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Although I wholeheartedly agree with all the people who are going to recommend Unity (which is also the platform I prefer), you might be better served with UDK when demonstrating to students. I'd say that Unity is a 3d game engine/platform made for programmers whereas UDK is a 3d game engine/platform made for level designers with support for programmers. You can get a lot of mileage from both platforms without much programming, but UDK is specifically designed so you can create an entire game without one stitch of programming (i.e. Jazz the Jackrabbit).

Also, I highly recommend the free training videos from 3dbuzz, here are the ones for UDK and here are the ones for Unity.

Although I wholeheartedly agree with all the people who are going to recommend Unity (which is also the platform I prefer), you might be better served with UDK when demonstrating to students. I'd say that Unity is a 3d game engine/platform made for programmers whereas UDK is a 3d game engine/platform made for level designers with support for programmers. You can get a lot of mileage from both platforms without much programming, but UDK is specifically designed so you can create an entire game without one stitch of programming (i.e. Jazz the Jackrabbit).

Also, I highly recommend the free training videos from 3dbuzz, here are the ones for UDK and here are the ones for Unity.

I've seen this described as Crytek taking on the likes of the UT3-engine, though I find there's one very important difference:
The UT3 engine can currently also be used to sell commercial games: Up to the first 50k of sales, it's completely free for developers. After that, Epic will take 25% of the earnings.
The cool things is that this 50k only works for the share that people get -after- the app stores get their cut. Have a look at their site to see their licensing agreement.

Not related to Epic in any way; Just a happy 'customer', and hopefully a published indie developer in the near future.

You might want to take a look at the unreal engine (or rather, the unreal development kit. It's not free as in beer, but comes at terms you can't beat. Unless you sell anything, it's free, if you finally have something to sell, the license is 99 bucks + 25% of the second 5000 bucks you make (i.e. you can keep the first 5000 bucks, then you pay 25% of the next 5000 bucks). Personally, I think it's quite fair. It's a bit more tricky than that (like, when you develop something internally but commercially, other terms apply), check out their licensing page for details.

Let's put it that way, if you just want to get your feet wet and try your hand at it, it won't cost you.

Someone else might have to inform you whether the U3 engine is still current, we're now using our own, which is similar but more flexible.

For this game, it's not a UT engine game anymore, it was ported to Source.

Aside from that, the Unreal Engines have a free development kit that's free for free games. It doesn't have everything their commerical game engine license gets (no engine source code and nobody's going to answer you if you call them at 3 in the morning the day before release).

See http://www.udk.com/

It costs big bucks for that, they won't say how much precisely, but it is six figures and likely a percentage of royalties.

Not really, no. The licensing terms are public, and are also extremely liberal:

- completely free for non-commercial use

- $2,500 per developer seat per year for internal use (i.e. no outside distribution); once you stop developing it, you don't pay a cent

- for external distribution (i.e. your typical title sold boxed or on Steam), it's a one-time $99 fee, no royalties for the first $5,000 (so if your game totally flops, you don't lose anything on engine licensing), and 25% royalty on revenue above $5,000 - which, considering just how powerful and convenient UE is, is a great deal

You missed 'Skeletal Mesh Pipeline' videos.
Here they are -
Skeletal Meshes: Intro
Skeletal Meshes: Skeletal Meshes Import/Export
Skeletal Meshes: Mirror Tables
Skeletal Meshes: Sockets
Skeletal Meshes: Physics Assets

kthxbye

You missed 'Skeletal Mesh Pipeline' videos.
Here they are -
Skeletal Meshes: Intro
Skeletal Meshes: Skeletal Meshes Import/Export
Skeletal Meshes: Mirror Tables
Skeletal Meshes: Sockets
Skeletal Meshes: Physics Assets

kthxbye

You missed 'Skeletal Mesh Pipeline' videos.
Here they are -
Skeletal Meshes: Intro
Skeletal Meshes: Skeletal Meshes Import/Export
Skeletal Meshes: Mirror Tables
Skeletal Meshes: Sockets
Skeletal Meshes: Physics Assets

kthxbye

You missed 'Skeletal Mesh Pipeline' videos.
Here they are -
Skeletal Meshes: Intro
Skeletal Meshes: Skeletal Meshes Import/Export
Skeletal Meshes: Mirror Tables
Skeletal Meshes: Sockets
Skeletal Meshes: Physics Assets

kthxbye

You missed 'Skeletal Mesh Pipeline' videos.
Here they are -
Skeletal Meshes: Intro
Skeletal Meshes: Skeletal Meshes Import/Export
Skeletal Meshes: Mirror Tables
Skeletal Meshes: Sockets
Skeletal Meshes: Physics Assets

kthxbye

No.

Minimum Requirements:
- Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
- 2.0+ GHz processor
- 2 GB system RAM
- SM3-compatible video card
- 3 GB Free hard drive space

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

And here are the videos:

User Interface
Simple Level
Lighting
Geometry Mode
Kismet
Materials
Terrain
Fractured Static Meshes
Sounds
Particles
Fluid Surfaces
Physics
Crowds
Cinematics
UI Scenes
Top-down Game Types

They seem to be quite nicely done too. So not only giving a free version of Unreal Engine, they're helping the users too. And these are interesting even if you wouldn't use the Unreal Engine.

Given the amount of talk on this, has anyone else read the licensing page? Development is free and the royalty is 25%. Twenty-five percent. Rapid prototype your game in Unreal and then port it over to a free engine and you pay nothing. Or keep it in Unreal, take the 25% hit and have a damn good game out there while you work on the next one.

Whereas giving complete freedom to tinker with the GPL is the most community enabling. Granted, id Tech 5 is not in the GPL now. But on the other hand, the full freedom offered by the GPL has enabled heavy customisation such as the above and many other. And in the long term, are much more valuable for creativity.

Or from another perspective, the license is entirely irrelevant to *creativity* when the tools are as beneficial for creation as Unreal's. The biggest barrier to making games isn't the engine license, it's making all the decisions, code and content. Unreal didn't get to be the most widely licensed engine because it looks awesome, it's behind a lot of other engines in that respect. It's just so damn easy to make games with.

It would appear that this guy did:
UDK Showcase - The Ball

How can it be a "catch" when they clearly state the terms of use of this? From here:

Use of the UDK for noncommercial purposes is free of charge. If you are going to use the UDK for any commercial purpose or in any way that is not specifically authorized in the end-user license agreement (EULA), you must agree to appropriate commercial terms. You can read more about these options below.