Unreal Engine 3 updates showcased at GDC

Epic Games, creators of the widely adopted Unreal Engine 3, has announced that it will be showcasing the latest updates and enhancements at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Jose.

The complex toolsets now include cinema-quality facial animations and auto-generated lip-synching thanks to the inclusion of OC3 Entertainment's facial animation software FaceFX, which will be demonstrated at Epic's private ExpoSuite at the GDC convention.

Additional functionality and enhanced engine tools on display and under discussion include the company's full support for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hardware platforms, new physics-based animation that provides enhanced gameplay features such as blending hit reactions with character animations, new in-editor performance optimization tools, a new Collada-compatible import pipeline, the new high-performance multi-threaded renderer, and a host of additional improvements.

Epic's Unreal Engine 3 has been licensed by numerous developers and publishers for the creation of videogames on both current and next-generation software titles. The latest license announcements include multiple next-gen titles from Atari, A new title based on the Turok franchise from Buena Vista Games, and GTA creator David Jones, who has licensed the engine for APB, a next-generation game from RealTimeWorlds.