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Epic Unveils Samaritan

Last week Epic presented what the future of games could look like in a tech demo titled “Samaritan,” but only teased a handful of screens. Today you can watch Samaritan in action.

Designed to showcase advances in Unreal Engine 3 real-time technology, Samaritan utilizes DirectX 11 and NVIDIA APEX physics, amongst a roster of other impressive features. All of the additions can be found in the March Unreal Development Kit (UDK) beta, released for free to the public and available now.

Some of the higher touted refinements include adaptive Bokeh depth of field, dynamically shadowed image-based reflections, scalable bloom effects, and more.  You can find a handful of additional inclusions from Epic below, or skip to watching the impressive demo at the bottom.

Important DirectX features now shipping with UDK include:

  • Tessellation and displacement
  • Geometry shaders
  • Multisampled textures
  • Shader Model 5

High-end rendering features include:

  • Image-based reflections that allow surfaces of any shape to reflect an approximate version of scenes, with varying glossiness across surfaces, anisotropic HDR highlights and anti-aliasing
  • Subsurface scattering (SSS) that simulates the light that scatters inside semi-translucent materials, making character skin come alive
  • Anti-aliased masked materials that super sample the edges of masked and alpha-tested materials, making character hair more look realistic than ever before
  • Deferred rendering with MSAA support
  • Bokeh depth of field providing close to film-quality DOF, with artist-controllable Bokeh
  • High-quality dynamic shadows from many lights on the environment, such as shadows for point lights and other light sources

Comments
  • Wish the new video player would work, but apparently a government high-speed network isn't enough to handle a short video clip...
  • I like it. Now the question is, how long are we going to have to wait to see these impressive graphics in our home consoles?
  • I sent in a news tip with this yesterday. :[

    But anyways, it's looking pretty cool. Can't wait to see what they actually do with the engine though.
  • That's some nice looking tech. I know it's just a showcase video, but they should really make a game out of that concept. It looks a lot like Deus Ex... and there's nothing wrong with that!

  • this took three nvidia 560s to run

  • I may be the only one who thinks this, but I think in terms of building design, rain, lighting etc. Unreal just made it well.. very close to real. Once developers can get that quality of scene into a game and playable it could be incredible.

    Unreal Engine 3 + Team Bondi's tech = Just one step closer to that uncanny valley.

  • What!!!???

  • And smoking is cool again- superspeed high-5
  • I wish this was a real game. It looks awesome. :(

  • Impressive, most impressive.

    If this an actual in development game, I'm on board. As for all it shows. Thoroughly impressed and would love to see the improved image based reflections and depth of field in game. But I am impressed with the improvements I'm seeing with the Unreal engine.

    +1 for Epic.

  • Truly amazing. I can't wait to see the next game that implements this technology. =)

  • Looks amazing. Which games will this tech be used in? any in production?

  • This video has been up for awhile. I sent the link in the hint box but I guess they don't read that.

  • Why does IGN sometimes get content before Gameinformer, and sometimes it's the other way around. Isn't Gamestop the parent company of both? I know they share a lot of content with each other.
  • That was so awesome. I hope someone decides to make this into a real game.

  • This would be a pretty cool game

  • O_O  unreal you have done it again

  • I'm definitely looking after this one now. Leaving aside the oxyhydrogen torch that makes sparks when he's melting the chain, this teaser looks really cool.
    And by the way... this has to become an actual game! Not kidding.
  • This needs to become a  game! It looks like a fusion of blade-runner and a good prototype games. Please make this!

  • This needs to become a game! It looks like a fusion of blade-runner and a good prototype games. Please make this!
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