community web sites (listed at the top of this page) for tons of pointers to Unreal information.  For Quake 3 Arena, you need the retail game and the utilities; visit PlanetQuake to get started.  For Half-Life, get the game and see PlanetHalfLife for tips.

Q. I'm working on a project; do I need to license the Unreal Tournament engine or sign any paperwork?
A. That depends on what you're doing:

• If you are making a freely available mod, all you need is the retail version of the game.
• If you are using the engine for non-commercial academic purposes, all you need is the retail game.  Lots of people have been using the Unreal Tournament engine as part of university projects and theses.
• If you are a startup game developer and are prototyping a game in the Unreal Tournament engine (using the tools available in the retail version), you don't need a license agreement while you're prototyping the game. You do need a license agreement in place before you advertise a game, sign a publishing agreement, or otherwise profit from the game.

Programming Languages

Ever since my GameSpy Developer Week article, "A Critical Look At Programming Languages", I've been getting questions about whether we plan to "do something about it" and define a new programming language.  The answer is, we're already doing that to a certain extent with UnrealScript, which is a high-level, object-oriented, platform-independent language with some cool extensions aimed at game code development.

As an engine developer, we'll always be involved in language design to a certain extent.  In the future, the scripting language could evolve into a simpler form, more true to the "scripting" term: controlling sequences of in-game events.  Or, the scripting language could grow to subsume even more of the engine code.  We'll be evaluating these options anew with each major iteration of the engine, doing whatever is most appropriate for the technology, recognizing the benefits and drawbacks of going with well-known proven tech, versus creating newer, better tech.

Also...

• The cool soon-to-be-public site Linux Newbie already has posted a cool article on how to get started with Unreal Tournament under Linux.  This site is a great idea; the biggest barrier to widespread Linux adoption right now is the difficulty of getting started, and now in standard decentralized Linux fashion, sites and resources are starting to pop up to address this.
• Common answers to UnrealScript questions on ChessMess.com (saw this on Blue's News).

-Tim

Action UT! Feb 22, 2:00 AM - by Brandon Reinhart

The A-team, makers of Action Quake2 and Action Half Life, would like to
announce that we are in active development of Action Unreal Tournament.
Action is the game that lets you experience your favorite action movie
from your very own PC, bringing realism with a fast paced touch. Have
you ever seen a good action movie, and wished your regular old death
match could be as furious, fast, and exciting? Action does that and
more. With the Unreal Tournament engine powering Action, be prepared for
an experience not soon forgotten. Watch for it at: http://aut.action-web.net

The Action Team has really been hardcore on putting together this project, I've already seen their discussions on weapons and features and it looks like its going to be packed. Its really cool seeing top notch mods like this move to Unreal Tournament!

 
Older News