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Usage and overview of UE
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Unreal Engine By Braslav Bradić and Ante Gugić (alphabetically)
Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION – game developing, programming ........................................................................... 2
a) Essay Scope and Purpose ................................................................................................................ 2
The main purpose of this essay is to get you acquainted with game developing and its uses outside
of its original purpose, with a review on Unreal Engine in particular. The idea is to demonstrate the
usage of the software and its potential purposes. .............................................................................. 2
b) Data Sources and Collection Methods ............................................................................................ 2
c) Essay Content and Structure ........................................................................................................... 2
2. SOFTWARE SHORT DESCRIPTION ........................................................................................................ 2
a) Short Description ............................................................................................................................. 2
b) Link to Software Homepage: https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4 .............. 3
c) Software Screenshot........................................................................................................................ 3
3. TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................................ 4
4. SOFTWARE HISTORY ............................................................................................................................ 4
5. DETAILED DESCRIPTION ....................................................................................................................... 6
a) Software Functions .......................................................................................................................... 6
I. Game development ................................................................................................................. 6
b) Tutorial – how to use Software ....................................................................................................... 8
6. PROFILE CREATION OR SOFTWARE SETUP ........................................................................................ 12
7. BUSINESS USAGE ............................................................................................................................... 13
8. COMPETITION – unity, quake ............................................................................................................ 13
9. ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES .................................................................................................... 14
10. SWOT ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................... 15
11. STARTING COSTS ............................................................................................................................. 15
12. STATISTICS ....................................................................................................................................... 15
13. SOFTWARE UPGRADE ...................................................................................................................... 16
14. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................... 16
15. BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................. 16
16. LIST OF WEB LINKS .......................................................................................................................... 16
Unreal Engine
1. INTRODUCTION – game developing, programming
a) Essay Scope and Purpose
The main purpose of this essay is to get you acquainted with game developing and its uses
outside of its original purpose, with a review on Unreal Engine in particular. The idea is to
demonstrate the usage of the software and its potential purposes.
b) Data Sources and Collection Methods
We have tried the program itself which was the most vivid experience with the software. We have
also watched tutorials explaining the usage.
c) Essay Content and Structure
We will introduce the history and old versions of Unreal Engine; showing technical and practical
changes through the years. After that we will go in details, business model and operations will follow.
The essay is concluded with statistical and SWOT analysis.
2. SOFTWARE SHORT DESCRIPTION
a) Short Description
Unreal Engine is a game developing software used by many professionals as well as amateur
enthusiasts. “Unreal Engine 4 is a complete suite of game development tools made by game
developers, for game developers. From 2D mobile games to console blockbusters, Unreal Engine 4
gives you everything you need to start, ship, grow and stand out from the crowd.”i – Statement taken
from official website. Its state of the art technologies and user-friendliness make it highly popular not
just in the area of game development but as well as army simulations and education.iiiii
Unreal Engine
b) Link to Software Homepage: https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-
engine-4
c) Software Screenshot
Figure 1 Epic Games Launcher
Very common trend in software industry in recent years is to develop a unique platform (launcher)
where you can interact with other features from the same software developer or its partners
(examples: Battle.net, Steam…). Concretely, with Epic Games Launcher you can watch tutorial videos
for UE4 (Unreal Engine four in further text), share your work through social media, communicating
via forums, but you can also play 2 video games totally free of charge: Unreal Tournament and
Fortnite.
Figure 1. Software screenshot
Unreal Engine Figure 2. Software screenshot
3. TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
“For developing with UE4, we recommend a desktop PC with Windows 7 64-bit or a Mac with Mac
OS X 10.9.2 or later, 8 GB RAM and a quad-core Intel or AMD processor, and a DX11 compatible
video card. UE4 will run on desktops and laptops below these recommendations, but performance
may be limited.”iv
4. SOFTWARE HISTORY
The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-
person shooter game Unreal. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been
successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, MMORPGs, and other RPGs. With its
code written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability and is a tool used by
many game developers today.The current release is Unreal Engine 4, designed for Microsoft's DirectX
11 and 12 (for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Windows RT); OpenGL (for OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4,
iOS, Android, Ouya and Windows XP); and JavaScript/WebGL (for HTML5 Web browsers)
Unreal Engine 1
“Making its debut in 1998 with Unreal, the first generation Unreal Engine integrated rendering,
collision detection, AI, visibility, networking, scripting, and file system management into one
complete engine. Unreal Engine 1 provided an advanced software rasterizer and a hardware-
accelerated rendering path using the Glide API, specifically developed for 3dfx GPUs, and was
updated for OpenGL and Direct3D. Large parts of the game were implemented in a custom scripting
language called UnrealScript. The initial network performance was also very poor when compared to
its biggest competitor, Quake II. Epic used this engine for both Unreal and Unreal Tournament. The
Unreal Engine release of Unreal Tournament marked great strides in both network performance and Direct3D and
OpenGL support.The engine became very popular due to the modular engine architecture and the
inclusion of a scripting language, which made it easy to mod, including total conversions like Tactical
Ops”
Unreal Engine 2
“The second version made its debut in 2002 with America's Army, a free multiplayer shooter created
and funded by the US Army. This generation saw the core code and rendering engine completely re-
written. In addition, it featured UnrealEd 2, which debuted with the previous generation of the
engine and was shortly followed later by UnrealEd 3, along with the Karma physics SDK. This physics
engine powered the ragdoll physics in Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Championship. Other
engine elements were also updated, with improved assets as well as adding support for the
GameCube and the Xbox. Support for the PlayStation 2 console was previously added in UE1. Taking
Xbox aside, both GameCube and PS2 were never supported directly by Epic, support being instead
farmed out to Secret Level said builds were stale and left behind, the last "official" build PS2 and GC
saw was build 927 dated April 2002; last official UE2.5 build was build 3369. As such, third parties
looking to use further Unreal Engine revisions had to do their own builds throughout the generation,
as they had to in more recent years with the Wii, X360, PS3, PSP, and 3DS.UE2.5, an update to the
original version of UE2, improved rendering performance and added vehicles physics, a particle
system editor for UnrealEd, and 64-bit support in Unreal Tournament 2004. A specialized version of
UE2.5 called UE2X was used for Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict on the original Xbox
platform. It featured optimizations specific to that console. EAX 3.0 is also supported for sound.
Unreal Engine 2.X was build 2227, dated March 2004.”
On March 23, 2011, Ubisoft Montreal revealed that UE2.5 was successfully running on the Nintendo
3DS
Unreal Engine 3
“The first screenshots of Unreal Engine 3 were presented in 2004, at which point the engine was in
development for 18 months already. Unlike Unreal Engine 2, which still supported fixed-function
pipeline, Unreal Engine 3 was designed to take advantage of fully programmable shader hardware (in
DirectX 9 terms, it required shader model 3.0). All lighting calculations were done per-pixel, instead
of per-vertex. On the rendering side, Unreal Engine 3 also provided support for a gamma-correct
high-dynamic range renderer. UE3 expected that content was authored in both high- and low-
resolution version and baked normal maps for run-time; a major difference to previous generations
where the game content was modeled directly (since normal mapping is a per-pixel operation and
almost all the dynamic lighting in UE1 and 2 was calculated per-vertex using a Gouraud Shading
technique)The third generation of the Unreal Engine is designed for DirectX (versions 9-11 for
Windows, Windows RT and Xbox 360), as well as systems using OpenGL, including the PlayStation 3,
OS X, iOS, Android, Stage 3D for Adobe Flash Player 11, JavaScript/WebGL for HTML5 Web Browsers,
PlayStation Vita, and Wii U. Initially, Unreal Engine 3 only supported Windows, Xbox 360, and
PlayStation 3 platforms, while Android and iOS were added later in 2010 (with Infinity Blade being
the first iOS title and Dungeon Defenders the first Android title). OS X support was added in 2011.Its
renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic
shadows. It also builds on the tools available in previous versions. In October 2011, the engine was
ported to support Adobe Flash Player 11 through the Stage 3D hardware-accelerated APIs. Epic has
used this version of the engine for their in-house games. Aggressive licensing of this iteration has
garnered a great deal of support from many prominent licensees. Epic has announced that Unreal
Unreal Engine Engine 3 runs on both Windows 8 and Windows RT. The first released console game using Unreal
Engine 3 was Gears of War and the first released PC game was RoboBlitz.”
In addition to the game industry, UE3 has also seen adoption by many non-gaming projects, for
instance:
-The popular children's TV show LazyTown used UE3 during filming to generate virtual sets for real-
time integration with footage of actors and puppets performing in front of green screens.
-In March 2012, the FBI licensed Epic's Unreal Engine 3 to use in a simulator for training.
-The animation software "Muvizu Play", which was released in April 2013, uses UE3.
5. DETAILED DESCRIPTION
a) Software Functions
Unreal earlier in the text, primarily serves as a game development tool, but it is also used in Engine,
as introduced education and war. “Unreal Engine technology powers hundreds of games as well as
real-time 3D films, training simulations, visualizations and more. Over the past 15 years, thousands of
individuals and teams and have built careers and companies around skills developed using the
engine.”i
I. Game development
Unreal Engine has countless tools, depending what type of game you are developing. To
begin with, it has various templates to help beginners manage with new software, not doing
everything from a scratch. It is written in C++ programming language
Features:
DirectX 11 & 12 Rendering Features – primarily for full-scene HDR reflections,
thousands of dynamic lights per scene, artist-programmable tessellation and
displacement, physically-based shading and materials, IES lighting profiles and more.
Cascade Visual Effects - the tools needed to create detailed fire, smoke, snow, dust,
dirt, rubble… Cascade's pipelined includes fast, low-cost GPU particle simulation and
a collision system that interacts with the depth buffer. Millions of dynamic particles
can receive and emit light within a scene, and you can control all kinds of particle
properties, including size, color, density, falloff and bounciness.
New Material Pipeline - makes use of physically-based shading to give you
unprecedented control over the look and feel of characters and objects. Quickly
create a wide range of surfaces that hold up visually under close examination. Layer
materials and fine-tune values at the pixel level to achieve any kind of style you
desire.
Blueprint Visual Scripting - enable to rapidly prototype and build playable content
without touching a line of code. Use Blueprints to author level, object and gameplay
behaviors, modify user interface, and adjust input controls.
Unreal Engine Live Blueprint Debugging - Blueprint visual scripting comes with a built-in debugger
you can use to interactively visualize gameplay flow and inspect property values
while testing your game. Freeze the game at any time and audit its state by setting
breakpoints on individual nodes in your Blueprint graphs. Step through actions and
events, make changes as you like, and have fun optimizing your game on the fly.
Content Browser - used to import, organize, search, tag, filter and modify terabytes
of game assets within the Unreal Editor. Real-time animated thumbnail previews can
easily be changed and saved with the handy screenshot function. Also you can create
any type of asset collection to be used for individual work or shared with other
developers.
Persona Animation – toolset used to edit skeletons, skeletal meshes and sockets,
animation Blueprints and more. This multi-purpose tool enables you to preview
animation sequences and morph targets, and also set up animation blend spaces and
montages. You can also modify physics and collision properties for skeletal mesh
actors using the Physics Asset editing tool (PhAT).
Matinee Cinematics - cinematic toolset that provides director-level control over cut
scenes, dynamic gameplay sequences and movies. With a look and feel similar to
non-linear editors used for video editing, Matinee enables you to set up action within
your scenes down to the finest detail, animate scene properties over time, and
produce awesome filmic moments.
Terrain & Foliage - Create large, open world environments with the Landscape
system, which paves the way for terrains that are orders of magnitude larger than
what have been previously possible thanks to its powerful LOD system and efficient
memory use. Customize huge, outdoor worlds using the foliage tool by quickly
painting or erasing all sorts of terrain components.
Post-Process Effects - enable you to gracefully adjust the look and feel of scenes.
Filmic effects at your fingertips include ambient cubemaps, ambient occlusion,
bloom, color grading, depth of field, eye adaptation, lens flares, light shafts, temporal
anti-aliasing and tone mapping, just to name a few.
Full Source Code Access - With C++ source code for all of Unreal Engine 4, you can
customize and extend Unreal Editor tools and Unreal Engine subsystems, including
physics, audio, online, animation, rendering as well as Slate UI. With complete
control over engine and gameplay code, you get everything so you can build
anything.
Professional Source Control - Unreal Engine 4 supports full C++ source code access
via GitHub for subscription members with clear version documentation and tracking.
In addition, both Perforce version control and Apache Subversion support are
available to developers with custom license terms.
C++ Code View - Unreal Engine 4 Code View saves time by allowing you to browse
C++ functions directly on game characters and objects and jump straight to source
code lines in Microsoft Visual Studio to make changes.
Hot Reload Function - Make updates to your gameplay code while the game is
running using Unreal Engine 4's popular Hot Reload feature. This tool allows you to
Unreal Engine edit C++ code and see those changes reflected immediately in-game without ever
pausing gameplay.
Simulate & Immersive Views - Quickly debug and update gameplay behaviors as they
happen through Simulate Mode, which lets you run game logic in the editor viewport
and inspect AI as characters perform actions. View your game in full screen within
the editing environment with Immersive View, which allows you to complete
iterations on gameplay changes without added UI clutter or distractions.
Instant Game Preview - Update your game and use Instant Game Preview to instantly
spawn a player and play anywhere in-game without waiting for files to save.
Possess & Eject Features - The Possess and Eject features allow you to play your
game in-editor to easily “eject” from the player’s perspective at any time and take
control of the camera to inspect anything that may not be behaving properly.
Artificial Intelligence - Give AI-controlled characters increased spatial awareness of
the world around them and enable them to make smarter movements with Unreal
Engine 4’s gameplay framework and artificial intelligence system. Dynamic navigation
mesh updates in real time as you move objects for optimal pathing at all times.
Audio - Use Unreal Engine 4's Sound Cue Editor to build the audio pipeline and define audio playback for your game.
Leading Middleware Integrations - The premier Unreal Engine 4 Integrated Partner Program provides integrations with more than a dozen industry-leading middleware technologies, including NVIDIA PhysX, Autodesk Gameware, Enlighten, Umbra, Oculus VR and other software libraries.
VR – “UE4 has been used to build games for virtual reality in the past, and includes tools to
design for systems such as the Oculus Rift. But those VR solutions, says Epic's lead engineer
Nick Whiting, only allow users to move freely inside a space of a few meters. SteamVR is
something different entirely, giving users freedom of movement inside a room-sized space.
That meant different tools had to be developed to make UE4 useful for developers to build
for SteamVR.”v
b) Tutorial – how to use Software
Start with official website where UE4 is downloadable for free:
https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4
Then click on the get unreal link (highlighted red in the photo below) and follow the simple steps
needed to acquire UE4.
Unreal Engine Figure 3. Main Page
Epic Games Launcher is downloaded first as it is platform for managing their products, as already
mentioned earlier.
Figure 4.
From there you download the UE4 (installation is then automatic). Open the UE4 and enter the
imaginationland.
First you have to choose what type of project you are developing. Two basic difference is with and
without the code. After you have chosen desired project it is time to create.
Unreal Engine Figure 5.
We chose here vehicle mode. On the left you can see the tools (modes) track, content browser is at
the bottom and detail and fine tuning settings are on the left side of the screen. In the picture you
can see very simple car simulation with slopes.
Figure 6.
Unreal Engine Apart from this simple introduction, Epic Games fosters the Unreal community and provide plenty of
tutorials on their website, forums and elsewhere. So it is not difficult to find the answers if you get
stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Figure 7.
Figure 8.
Unreal Engine
6. PROFILE CREATION OR SOFTWARE SETUP Profile creation is obligatory and pops out immediately when you press get unreal link as describe
above.
Figure 9.
Unreal Engine
7. BUSINESS USAGE Unreal Engine 4 provides a vast business usage, from game developing to educational purposes.
Unreal Engine 4 has a unique business model, it is completely free to use but if the user develops a
product which he or she intends to place on the market, Unreal Engine 4 will take 5% of all the profits
if the revenues exceed $3000 per fiscal quarter. With this model, Unreal Engine 4 creates a large pool
of developers and the chances for success are greater. It is also used by FBI and the U.S. Army for all
kinds of simulations and it can be used by schools or colleges.
8. COMPETITION – unity, quake
Regarding competitors, we have Unity, the largest competitor at the moment. “Unity game engine
offers a vast array of features and a fairly easy to grasp interface. Its bread and butter is cross-
platform integration, meaning games can be quickly and easily ported onto Android, iOS, Windows
Phone 8, and BlackBerry, making it a great game engine for the development of mobile games. It also
has the capabilities of development for consoles. However, if you’re a new developer there is a lot
more that goes into console development, because you are required to gain access to console SDKs
which new developers will likely not be able to do.The game engine supports assets from major 3D
applications like 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, CINEMA 4D, Blender and more, meaning there is no real
restrictions to the type of file formats that it supports. With the recent release of Unity 4.3 it also has
native 2D capabilities, supporting sprites and 2D physics, making it a great game engine to use for the
development of 2D games. While the engine supports integration of just about any 3D application, it
does, however, suffer in the amount of editing capabilities inside the engine editor. Unity has no real
modeling or building features outside of a few primitive shapes so everything will need to be created
in a third party 3D application. It does, however, boast a large asset library where a wide variety of
assets can be downloaded or purchased (pricing is determined by the asset author). There are a few
different licensing fees for Unity. The first one is the Pro version of Unity, which is $1,500 or
$75/monthly per seat and per platform at the time this post was written. Unity 5 Personal Edition
which is free includes many of the same features as the Professional Edition, including Profiler,
Physically-based shading, Reflection Probes and more. However, in order to qualify for the Unity 5
Personal Edition you must be a small studio that earns less than $100,000 a year, and funding under
$100,000. To get a more detailed look at their licensing plans visit the Unity pricing page. As an
aspiring game developer this caveat will not pose any problem to you, so the free Unity 5 Personal
Edition will likely be all you need.Unity is a game engine that is often associated with mobile games,
but with the release of Unity 5 and the new render system there has been a huge increase in the
graphical capabilities of the engine including things like Physically Based Shading, real-time Global
Illumination and HDR Reflection Probes among many other improvements.It’s evident they are
joining the next-gen game engine war between UE4 and CryENGINE and with 64-bit support and
WebGL Unity 5 offers some excellent features that make it a strong contender among the game
engines.
Source 2 is another competitor, developed by Valve. “During GDC 2015 Valve had several big
announcements, and probably the biggest one in the gaming community was the Source 2 engine
announcement. Source 2 is the successor to the Source engine used in Valves most popular games
like Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2 and a slew of other games. Source 2 has been highly
anticipated for several years as game developers eagerly awaited the next-gen game engine in
Unreal Engine Valve’s toolbox. During the press conference Valve’s Jay Stelly said, “We will be making Source 2
available for free to content developers. This combined with recent announcements by Epic and
Unity will help continue the PCs dominance as the premiere content authoring platform.” It’s
apparent that Valve is ready to join in the game engine race with Epic and Unity and provide even
more options to game developers. However, it’s still unclear as to what “free to content developers”
actually means, is that just to established developers or does anybody fall under “content
developer”?As for any specific release date Valve has not released any information, all that has been
made available is that Source 2 is coming in the near future. Jay Stelly also stated, “With Source 2,
our focus is increasing creator productivity. Given how important user generated content is
becoming, Source 2 is designed not for just the professional developer, but enabling gamers
themselves to participate in the creation and development of their favorite games,” This comment
would suggest that not only is Source 2 going to be a game engine for the professional development
studio but it will also aide the hobbyists and the modders that have made many of the Valve games
so popular.”
CryENGINE is “an extremely powerful engine designed by the development company Crytek that was
introduced in the first Far Cry game. It is designed to be used on PC platforms and consoles, including
PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The graphical capabilities of CryENGINE surpass those of Unity and UDK
but are on par with Unreal Engine 4, with state-of-the-art lighting, realistic physics, advanced
animation systems and much more. The most recent game that utilized CryENGINE in its
development was Ryse: Son of Rome. Similar to UDK and UE4 CryENGINE has intuitive and powerful
level design features in the game engine. While CryENGINE is an extremely powerful game engine, it
does however take a bit of a learning curve to start using the game engine productively, and can be
harder to grasp if you don’t have any other game engine experience. If you don’t need your game to
compete graphically with games like Crysis 3 or Ryse: Son of Rome then it may be better to choose
something more user friendly.CryENGINE has a slightly different pricing model than the other game
engines. To gain access to CryENGINE you need to pay $9.90/monthly. While it’s not completely free
like UE4 or Unity 5, it doesn’t require any royalty fee, so $9.90 is all you ever have to pay to Crytek.
Depending on the size of your studio and team, not having to a pay royalties can be a huge benefit.”
9. ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES
The greatest advantage for Unreal Engine 4 is it’s pricing scheme mentioned earlier. Basically free to
use and user friendly interface plays a great role for the popularity of such engine. Another
advantage is it’s large community of developer which can communicate and share their ideas and
plans regarding the Unreal Engine 4.
Unreal Engine Disadvantages are minimal, basically it is a matter of preference for the consumer (developer) to
choose between the Unreal Engine 4 and it’s main competitor, Unity. Regarding these preferences
the main issue is C++ programming language, because some programmers find it a bit archaic.
10. SWOT ANALYSIS
Figure 10.
Strengths Weaknesses
User Friendly
Free to start
Community
Archaistic C++ language
Opportunities Threats
Expansion to Asian markets
Development of virtual reality
Become a leader for new technologies and trends yet unknown
New entrants
Outsourcing
11. STARTING COSTS
Starting cost are equal to zero for a consumer which owns a personal computer or a laptop with up
to date specifications. The only cost which occurs is in the case of potential revenues which
12. STATISTICS
Unreal Engine 4 is used mainly form game development. Secondly it is used for the educational
purposes and lastly for military and special services training.
Unreal Engine
13. SOFTWARE UPGRADE
Software has the ability to upgrade itself to Unreal Engine 4.7. Basically it is a newer and more
improved version of the existing one, without groundbreaking changes introduced in the newer,
upgraded version.
14. CONCLUSION
To conclude, Unreal Engine 4 is a fantastic program for virtual development, incorporating up to date
technology with broad community. With it’s user friendly interface and excellent financing program,
it at the very top of virtual development software. Great financing opportunities make Unreal Engine
4 an even more desirable platform. All in all it is a great virtual development software and we
recommend it to anyone who has even a tiny bit of enthusiasm and skills, or aspires to become a
developer.
15. BIBLIOGRAPHY
16. LIST OF WEB LINKS
i https://www.unrealengine.com/unreal-engine-4 ii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Engine#Other_licensees iii https://www.unrealengine.com/education iv https://www.unrealengine.com/faq v http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/30/8521469/steamvr-epic-unreal-engine-4-ue4-free http://blog.digitaltutors.com/unity-udk-cryengine-game-engine-choose/
17. LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.Software Screenshot
Figure 2. Software Screenshot
Figure 3. Software Screenshot
Unreal Engine Figure 4. Software Screenshot
Figure 5. Software Screenshot
Figure 6. Tutorial
Figure 7. Tutorial
Figure 8. Tutorial
Figure 9. Tutorial
Figure 10. SWOT Analysis
18. AUTHOR CURRICULUM VITAE
Ante Gugić
2008-2012 vii. Gimnazija
2012-today Bachelor’s Degree in Business
Braslav Bradić
2008-2012 xvi. Gimnazija
2012-today Bachelor’s Degree in Business
19. ABSTRACT
Unreal Engine 4 is a newer and a more improved version of the previous versions which were Unreal
Engine 1, Unreal Engine 2 and Unreal Engine 3. Guarantees newer and better quality and technical
performances.
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