Epic releases interactive demo for Unreal Engine for Flash Player

[Boz]

I'm comparing Epic Citadel for Flash to Epic Citadel for iOS, that was said to be awesome and new

If you want to talk about flash, honestly I'm kinda glad that flash is finally able to do stuff that HTML5/ others have been doing for a while, I don't know how long ago Quake ( just checked 2009) was put in browser, let alone some of the Free MMO's that are browser based.

browser gaming isn't new, now the quality of the art for Epic Citadel is nice,,, but literally look at it side by side with the iOS version, it's a exact port, even down to the dual moveable controls. They didn't even bother to change that.

And I checked the system req for the version of flash required to play that demo. It's requires a C2D, if run it on an Atom it required 1GB of memory compared to the 256 on the C2D. That's not lightweight for a simple plugin! But on same note, I don tknow what WebGL and HTML5 need for sys requirements.

You don't know what you are talking about.

First of all.. you can't compare a browser game to a native game written in C/C++ because browser games were reliant on browser while the other is being build completely independently and relies on OpenGL and technologies directly communicating with hardware. Most of the games we were launch in browser a year or two ago were done by proprietary plugins you had to fully install on your system.

And no, HTML5 and other crap was never even close to what we have with Flash now which is starting to rival native desktop and device type of games previously written with C/C++/Obj-C.

Show me a game that's even close to what I have shown here in HTML5 and no I don't count Cut The Rope as anywhere close. You are mixing 2 completely different things.

Even Angry Birds guys decided to ditch HTML5 for Flash for their super duper advanced Facebook version of Angry Birds because HTML5 blows and is not even close to what Flash is doing.

WebGL is a dead end and it is not even a part of HTML5 spec. It's a glorified "plug-in" type of technology that is not supported by 20% of the browsers and canvas3D spec by W3C is nowhere on the radar.

[encarta]

And people say (especially sheeple) that Flash is dead. LOL :D

[Boz]

Yeah, HTML5 is totally ahead of Flash.. this was done in 2010 by Google (meaning it's pretty much impossible for others to do anything similar because their engineers tried to make a demo).

And now compare this crappy looking thing to what was posted in the initial thread. Night and day.

And btw, you know what's the best part about building games and rich apps using full GPU acceleration for browser? It's because you can run the same code and same game on mobile now. You just click one button, compile it in AIR for iOS and Android and it becomes a mobile game.

Try running WebGL on a mobile browser. Oh oh.. you can't.

[rajputwarrior]

And people say (especially sheeple) that Flash is dead. LOL :D

not dead by dying. and the quicker the better. proprietary POS that runs like ass that's anything not windows.

[Boz]

And people say (especially sheeple) that Flash is dead. LOL :D

It's ignorance really.. They have no idea what's going on and what's possible but keep repeating the BS mantra that was served by Apple. That's what it is all about. What's ironic, the same ignoramuses keep talking about propriatery but support h.264 which is a propriatery video codec for example. It's nonsense.

Even Unity, the most popular 3D Game development tool is now exporting to Flash.

[chrisj1968]

Um.. it's not legacy when it's years ahead of what we have now. It's called innovation.

Yeah.. why don't we just go and use crap just because it's not a plugin. Wonderful logic.

exactly, let's use.... Java!

[BoredBozirini]

Flash? They are still beating that dead technology? Let it die already, nobody needs it.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

You don't know what you are talking about.

First of all.. you can't compare a browser game to a native game written in C/C++ because browser games were reliant on browser while the other is being build completely independently and relies on OpenGL and technologies directly communicating with hardware. Most of the games we were launch in browser a year or two ago were done by proprietary plugins you had to fully install on your system.

And no, HTML5 and other crap was never even close to what we have with Flash now which is starting to rival native desktop and device type of games previously written with C/C++/Obj-C.

Show me a game that's even close to what I have shown here in HTML5 and no I don't count Cut The Rope as anywhere close. You are mixing 2 completely different things.

Even Angry Birds guys decided to ditch HTML5 for Flash for their super duper advanced Facebook version of Angry Birds because HTML5 blows and is not even close to what Flash is doing.

WebGL is a dead end and it is not even a part of HTML5 spec. It's a glorified "plug-in" type of technology that is not supported by 20% of the browsers and canvas3D spec by W3C is nowhere on the radar.

I have no idea where your <Snipped> got over half of that, I don't remember saying anything about angry birds, or cut the rope, or Facebook ( which doesn't rely on flash anymore, as I can play the games on there and I don't have flash installed ), will check previous page and edit this if I did.

But literally dude get over yourself, Adobe sucks, Epic didn't really put any effort into Epic Citadel for Flash, they exported the 2 year old tech demo using Adobe's software that came out last year. You can tell because it looks like you need 2 mice to look and move at same time, it even has the iOS thumbs ticks. I can't test it because I don't have any windows box with flash installed and refuse to install it.

Flash is a POS, that's my opinion, GTF over it. I'm not the only one, why IE won't support flash other then in desktop mode, if flash is so awesome, how is HTML5 becoming the standard. Why are companies moving to HTML5. If flash was so awesome why does it need the hardware requirements it does to even install it. It's a POS plugin

And yes you can compare a Flash game to a C++ whatever game,, because guess what,, they are the same Fn game

*Edit - a number of games on facebook actually use HTML5 instead of flash, including Farmville and Words with Friends

Edited March 9, 2012 by Anaron

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

Facebooks opinions on HTML5 because you brought up facebook

http://www.facebook....id=438532093919

It?s worth understanding that the term ?HTML5? has come to mean more than just the single HTML5 specification, but really represents the next evolution of the web platform and thus dozens of related specifications

*Edit -here is some article i google'd ( took me 5 seconds ) regarding MS/Google opinion on flash and how they are pushing for HTML5

http://www.eweek.com...h-Falls-214208/

^ i dont normally read that, was just on first page of google

Also so far Both angry birds and cut the rope that you brought up BOTH came out on HTML5 first, sorry but Flash had to catchup

*Edit 2 - literally im sorry your angry due to fanboying a dying ship, i feel you, i really did and still do prefer HDDVD to BluRay so i know where your coming from

*Edit3 - ok i lied, i dont feel you, your an *******

[Boz]

UPDATE: More news:

The New Face of Browser-Based Gaming, Courtesy of Unreal Engine 3

Epic Games likes to show off at the Game Developers Conference.

They just did.

They wanted to show how their Unreal Engine running in Flash. In a web browser.

So they showed us Epic Citadel the tech demo used to show off Epic's Unreal Engine 3 on the iPhone and iPad. It looked great. And it was in a browser.

"This isn't your father's Farmville," Epic's Mark Rein said, "this is immersive, 3D, beautiful environments."

Next, he showed Dungeon Defenders, running in Flash, running full-screen. It looked like the Steam and Xbox 360 versions.

And then?

Unreal Tournament III. They showed this before during an Adobe Event, but wanted to make sure we saw that it is, as Rein said, "the game you expect."

The point of all this? To say that the kind of Unreal Engine games that you see on PC, console or iOS could show up in a browser, and it will look like the screens you see here.

Rein said UTIII is not an actual product. Just something to show. A small taste of things to come, proving that Flash is a technology that can enable console-quality experiences in your web browser.

What's next? Remember that stunning Samaritan demo from GDC 2011? "Our longterm goal is to be able to do Samaritan in Flash."

Some screenshots:

http://kotaku.com/58...unreal-engine-3

They are saying after Unreal Tournament the next game they will port to Flash is Samaritan. The game they demo-ed last year

[rajputwarrior]

i bet you'll need double the min specs of the actual versions of those game so you can run the flash version half decent.

[ArialBlue]

Epic and Flash: "look guys, Unreal Tournament III - this is progress guys!"

WebGL: "look guys, a really old game running at OK framerates on a really modern computer - this is progress guys, love us"

One of these two statements is insane.

[Boz]

This was the overview demo of one of the maps from Adobe Max 2011 but it's kind of relevant for this:

Looks jawdropping.

[ichi]

Epic and Flash: "look guys, Unreal Tournament III - this is progress guys!"

WebGL: "look guys, a really old game running at OK framerates on a really modern computer - this is progress guys, love us"

One of these two statements is insane.

Quake2 was released as an HTML app because the open source engine had already been ported to Java time ago, and therefore it was pretty easy to port it to javascript.

I don't know if it'd be technically possible to run something like the UE3 engine on HTML if Epic decided to do so (do you?) but the whole reason why you are seeing Quake2 is because a)the code was out there as open source, and b)it was trivial to compile with GWT.

[ArialBlue]

Quake2 was released as an HTML app because the open source engine had already been ported to Java time ago, and therefore it was pretty easy to port it to javascript.

I don't know if it'd be technically possible to run something like the UE3 engine on HTML if Epic decided to do so (do you?) but the whole reason why you are seeing Quake2 is because a)the code was out there as open source, and b)it was trivial to compile with GWT.

Bad example, but the point still stands.

When it comes to choose between these two plugins, WebGL does not show an equivalent potential to the new generation of Flash.

[AJerman]

Flash is garbage. I would never play a game like this on Flash because I would EXPECT it would crash within 5 minutes of playing. If you don't think flash is on it's way out, you're sadly mistaken. They've pulled mobile support because it's too much of a resource hog to run on a phone, of course that alienates the tablet community as well. They've stopped development on Flash for Linux except for in Chrome. OS X has always only had a mediocre implementation. Flash only works "well" on a Windows PC, and that's very debatable too. Why would I EVER want to play a game of this complexity in a browser when I could download a native app that works 10 times better?

[Boz]

Flash is garbage. I would never play a game like this on Flash because I would EXPECT it would crash within 5 minutes of playing. If you don't think flash is on it's way out, you're sadly mistaken. They've pulled mobile support because it's too much of a resource hog to run on a phone, of course that alienates the tablet community as well. They've stopped development on Flash for Linux except for in Chrome. OS X has always only had a mediocre implementation. Flash only works "well" on a Windows PC, and that's very debatable too. Why would I EVER want to play a game of this complexity in a browser when I could download a native app that works 10 times better?

Okay.. you keep drumming that half informed nonsense while we play awesome games and use apps and games for mobile.

Btw, new Adobe Touch apps for iOS and Android including Photoshop Touch are built with Flash/AIR. So much for being informed.

[rajputwarrior]

Okay.. you keep drumming that half informed nonsense while we play awesome games and use apps and games for mobile.

Btw, new Adobe Touch apps for iOS and Android including Photoshop are built with Flash/AIR. So much for being informed.

when was he talking about apps and not games? what part of what he said is wrong? you didn't respond to what he even said. you just quoted him and spun your own BS. do you even know what adobe air is? it's a middle man for porting apps that can be run as a standalone app on multiple platforms. kinda like what cider and wine do. it's just encapsulates the app kinda like how rosetta did. photoshop touch may be a flash app, but it's air encapsulating said app that lets it run multiple platforms (which essentially doesn't make it a flash app anymore). no one has any beef with air. it's flash we are talking about, not air.

[ArialBlue]

Flash is garbage. I would never play a game like this on Flash because I would EXPECT it would crash within 5 minutes of playing. If you don't think flash is on it's way out, you're sadly mistaken. They've pulled mobile support because it's too much of a resource hog to run on a phone, of course that alienates the tablet community as well. They've stopped development on Flash for Linux except for in Chrome. OS X has always only had a mediocre implementation. Flash only works "well" on a Windows PC, and that's very debatable too. Why would I EVER want to play a game of this complexity in a browser when I could download a native app that works 10 times better?

Hello person who has been living under a rock for a hundred years (in technology time).

[Azies]

Can't even use it, getting a 404 on the flash version.

[nominak]

Can't even use it, getting a 404 on the flash version.

LOL how ironic :p

[Glassed Silver]

Boz, you rage so much and cheer for the amount of graphic quality of flash games, well...

Of cause it's cool it can be done, you know, however, I'd much rather have my "proper" games (read: not Facebook 5 minuters) on my HDD to own and keep.

Why download again and again and again the textures (oh right, you can offline cache them, that is, until you clear it or reinstall your OS)

I say: keep the proper stuff to the HDDs.

I can't stand this trend towards using the "cloud" as a center of single storage.

It's complimentary, but for anything that doesn't actually involve synching/working together with others/drawing comments and such stuff, it should just cease to exist for serious stuff.

Glassed Silver:mac

[Boz]

Boz, you rage so much and cheer for the amount of graphic quality of flash games, well...

Of cause it's cool it can be done, you know, however, I'd much rather have my "proper" games (read: not Facebook 5 minuters) on my HDD to own and keep.

First of all, I'm not raging about anything. I develop on all technologies including Obj-C, Java, AS3, Javascript and learning C# these days. Flash (more accurately AS3 and the tools they have) are among the best and most creative out there. Flash as a player is really irrelevant. Eventually it will be replaced with something else. What I'm mostly excited and defend is this notion that HTML5 will somehow magically make all these things possible and developed many things in HTML5 and dealing with these things from all angles I can tell you that's not going to happen for at least another decade if ever.

The point here is that Flash is giving us some truly fascinating things. The amount of raw GPU power, 3D acceleration and many other things in a browser as well as mobile (through AIR) is truly fantastic and exciting because it allows developers like me to build rich interactive apps that are fully GPU accelerated across many devices and are not plagued by cross-platform compatibility.

The point you raise about owning your games is something that I actually agree with you. Yes, I'm with you on that. I would rather have a copy of a game to use and not pay any subscriptions to play it, but the point is that the whole model of games on the web and through our consoles or PCs is going towards subscription model. The only difference is that Flash is going towards allowing us to play games directly in browser without necessarily downloading everything but have it "streamed" while you play. The whole pay as you play model is not necessarily an issue with Flash or Adobe. It's where everything is going. Even with HTML5 stuff. It's the new wave and it's trying to solve the problem of developers not being able to monetize on work and innovation they do instead of plastering ads all over the place to keep it free.

I think it's not necessarily evil. Most of these online games are going to be free (the freemium model) where you will have the ability to pay and buy items from within the game if you don't want to invest time to get them by playing.

What's exciting is that Adobe has managed to create such an amazing 3D support in Flash for developers to use that we will be able to get amazing visuals from games running in a browser, or a mobile device or even a newer TVs with newer ARM processors that rival console quality visuals and experiences.

I have been tracking this for a while as among other things I'm involved with I'm a member of Adobe's small group of partners/beta testers for new things they are doing and the amount of amazing things that they have integrated in Flash and AIR for this new release is just stunning.

I still believe that when people build for the web, they should utilize both HTML5 and Flash if they need super rich interactivity. Using HTML5 for many great new APIs like local offline storage, geolocation and many other things and use Flash when appropriate. Flash isn't a solution for everything and neither is HTML5. It's great that with HTML5, some basic things will be able to be done without Flash. Something we've been waiting for, for over a decade. Simple gallery slideshows, simple animations, regular video embeds without the need to rely on Flash etc etc. Until we got some of the things HTML5 gives us, we had to use Flash for everything because of the nightmare HTML was in. But now, Flash can really concentrate on the things it was really meant to be for. Rich interactivity, games, highly advanced interactive videos etc etc.. This is where HTML5 stops and Flash picks off. So they are not at all exclusive technologies.

The bottom line is, that Flash is now going to be even less CPU reliant than HTML5/JS/CSS3 which is amazing news for everyone and we can see it by the a huge amount of these new demos and implementations from games to crazy stuff like Nissan Juke 3D

[Glassed Silver]

[a lot]

Whow... Too bad I don't have the time atm to properly reply to this, maybe I'll do it later, but overall I pretty much agree with you.

You raise many good points, but the actual thing is, I know that everyone is going to do in-browser "full blown" applications, and heck, that'd what my complaint is about.

Make DESKTOP applications and if they need to connect with the internet, well... code it in.

Simple.

If you want to throw in apps, do it.

If ... do it.

Subscriptions? Fine!

My big problem is, I want my browser to be a browser and not a "game hub".

I don't want my bookmarks to be a second class start menu.

And hell, when a server pops, I want to play the game still.

I'm heavily into retro game-ability and I'm always looking for the catches on today's software to maintain compatibility and executability of applications and games in the future.

I'm thinking about creating an editorial (a series actually) with my findings and thoughts for Neowin, I'm not a news-staffer, but I guess if I create a few articles and ask Neobond if he likes him, maybe he's going to publish them?

I actually want to raise this issue, as nowadays, as you say, everything's trending towards short lifespans. (Also: think DRM, server checks and dependencies, in-app-only updating from servers. (what if I install that application in 10 years in a VM for retro playing? Obviously the installer is an old version and the updates, well... THEY ARE NOWHERE! Because the server is down... This is a common thing with DLCs on closed platforms (iOS: "in-app-purchase" BS and smaller games on Mac/PC / game consoles that don't have non-server-DLC installability at all apart from sometimes bundle releases (Deluxe editions/"Diamond"/"Collectors"/"Complete"/...))

Wow... This thing got longer than I thought... This is probably already my full blown response! :p

Glassed Silver:mac