Interview with Luis Cataldi (Epic Games) about the Unreal Engine game engine

    At White Nights Moscow 2016, Alexey Pisarevsky, CEO of Mobio , spoke with Luis Cataldi, Evangelist of Epic Games.


    Epic Games is engaged in the development of computer games, the most famous are Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. In 1998, the company developed the Unreal Engine game engine.

    From the interview you will learn:

    • What distinguishes Unreal Engine from other engines;
    • What game can be developed on the Unreal Engine and how difficult is it;
    • What will win: virtual, mixed or augmented reality?

    Tell us about your role in Epic Games, what does the evangelist do?

    I have a great job. I travel the world and teach people how to work with the Unreal Engine game engine. At one time, Epic needed a person who could communicate with universities, and had a very diverse experience in development and education, and they called me.

    What makes Unreal Engine different from other engines?

    Epic has been actively working on the engine for over 20 years. It all started with Unreal 1, which we developed 16-17 years ago. When we worked on the engine and made it a serious tool for developing professional games, more and more people wanted to use our engine to make their games. Unreal Engine 4 was released in 2014, and Epic opened the source code of the engine to everyone. Unreal Engine is a unique professional tool, open to the general public, which allows you to reduce the development team to two people. The engine is designed for both large studios and small indie development teams, such as the Rocket League, for example.

    What games are easier to create on Unreal Engine?

    Now the engine can be used not only for first-person shooters. People develop different kinds of games, so the engine can be applied in various fields. For example, Unreal Engine can be used by both programmers involved in architectural visualization, developing virtual training courses for doctors, and people involved in filming and creating entire films.

    Difficult to learn how to develop games on the Unreal Engine?

    The network has many sites and training resources that are constantly updated with content. We ourselves make training materials and release them on Twitch once a week, every Tuesday. They are also on our YouTube channel. The lessons are designed for all levels of users - from absolute beginners to people with experience and advanced users. Starting the learning process is easy.

    Do developers use the engine for free?

    Download the engine, develop a game on it, you can get training for free. There is a royalty system: if you developed the game on the Unreal Engine, released and received more than $ 3,000 dollars per quarter for the game, you pay 5% of Epic royalties. If these conditions do not suit you, there is always the opportunity to discuss other options for cooperation.

    You made a talk about VR today, do you think virtual reality is already mainstream or just a nascent trend?

    VR development is a matter of time. Devices are still at an early stage of development, and software is developing rapidly. For example, people like entertainment - VR is perfect for this. From a training point of view, there are also incredible opportunities for VR. Imagine that you can study the bottom of the ocean not from textbooks and maps, but walking along the bottom of the ocean with a virtual instructor, or learn about Einstein from Einstein himself, from his hologram. There are many options. Currently, the use of many technologies is limited to equipment or devices. There are mobile VRs, but they do not have powerful processors that will allow you to immerse yourself in reality, as you can do with a PC.

    What is the future: virtual, mixed or augmented reality?

    The Holy Grail will be mixed reality. When we are sitting here, and we can play virtual chess or talk about a motorcycle and immediately look at it, twist its model in his hands, and then see how he will ride in the snow. If you think about the money that people spend making a decision about buying a product that they haven’t fully studied, and how often decisions are made wrong after the money has been spent, then virtual or augmented reality are great helpers in making better solution. These technologies can change the world.

    How long will it take to get these things into use?

    We came from one megapixel in cameras to a 16 megapixel camera in more than one night. We had to use a 4-megapixel camera first, then an 8-megapixel camera, 10-megapixel camera, and in the end we got a 16-megapixel camera. Despite the fact that the technology to create a 16-megapixel camera existed from the very beginning.

    What advice can you give developers? Where to go, what to read?

    I would recommend watching the video on our YouTube channel . We post a lot of training videos, including on VR. There are also other learning resources on YouTube. One of my favorites is the Mitch McCaffrey channel called Mitch's VR Lab .

    He is currently finishing work on a VR book.to be released by Pierce Press in February.

    All interviews from the conference can be viewed on our youtube channel.

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