If you appreciate the work done within the wiki, please consider supporting The Cutting Room Floor on Patreon. Thanks for all your support!

Proto:Unreal/November 1995 UnrealED Tech Demo

From The Cutting Room Floor
Jump to navigation Jump to search

This is a sub-page of Proto:Unreal.

The Unreal November 1995 Unreal Editor Tech Demo is an early prototype of Unreal made about two and a quarter years before the released game came out. The main feature of this prototype was that it contains a full version of the editor, therefore making it clear that some preview releases and tests simply had it stripped out of them.

Differences

  • The file system here is revealed to even use .utx texture packages already although none were provided except for textures existing in the map files and found in .u3d files.
    • It doesn't really matter that much what the extension of the file says, the format is substantially different from the final game and there are no differences within how data is stored in .unr, .utx or any other files. This counts also true to the released game in general.
    • There was a huge TEST.U3D file contained within; it contains a complex test brushes/level that cannot really be compiled and is probably a remnant of something huge, like the "house" picture that was showcased.
    • There is a new format revealed by the Macro files, .UMA and .UMS storing mesh/animation in a game package format alone and Mesh/graphics. UMA possibly stands for Unreal Mesh Animation and UMS stands for Unreal Mesh Sprite (not Uninified Military Service, though this could have been a pun by the time Upak came out).

The meshes work after imported/saved, but there are differences here.

  1. "Actors" cannot get meshes assigned, only sprites/meshsprites.
  2. MeshSprite is a different term here for what got to be known as a meshmap.
  3. You need to assign the mesh to a meshsprite for anything to work at all.
  • There is no HUD or weapons still, though the players can fire a fireball and there is a pickup class represented by the same icon like the pathnode in the release game. There are four pawns: the woman, the wizard, the dragon and the gargoyle but they don't have any AI apart from animation code which is different for each class this time.
    • Woman has no animation until you possess her using the bracket keys. Then she walks responding directly to your controls and the velocity of your movement.
    • If you switch away from her, she will keep playing walking animation though based on your last rate of movement, but she won't be actually moving.
    • Wizard is not animated and will not glitch out here when his mesh is used by the correct meshsprite/actor.
    • Dragon will stop animating once he's possessed and same with gargoyle, making them different from the September demo.
  • The editor's .exe uses an icon that is much different from the final's icon. It's a blue square with a black box inside it.
  • The only default map in here is identical to the default map in the December 1995 demo. There is a BIGLEVEL file which is the same map, except you start in a different location and the lighting is not rebuilt...
  • The lighting system has some differences compared to the December Levels demo, but not much.
  • There are a couple of issues like you can't open new cameras without seeing a blue-screen(pun not intended), in a new camera viewport.

Editor

Here is an overview/screenshots of the Unreal Editor in its full glory.


  • There are some interesting/new surface flags that have different effects when combined together, making realistic water effects and translucency/go-through collision effects after rebuilding...

Levels

BIGLEVEL.UNR is the only level left in the Maps directory and it's practically identical to the default map in the system directory of this and the next prototype.

A comparison can be made to the first screenshot ever shown from Unreal (which is of a technically earlier version).

Press screenshot New screenshot
Don't get too close! GET CLOSE!