As the cornerstone of Epic Games also the backbone of many of our favorite games, the Unreal Engine is a game engine founded by Tim Sweeney in 1998 alongside the well-known first-person shooter game Unreal. Installed into the computer, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability, supporting a wide range of desktop, mobile, console and virtual reality platforms. The original intention of the Unreal Engine was to create a high-quality shooting game–and the excellent results of “Unreal” also proved this. As an experimental product to the market, the first generation of Unreal can be seen as an engine designed by Epic Games, which used to develop its own games. The original Unreal Engine integrated rendering, collision detection, AI, graphics, networking, and filesystem into one complete engine.
Early design
At the time, the state of the art in C++ user interface frameworks was immature. Sweeney found that Visual Basic was efficient to design user interface where the designers can laid out all the controls, menu items, and interface elements in a productive way.
From the left image, it shows the interface of early Unreal Editor, which was used for content authoring and game level development. As the first generation engine, it included the features of colored lighting, a limited form of texture filtering, collision detection, scene editor, and soft renderer. Looking at the early interface design, most of the icons and tools are arranged in the left side without clear grouping and layout.
For example, the undo and redo icon are mixed with other scene building tools, which is usually placed in the corner of an interface in today’s design. In addition, part of the icons in this early design were confusing such as the icon that looks like a dinosaurs or lizards. In an interview, Sweeney said the monster-like icon was supposed to be “Add Pawn”, “which nobody is really sure what it is, some people think it’s a dinosaur, a lizard, or something…” In other words, the early Unreal Engine was not very strict in the interpretation of function by iconography.
design change
With the progress of the times, in addition to more powerful features, the interface of unreal engine has become more organized and user-friendly. From looking at the interface of Ureal Engine 4, the editor has clear functional partitions, visually expressive icons, and interface design that is more in line with modern design tool fashion.
Comparing to the layout of the interface in early engine, the Unreal Engine 4 shows a greater understanding of people and their interaction on computer. Tools and features are no longer roughly exposing in a block. Instead, different tools and features are organized into different blocks following the user visual and task flow. From the reasonable layout and clear functional guidance, designers can better operate the game engine to create powerful designs.
Source
Lightbown, David. “Classic Tools Retrospective: Tim Sweeney on the first version of the Unreal Editor”, Game Developer, January 09, 2018. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/classic-tools-retrospective-tim-sweeney-on-the-first-version-of-the-unreal-editor
Plante, Chris. “Better with age: A history of Epic Games”, Polygon, Oct 1, 2012. https://www.polygon.com/2012/10/1/3438196/better-with-age-a-history-of-epic-games
Statt, Nick. “Why Epic Can’t Afford to Lose the Unreal Engine in Its Legal Fight with Apple”, The Verge, Aug 26, 2020. https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/26/21402443/epic-fortnite-apple-unreal-engine-ios-game-developers-lawsuit
