“Ray of Hope” will use the Unreal Engine 5 engine together with the X-Ray Engine! The decision to improve the platform for development was influenced by the fact that the original engine S.T.A.L.K.E.R. already too outdated, because of which the creators constantly had various technical problems. Among them are single -flow architecture, which negatively affects optimization, the absence of many modern technologies, as well as a complex and uncomfortable SDK interface compared to modern engines.
It was difficult to complete the team with new developers, as this required the knowledge of the X-Ray tool, which means I had to spend extra time on training and mastering the platform.
For all the time of development, modmakers tried to solve all these problems: the existing SDK was significantly improved, their own tools for solving various problems (the editor of the dialogs, the editor of the tasks) were created, the composition of the team was in every possible way encouraged the work done and so on.
However, the acute need for more powerful tools that could make the entire development process faster and more convenient due to the use of the latest industry technologies has not gone anywhere. Therefore, a little over a year ago it was decided to integrate the modified version of the X-Ray engine used in the project with Unreal Engine. One of the team members created a small working prototype to check the possibility of the interaction of two platforms and the work of the main mechanic. The prototype was recognized as successful, and the decision to use Unreal Engine in further development was finally accepted.
At the moment, “Ray of Hope” is working on the Unreal Engine 5 engine using a modified X-ray.
The developers separately emphasize that this is not a full -fledged transition to a new engine. Modmakers only use some UNREAL Engine capabilities to solve various serious X-RAY problems.
In particular, Unreal Engine is used for the rendering system, as well as to create a location and various related content. X-ray technologies are used mainly for game logic.
The use of the Unreal Engine game engine gave the project several important advantages: development is much easier and faster due to the existing experience within the team and a large number of training materials on the network. Unreal Engine is one of the most popular game engines in the world, which means it has become easier to find new experienced developers. Over the past year, the team was replenished with several useful beginners.
The engine has support for many modern game industry technologies, as well as improved optimization. During the work on the new platform, the authors have already managed to transfer and adapt many of the main mechanics of the project: a user interface, shooting systems, life simulation systems, artificial intelligence navigation system, particle system, network interaction, etc.
Meanwhile, work continues in other areas of the project. The engine is correcting, which adds the necessary functionality for the weapons system, scripts and general gameplay, the creation of new animations and weapons continues and the development of new game features is being developed. Internal tools are being finalized for development. Work has begun to update the network infrastructure of the project web services.
As the authors are recognized, the use of Unreal Engine has made the development process easier, faster and more productive in many aspects. In addition, some team members work in game studios and in the process of their activities gained practical experience with this engine.