NVIDIA and Epic Games announced the first public showing of Unreal Engine 3 at this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Unreal Engine 3 is the first game engine to take full advantage of Shader Model 3.0, a key feature of Microsoft DirectX 9.0. No points for guessing which graphics manufacturer is the only one with a product currently supporting SM 3.0.
Created by Epic Games, Unreal Engine 3 promises to push the limits of game development with its aggressive use of lighting and shadowing capabilities, advanced shader effects, and editing tools. The Unreal game engines are widely used in game development today, as they provide game developers with a flexible and feature-rich foundation for the creation of bleeding-edge PC and console games. To date, the Unreal engines have powered more than 70 game titles, including Splinter Cell, America's Army, Deus Ex: The Invisible War, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
In addition to the Unreal Engine 3 showcase, nVidia and Epic will also display in the nVidia booth a sample of the first- and second-round winning game mods from the USD 1,000,000 nVidia Make Something Unreal contest. The year-long contest-which is just about to open its third-round phase for entries-encourages, rewards, and publicly recognizes talented individuals from around the world who can create the ultimate game and entertainment mods based on the hit Unreal Engine. For more information about the contest, as well as links to the first- and second-round winners, follow the download tab above.