[INFO] Development Journal

[Shadow]

Don't worry. It'll be continued in one way or another. I'm also planning a total conversion based on the SDK. Most likely a remake of an old beloved game like Mystic Towers, Heretic or Commander Keen as state-of-the-art 3D experience keeping most of the old sounds and music.

[Shadow]

September Beta Preview

New Features

• Vertex Sprite Rendering
• Vertex Corona Rendering
• Enhanced Unreal Mesh System
• Static Mesh Support !
• Unreal Enigma Particle Engine !
• Vegetation Engine + Vegetation Editor !
• Vector2D Support (Internal)

Fixes/Updates

• false native function identifiers in the IMPLEMENT_FUNCTION(OBJECT, ID, execNAME) macro of sdkObject.uc have been corrected
• completed work on all LinkedLists of new LevelInfo, LinkedLists now fully work both in-Editor and ingame
• in-Editor UNDO/REDO bug for all render actors removed
• in-Editor UNDO/REDO Support for all render actors
• improved Render Pass
• all functions in UnSDKMath.h (sdkCore.dll) are inlines now (speed increase)

Screenshots

[Saya-chan]

oh my god!

[Shadow]

That release should be a huuuuge leap forward. I still didn't show promo pics of the Particle Engine... there're still some difficulties I have to manage since it's completely C++ based now. AND there's also Food Fight I have to work for.

[UT Sniper (SJA94)]

epic games should pay you for your work

[Creavion]

epic games should pay you for your work

Hahahahahaha, sorry for laughing. But read on and you might do the same after it.

As soon as they experienced from his project, Epic wanted to him to drop it first ("illgal" using of the words "Unreal Tournament" within the projects title, also Shadow was suspected to use the full engine source (he only has and uses the official public headers version 432), luckily he could later proof his innocence. And you are talking of money.

Also look at oldunreal.com`s 227 project: upgraded editor (UnrealEd 2.1), DXT / Alpha support (editor as well obviously), static meshes, hardcoded emitter and a lot of other stuff. The head-programmer Smirf really officially and legal is in possession of the unreal engine 1 source code (given by epic several years ago). But thats an other story. However the same here. No money of course, as like in Shadows case 'Be happy we allow you stuff like this'.

Shadow, even if I keep silence about most projects here. I wish you many luck and hope at least some of your stuff might find some usage.

[Shadow]

Hahhahaah Epic Games and paying me... no way. My main intension is to keep Unreal Tournament attractive to Modders. Since Developers are not allowed to make Unreal-franchise based Mods on top of the UDK the SDK might have some additional chance for interesting developers.

Unfortunately I have to move the release date from 30.09. to 09.10. (one Week), it's just too much stuff to do and even didn't start with the documentation of the new features.

btw: thanks Crev

[XANKON]

I´ve been playing with the post-processing thing, IT JUST ROCKS!
it gives a whole new dynamic to maps, damn really impressed me bro.....

[Shadow]

wooooww! this is really cool, glad you like that feature

[Dr.Flay]

I found the recommended patches etc. list on the Facebook page.
Is there a particular reason you say it doesn't work with the newer unofficial UT updates?
I have been using version 451b with your last public Beta, and the previous UT99 expansion pack, with no issues

There are a huge amount of major fixes and up-dates for the engine and editor, in the patches from UTPG http://www.utpg.org/patches/ReleaseNotes451b.htm
Does the SDK fix any the problems that the 451 patch fixes ?

I no longer have my old GOTY discs, and I cannot go back to earlier versions, without the original files.
If the new SDK is totally incompatible with 451, and completely does not work, then I'm knackered

Also have any of the Beta testers tried the SDK with ENB Bloom http://enbdev.com/index_en.html

[Feralidragon]

Shadow's SDK does not fix anything that those patches do (at least at native level), it's impossible anyway, since those patches are changes in the UEngine source code itself, while the SDK is just an addon using public C++ headers (that's why Shadow was allowed to keep up his project in the first place).

As for using 451, that patch tears apart the Unreal Editor completelly, basically the UTPG team f*cked up the very essential editing tool that the game provided and that will absolutelly need if you use the SDK to build something (specially maps), but most importantly, Shadow is using the v432 C++ headers (I think, correct me if I am wrong), and he tests in what's "official" and actually the most stable version of all: 436.
Also, for any editing and for client side you should use 436 anyway, by using 451 you're sure to find problems sooner than you think.

That doesn't mean the SDK won't work with 451, it just means Shadow doesn't "guarantee" it will work and won't bother in making it work as it doesn't worth it at all, therefore it can work without issues or work with some bugs, being the latter the most likelly case due to potential differences between certain code and replication behaviours between both versions.

As for reverting to 436, it's possible. All you have to do is to download the No-Delta 436 patch and apply it. However, I would advice you to zip your UT install and save it to a DVD or something, as a backup for anytime you need, as no instalation can keep stable for long, specially when editing and adding stuff to it.

[Saya-chan]

hmm... when you say "Enhanced Unreal Mesh System", what exactly is enhanced?

[Shadow]

Thanks for Feralidragon for your detailed explaination of that issue. In addition I can say that's not currently possible to develope for UT Build 451 because there're no public headers available for that Build. Other than that it makes no sence to develope for that Build since the Unreal Editor is broken in that version. That's why you should really take UT Build 436.

hmm... when you say "Enhanced Unreal Mesh System", what exactly is enhanced?

I have multiple actors with own Subrender Interfaces (they get directly by the Render: StaticMeshes, new Sprites, Emitters etc.) that allows me to replace old behaviour and structures in rendering, otherwise Static Mesh Rendering wouldn't be possible. With enhanced I mean that I can improve lighting calculations, performance, poly count etc. for both Static Meshes and the normal Unreal Mesh Format. In addition all these new actors are added to an internal Linked List which allows for fast searching of those and better performance.

[Dr.Flay]

Thankyou both for giving a clear and full answer.

I thought it would be useful to ask about this issue on behalf of all the other people who have also "updated" in the same way.

A similar explanation, and instructions on how to undo the damage, would probably be good on the moddb page, when you post the next version.

I do backup my UT every now and then. It's the only way I've managed to keep sane over the years.
If I posted the ini files and install logs, you'd laugh and then be amazed it still works!
If you look in the install logs, you can see reference to the old registry branches on my old.... Win98 installation
The biggest problem I have is keeping the massive list of mutators behaving, where because of the ridiculous amount of everything flying about, I get crashes with the physics engine (Though recently I've been getting "Occlude" errors when it locks). It also always bombs when a bot picks up 2 different invisibility powerups/relics.

It's a shame the 451 patch dead-ended, as the broken editor was one of their last "must fix this soon" posts.
Ah well, life in the UT lane !

Thanks for all your work on the SDK so far.

[Saya-chan]

I expected to see something regarding skeletal meshes. Oh well... I'm still fighting with the headers trying to figure out a way to get bone data in real time.