Unreal Development Kit Beta Installer (June 2010)

This month’s beta release includes lots of upgrades, including:
·         Numerous skeletal mesh improvements
·         Improved bloom with added properties
·         New HUD texture visualization tool
·         FBX support for custom normals
·         Penumbra scale adjustment in Lightmass
·         Game Caster virtual camera support
 
Here’s the full list in detail:
Vertex Colors and Multiple UV Sets for Skeletal Meshes
·         Users can now import vertex colors with skeletal meshes and access them in materials.
·         Works with both the FBX importer and the latest ActorX plug-in.
·         Vertex colors only work for GPU-skinned meshes (for now).
·         Up to four UV sets will be taken when importing a skeletal mesh.
·         The skeletal mesh vertex buffer only uses the amount imported so as not to waste memory.

[http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/rsrc/Three/ContentBlog/VertexColor.PNG]
Bloom Improvements
·         New properties: BloomThreshold, BloomTint and BloomScreenBlendThreshold
·         Bloom blur kernels larger than 64 are now supported
o   http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ContentBlog.html#Bloom improvements
 
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Penumbra Scale
·         This option is very useful when trying to remove shadow artifacts when using a low resolution lightmap.
·          http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ContentBlog.html#Penumbra Scale

[Lightmass-PenumbraScale_Comparison.jpg]
Custom Normals with FBX
·         FBX importer now supports custom vertex normals
·         This is useful for 'combing' vertex normals on foliage, or when you need smooth lighting continuity between multiple meshes
·         To use this, first export normals (and/or tangents) using the FBX exporter in your modeling program
·         Next, enable the new 'Explicit Normals' option while importing the FBX file into UE3
New Tool for Visualizing Render Target Textures on the HUD
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/VisualizeTexture.html

[http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/rsrc/Three/VisualizeTexture/vistex2.jpg]
Multiple UVs for Skeletal Meshes
·         Up to four UV sets per skeletal mesh is supported
·         Works with both the FBX importer and the latest ActorX plug-in
·         You can access these texture coordinates in materials assigned to your skeletal mesh
Game Caster Virtual Camera
·         Game Caster virtual camera support is ready to use
o   http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MatineeUserGuide.html#Gamecaster Integration
Auto Texture Reimport
·         New 'Auto-Reimport Textures' feature that detects source art changes and re-imports automatically
o   http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ContentBlog.html#Automatically re-import textures
Other New Features and Improvements
·         Major performance improvements, especially with shadows and animation
·         New per-level post process chain will override the single per-game chain if set
o   http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ContentBlog.html#Per map post process chain.
·         Added one-bounce GI even for areas outside the Lightmass importance volume
o   Note that this is lower quality than bounced light within the volume
·         Physical Material Masks for material instances now available in the editor.
·         Support for Shader Model 2 and fallback materials has been removed
o   Fallback materials will be automatically deleted
·         Improved screen-space ambient occlusion with new 'AngleBasedSSAO' setting
o   This will yield better quality with same sample count
·         Improvements to skeletal mesh importing of 'alternate weight sets'
o   This allows vertex data to be shared between different weighted character rigs
·         The editor's Map Check tool will now also warn you about potential performance issues
·         Various minor improvements to Scaleform GFx workflow
·         Gamma correction has been disabled throughout the GFx pipeline in order to better match the output of Flash
UDKGame
·         DM-Deck has been updated with some new engine features
o   Added god rays, improved bloom, and a new sky!
·         Angle-based SSAO is now enabled in UDKGame by default (improved SSAO quality)
·         Made shield projectile-blocking consistent with the old behavior
·         Various minor cleanups to PlayerController, PlayerReplicationInfo and Pawn classes
New UDN pages
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TextureStatsBrowserReference.html
Updated UDN pages
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitBuildUpgradeNotes.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitContentCreation.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitProgramming.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitGettingStarted.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UDKContentCreationHome.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UDKProgrammingHome.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UDKCommunityLinks.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitFirstScriptProject.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnCodeX.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MaterialExamples.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/SpeedTree.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/KismetReference.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/EditorButtons.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UnrealScriptReference.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CharactersTechnicalGuide.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ContentBlog.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/CommandLineArguments.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UE3MinSpecs.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/GameplayProfiler.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/FaceFXCommands.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ParticleSpriteSubUVEmitterTutorial.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/SceneManagerReference.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/EditorConsoleCommands.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ConsoleCommands.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MainEditorToolbar.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/EditorHotkeys.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/Steam.html
·         http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TextureProperties.html
 
Additional notes, code samples and more are available at the Unreal Developer Network (UDN):
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitHome.html

Community links:
UDK Developers at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2493123
UDK on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/UDK/183744733429
Epic Games on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EpicGames