Unreal Engine 3 comes to Adobe Flash 11

[Shawn Knight]

Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 now supports Adobe Flash, meaning many popular gaming titles will soon be finding their way to web browsers and social networking sites. Epic’s gaming engine was originally designed for high-end PCs and gaming consoles, but has since been used to develop games on the iPhone like the Infinity Blade series.

"As the console of the web, Flash is delivering immersive gaming experiences across screens and we’re thrilled to have Epic Games using Flash Player to deliver its blockbuster, premier 3D games on the web," said Adobe's Emmy Huang during Adobe MAX 2011.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney showed a version of Unreal Tournament 3 running in the latest version of Flash 11, which was just released yesterday. Flash Player 11 uses Stage 3D technology, which is described as a new method / model of 2D and 3D rendering that supports Stage3D API – a set of low-level GPU-accelerated APIs that run through Adobe Flash Platform runtimes. Flash Player 11 is said to allow 1,000 times faster 2D and 3D rendering performance over version 10 and runs at up to 60 FPS on OS X and Windows.

The secret behind UE3 in Flash is the ability to leverage Stage 3D and hardware accelerated graphics, although it isn’t clear yet exactly what kind of graphics card one might need to run a game smoothly. As of writing, there are no release dates on any titles that support Flash 11.

GamePro raises a valid point by noting that Windows 8’s Metro interface won’t support Flash, but will instead use HTML5. Depending on how quickly Windows 8 is adopted, Unreal Engine web games could potentially be extinct in a very short time.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/45748-unreal-engine-3-comes-to-adobe-flash-11.html

 

[lawfer]

GamePro raises a valid point by noting that Windows 8?s Metro interface won?t support Flash, but will instead use HTML5. Depending on how quickly Windows 8 is adopted, Unreal Engine web games could potentially be extinct in a very short time.

Their point is flawed. Why wouldn't people just use the desktop IE...?

 

[TomSEA]

Be curious how much Epic has made off of licensing it's Unreal 3 engine over the years. It's gotta be brazillions as I don't know how many dozens if not hundreds of games have used it - and now this.

 

[spydercanopus]

Onlive, it was good knowing you.

 

[Jibberish18]

Flash Player 11 is said to allow 1,000 times faster 2D and 3D rendering performance over version 10 and runs at up to 60 FPS on OS X and Windows.

I'm pretty sure Adobe missed putting a decimal at least 2 spots to the left of the "1" when giving that number above for OSX.

 

[LNCPapa]

This is actually quite impressive.

 

[Guest]

The desktop version of Windows 8 will of course support Flash as well as OSX.

Regarding mobile, Flash Player 11 is already available for Android. I don't see Android going away for a while.

 

[Guest]

Installed Flash 11.x, it includes x86/x64 drivers and I've tested it using IE 9 x64 and it works, though actually feels a bit slower.

As far as Windows 8 goes, the Metro I/F only runs HTML5 however the standard I/F runs the regular IE (or other browser) with plugins so that should not be a problem on desktops/laptops.

 

[Jibberish18]

Guest said:
Installed Flash 11.x, it includes x86/x64 drivers and I've tested it using IE 9 x64 and it works, though actually feels a bit slower.

As far as Windows 8 goes, the Metro I/F only runs HTML5 however the standard I/F runs the regular IE (or other browser) with plugins so that should not be a problem on desktops/laptops.

You do know that IE9's 64-Bit version uses a much slower Javascript than 32-bit?

 

[Guest]

Except that WebGL, LLVM, and Emscripten are seriously being overlooked here. If Metro apps are HTML + JavaScript, then recompile the Unreal Engine using Clang, LLVM, and Emscripten to JavaScript! Then you could, not only build Flash-less UE games, but *offline* UE games for the Metro platform.

Ugh, if only you people read more Slashdot.