Unreal Engine 1

[Akyra]

When will it be released functional source from Unreal engine 1?

Version 432,533 or 613..

Please Tim...

Why?

For one or two developer is Unreal engine 3,4 is more complicated..

[oasf]

Yeah, this would actually be quite interesting. The engine behind some of me and my Voodoo2s best childhood memories...

I remember sitting at the country fair at home where I grew up, and we were allowed on the internet in the mess hall (big thing at the time). And we googled* this game that had been in development like forever.
It was called Unreal 1 and it looked "completely photo-realistic" in my mind, at the time.
Would make for some interesting hacks too, and maybe next time someone hacks a printers firmware, they will install Unreal 1, in stead of doom?

*Actually, I don't think google even existed at the time...?

[Brainshack]

I believe they talked about that on stream and the reson was that they were using stuff you need a license for, so they couldnt open source it.

[Mikand79]

They got a download of UE2 somewhere. Though it does look horrible (now), you almost cannot deliever with it, and its *old*

[Akyra]

No answer from Epic..Why? Unreal engine 1 or 2 no looks old...When we will good modeler, level will be fine. Use mesh from Citadel..
Detail textures are better then UE3 or UE4..

[Tim Sweeney]

We definitely can't open source Unreal Engine 2 or 3, because of dependencies on a large number of external closed-source middleware packages with complex licensing requirements.

Open sourcing Unreal Engine 1 might be possible, but getting the source and dependencies into a releasable state would take a lot of cleanup effort that we just haven't been able to find time for. I hope we can do it someday!

[Akyra]

Thank you for answer. Good news.
We must wait for our time and hope. I hide my developer open game in drawer...
I think, Unreal Engine 1 my be same licensing as UDK, my not be open source. Just open source for noncommercial game.

We will hope,than releasable will be these futures...
1.SunLight as well as Wheel of time
2.ParticleSystem as well as Wheel of time
3.Decal as well as Unreal Tournament 1
4.DarkLight as well as Rune
5.Project Shadows as well as Undying (or Rune..has interesting shadows system..works under software render too....)
6.Static mesh as well as Mobile Forces
7.Skeletal as well as Unreal Tournament 1 (psk,psa)
8.Projector as well as Unreal 227 or Unreal Engine 2

or maybe everything will make third party programmer...

[Akyra]

I hope, that source will be not in visual studio .NET 2002 or 2003. The best is 6.0 or 2005 and high...

[XenoBrain]

Cleaning and porting old source code to new compilers is exactly what the open source community specializes in. Just dump the most complete source tree you've got for UE1 and someone will have it up running in just a few days, and that's a *conservative* estimate.

Getting it under the same license as UE4 is a logical move, but it would be very interesting to see it under a more permissive license like MIT. I'll bet Unreal 1 and UT 1 would get a lot of love above and beyond OldUnreal's 227 patch, and probably show up on every platform imaginable (Android, Raspberry Pi). Personally I'd set up a UT on Raspberry Pi LAN party at me local computer club. It would be fascinating to see the results of truly letting the code loose, but even if it doesn't got that far releasing under the UE4 license would still pay dividends.

In short--no need to get it releasable, fixing up old codebases is a special kind of fun for many of us.

Edit: Not to get too beggary but it would be fantastic if the code drop could include (possibly multiple versions) of Unreal 1's /doc/TimNotes.txt it's fascinating look at Unreal's development history with tons of great ideas that someone today just might be inspired to implement.

[Tim Sweeney]

I hope, that source will be not in visual studio .NET 2002 or 2003. The best is 6.0 or 2005 and high...

Of course, Visual Studio 6 was the best version. It's been downhill since 1998!

[Akyra]

Next good news, Visual Studio 6 will be best for source.

Mystery is description on wiki.beyondunreal about Unreal engine 1 version. Is true, that last version Unreal engine 1.5 was version 613..? It was officially for to licensees..? What was border for new version (2). Before version 777 was class TEXTURE, MATERIAL wasnt, but was already controller (uff) and button placeable classes only in editor. 633 and 739 were similar like 533 version. I think realy beginning version 2 was 777..?.. (or maybe was be beginning version 2 partership with Nvidia in 9/2000....)

[Akyra]

I have it...first version Unreal Engine 2 begun when had first support Directx 8..it really version 633 (spring 2001)..?

[Jet v4.3.5]

Hey Tim. I'm not assuming this kind of thing to be official in terms of Epic's official stance as a whole yet (I'll get to why in a moment), but if this is true then I'm very interested to see where a source release could be taken. Tech-wise the engine is not brand new or frankly marketable in the triple-A space, but it's still no slouch of an engine, let alone a platform for experimentation and expansion, and even marketability for independent developers. The amount of interest it would likely garner is, conservatively speaking, small. But even that would be worth it to those hobbyists who pick it up and want to do something with it, let alone the potential it has for more serious individuals/institutions who want to do more than just tinker.

My biggest concern is not the cleaning, organization, and repackaging of the source code (all practical limitations that rely on the attention that the task could receive given time), but in terms of the legal/licensing situation there at Epic and of the much more influential but vexing bureaucracy that ultimately guards that decision. If there's a chance that the source could be organized and released from a purely manual perspective, the process to make it legal and valid would still override this in a case where a release of the code is denied in the first place. I'm interested to know if these are even issues that would need to be addressed, and how they would be addressed given their relevance. Thanks!

[Akyra]

UE1 is Tim heart issue. Perhaps source UE1 takes a lot of time. The entire code programmed alone and worked on it from morning to evening many years. But I think it's time for the release.

UE3 and UE2 was built to UE1, lots of people do not understand why Quake 1,2,3 was issued a UE1 not. Time advantage Epic is great that Epic Open source UE1 can not compromise Epic...

[psycho_driver]

Cleaning and porting old source code to new compilers is exactly what the open source community specializes in. Just dump the most complete source tree you've got for UE1 and someone will have it up running in just a few days, and that's a *conservative* estimate.

Seriously. I'm a former C/x86 asm programmer who's now in management in a totally non-tech related industry. It's been a couple of years since I've tackled a big project, but if the UE1 source was released, I would jump right into it.