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Epic Releases Free Version of Unreal Engine
anomnomnomymous writes "Just a week after Unity announced its engine is now available for free to indie users, Epic Games has revealed a free version of its popular Unreal Engine technology. Called the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), it is a free edition of UE3 that allows community, modder and indie users more access to the engine's features and is available for all. Epic said game developers, students, hobbyists, researchers, creators of 3D visualizations and simulations plus digital filmmakers can all take advantage of the UDK for non-commercial use. The UDK site also offers detailed product features, technical documentation, commercial licensing terms and support resources."
A multi-platform client that allows you to load Google Sketchup files. It would be nice to walk around the models, buildings, etc.
After that, make that multi-platform client compatible with Google Earth. Yes a lot of stuff is still flat but at least they do have terrain data so it would still be nice.
And last, just for kicks, add an option for playing in that map MMOFPS style!
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-- For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing.
Or the Linux version.
It was ported to Linux 2 years ago(right after the windows release) but it was never released.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
They're not giving it away. They're giving a free license for non-commercial use. If you create a game with it and want to sell it, then you will have to get a commercial license. Basically, they want people doing game design courses to practice on their engine and not something free.
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Sounds like they're training programmers for free. Would you want someone working for you that had never touched your engine and would cost $50K to train, or someone who had spent many caffeine-filled nights writing exceptional code on their own time, for fun?
Wow, I got to say I'm impressed with the /. editors. After hastily submitting this story at work, I only had links to the Unity3D- and UDK- sites in there. Whereas the text is still the same as I submitted it, the editors done a great job in actually providing some extra informative links in there.
Well done!
On topic: I think this is a very smart move by Epic. It's great to be able to tinker with a top quality engine without having to buy any of their games first. This can definitely come in use for the scientific community, where you would like other people to download your, for example, simulations, and not be constrained by them having to own a game on which it runs.
Also, as some people above mentioned, this is great for some indie developers, who can now build a complete game, see if it's feasible, and if the end-product is to their liking, they can decide to license the engine and sell it.
Of course I'd prefer them to release the whole source, but that can't really be expected of an engine that is still commercially available.
Overall, great move Epic!
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
Frankly, I have no problem with that model to help indie and poorer developers make their mark. It improves the field by keeping companies on their toes constantly improving and allows people with little/no upstart cost get a foot in the door.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Still behind id software and their GPL releases of the game engines.
What a troll. id releases its old generation engines as GPL, not the current or even last-generation engines. Unreal Engine 3 is not comparable to the Quake 3 engine, it's more like the id Tech 5 engine, which certainly isn't available for free licensing let alone GPL distribution.
"Anyone can try out the Unreal Development Kit powered by Unreal Engine 3" ...as long as your on windows
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Please point me to GPL'ed sources of ID software engine technology equivalent to the technology described in TFA. Thanks.
Xreal
Heavily improved version of the (GPLed) Id Tech 3 engine. Includes features such as shadow mapping, per pixel lightning, etc... bringing the whole project visually closer to what's available in modern engines.
Other questions ?
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More seriously :
Giving away free (gratis) access to some proprietary technology is nothing more than a complex marketing ploy to try to attract more commercial licensee in the long term, by gaining more fans and hackers in the short term. The basic idea is "let the Indie market play around with the engine, and if some group emerge with a new killer-app, they'll have to license our engine".
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.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The engine is without a doubt -THE- hardest part of development. I myself have only ever hacked together Frankenstein Engines using bits from everywhere, and never really added my own component (why write your own when someone else already has). With the engine out of the way, a feature Length Game can be done in as little as 6 months*, tested, released, and on the shelf in about a year.
*This is assuming you've got one guy with the ideas who fleshes out a story, 1 guy who does the artwork (both concept and in game), and 1 guy who does the Coding/maping/debugging.
How long do games usually take to make from scratch? Lets See, Half Life 2, about a decade, Unreal 3 from Unreal 2K4 was 3 years, Duke Nukem Forever, ha ha - but do you see my point?
Summary: The Engine is more than half of a games development. (IMHO)
Sure they would. If somebody uses the GPL version, they have to include the source code of their game with it along with a license that says anybody can copy or modify it for free! That is a pretty big limitation on any business model for a game company. They could however pay Epic for a different license to the code that would allow them to release closed source or otherwise limit what end users can do with the software.
Yes, his stirring, creative games that would be amazing even without a nice set of graphics tech running them. I know the first time I killed the Cyberdemon in Doom I nearly wept, it was like a modern re-imagining of a Greek tragedy.
Okay, that's getting pretty thick there but lets get one thing out of the way: Id's claim to fame has been sweet tech demos, they've yet to make some kind of interesting innovation that isn't a technical one.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Two years after they said it would be available, UT3 for Linux is still vaporware. I'm not that impressed by Epic's latest attempt to stay relevant.