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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."
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-- For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing.
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?
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 ]
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.
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