MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
While driving the open development of Unreal Tournament, the closed online testing of Fortnite and the reveal of two new IPs – Paragon for PC, and Spyjinx for PC and mobile – Epic Games has launched Unreal Engine 4.10, while also preparing for the release of a new learning resource: Unreal Match 3, for iOS and Android.
Unveiled only a few months ago, Unreal Engine 4.9 brought sweeping upgrades for iOS and Android, and also introduced new features such as dynamic character shadows, movable point lights, and decals for mobile.
The newly-released Unreal Engine 4.10 brings increased stability and many fixes
to the engine, not to mention a host of new mobile features, updates and scalability improvements.
Among its major features was full support for refraction effects on mobile platforms, optimised VR rendering for reduced GPU overheads when rendering for head-mounted displays and mobile material quality, allowing developers to scale their titles down to low-end devices without sacrificing image quality and performance on
premium platforms.
On the horizon now is Unreal Match 3, built from the ground up to help developers learn how to make mobile games using Unreal Engine 4.
The standalone app is just one piece of the learning package, however: the full Unreal Match 3 project can be downloaded through the Epic Games launcher, and explored and utilised as desired.
Unreal Match 3 uses UE4 features such as the Unreal Motion Graphics (UMG) UI editor and the Paper 2D toolset.
With the Unreal Match 3 project, anyone can look through the game’s Blueprint scripts, art assets and C++ code, and use the content for personal projects, commercial or otherwise.
The written and video learning resources accompanying Unreal Match 3 are also quite useful. In addition, for those who have ever wondered how UE4 supports ads, achievements, in-app purchases and leaderboards, the download shows how they work in a live environment.
Epic Games recently held an event: ‘Unreal Engine 4 for Mobile Developers’. All of the sessions from the workshop, along with Unreal Match 3 training videos, can be viewed at youtube.com/unrealengine.
