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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."
UE3 is the FPS that invented the sniper head shot, now considered de rigueur for all shooters.
You mean the ones they won't be releasing anymore, because they're broke and have been owned by the man?
But whoa, I'm really looking forward to Doom 5 or whatever their working on now. I'm sure it will be nice and dark.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
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!
I found a screenshot of Doom 5.
Will! It! BLEND!
Seriously. Can you combine the two?
Technoli
Doom was released in December 1993. Doom II was released in October 1994, 10 months later. Doom III was released in February 2007, 148 months later. If this progression holds, then Doom IV won't be released this century and by the time Doom V is released the human race probably won't be recognisable, if it still exists.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Still behind id software and their GPL releases of the game engines.
But ahead in game quality.
I found a screenshot of Doom 5
Nice. Putting those pixel shaders to heavy use I see.
Here is a link to the official press release from the Epic site: Epic Games Announces the Unreal Development Kit, Powered by Unreal Engine 3.
Don't think of it as a flame, more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage.
Still behind id software and their GPL releases of the game engines.
Please point me to GPL'ed sources of ID software engine technology equivalent to the technology described in TFA. Thanks.
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
Of course, it couldn't be commercial...it'd have to be homebrew. ;)
UE3 is a current, highly popular game engine. Why would they give out the secret sauce? Even id doesn't do that; they give away the source to engines that are no longer being licensed to 3rd parties and are not bringing in cash flows to id.
How would licensees of UE3 feel if the engine they paid highly for got open-sourced at the height of its use?
Seeing the UE2 engine go GPL, on the other hand, would be impressive.
The Unity engine also mentioned in the caption (which is now also free, and even lets you make money with it) has always had a mac version (it actually used to be mac-only for content generation until earlier this year).
Wont be a Linux version, both Linux users are busy debating the root escalation flaw
While it's unsurprising given that the current Unreal Engine is still in active development and a ton of commercial games are still being developed and shipped using it, it's worth pointing out that this isn't a source code release; instead, it's something much closer to an elaborate mod engine, with generous swaths of behavioral scripting but no real ability to get 'under the hood' as it were. Still, kudos to Epic for this; it'll be interesting to see who picks up the ball and runs with this.
Well I guess if your goal is to GPL engine then ok. However in general that isn't the goal of a company, they want to make money so they can do things like pay their employees to develop more software. So how have licensing the engines gone? Well Unreal Engine 3, which was released after iD Tech 4, has about 150 games out using it. iD Tech 4? 7 games.
So I'd say Epic has been pretty successful at their primary goal of making a good engine that people wish to license for designing games.
How the hell did this get modded informative? Doom 3 was released in August of 2004. The final patch was released in February of 2007.
Having modded for a few different games, I really appreciate the Unreal engine for one specific reason: it assumes that all the space you haven't touched is filled rather than empty. That way, creating the basic flow of a level is just a matter of drawing out a cuboid per room and subtracting it from the filled space. By contrast, the id style starting with empty space requires you to create a cuboid for each wall, ceiling, and floor. There's a three page tutorial on how to make all the seams line up properly - and heaven help you if your room isn't a simple rectangle.
For great justice.
http://xreal-project.net/
You are delusional if you think quake3 engine (id tech 3) is anywhere near UE3.
Didn't you notice the "sudo mod me up" at the end?
Now make me a sandwich.
No?
sudo make me a sandwich
But each release of the Unreal Engine actually changes the Game development scene for alot of game development, not just modding community pertaining to Unreal games. Given Unreal 3 is staarrting to get old, this is probably too late to boost the game back into the light of gamers but Unreal has always had this precedence in the scene of developing.
For example, I myself usually develop with the source Engine. I find it easy to use, and probably more importantly, I find Hammer easier to create maps with instead of the Unreal Editor. In one particular scenario I wanted to have a marsh with really cool fog and properly dripping water and fireflies and all this jazz. Now Source while a great PHYSICS engine isn't as fine tuned towards the details as other engines tend to be. I've found that Valve will only update the Shaders to really meet their own needs, and other little things like that - but I mean you can't complain when they are giving it out for free, right? Anyways, Unreal has been pretty good with those kinds of effects - just look at ANY screenshot of their maps, or any video of the gameplay. I was able to look into Unreal and use their structure as a basis for my own particle effects, after all, I don't want it to look EXACTLY like an UT2K3 Map. Worked like a charm. Now, before you jut in, yes, I know Steam has their own FX for this kind of stuff. But its actually pretty taxing on the system, they still haven't quite seemed to nail fog down as it lags quite a bit (See CS:S When multiple smoke nades go off)
So, the next time you think "Unreal, who cares?" - remember that while they seem to be declining a bit in their sales of games, their rendering technology is still amongst the best free stuff out there. And every bit they give to their community is another bit to every community.
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.
It's Windows-only and still closed-source, so that's enough of a catch, really. This is a free dev kit, not an id-style open source release of the engine (title was kind of misleading).
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?
This is a free dev kit, not an id-style open source release of the engine (title was kind of misleading).
Where did the title or summary say this was a source release? It's a free release of a dev kit for non commercial use. Which is what the summary and the links say. That you assumed it meant something other than what was explicitly stated is your own poor reading comprehension skills at work.
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
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
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 ?
----
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 ]
25% of revenue after the first $5000. I understand that there's a TON of code there, but they don't come up with the idea, or market and sell the results. 1/4 of revenues seems like a pretty big chunk to take. Or am I wrong? Is this really a good deal for an indie game developer?
No, you are not seeing it like they do. First, you authorize people to use it for non commercial use. Then, if someone wants to make money out of it because they made a game, they come to you and pay you. With GPL3, Epic wouldn't be able to still make money out of it.
if you want to develop a commercial game the gpl engine won't help you. don't know what license unreal engine is anyway
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)
GPL is a terrible license for a game engine if you plan to have a multi-player mode, because releasing the code to your game makes it really easy to make cheats. LGPL isn't adequate either, because anybody can replace the engine library with a cheating version.
Mario Brothers was the originator even if they didn't have a booming voice letting everyone know about it.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
GPL is a terrible license for a game engine if you plan to have a multi-player mode, because releasing the code to your game makes it really easy to make cheats.
No. Bad design makes it really easy to make cheats. A server naive enough to trust the clients makes it really easy to make cheats. A well designed multiplayer game is no easier to cheat in with or without the source code. If releasing the source code makes it easier to cheat, the game was poorly designed. Conversely, if a developer knows the source code will be available, they may be motivated to do the job right. Since people can make cheats for a poorly designed game anyway, regardless of whether you release the source code or not, a game that releases the source code and is designed to be secure anyway is certainly going to be harder to make cheats for than games which mistakenly think if they don't release the source code, their game will be more secure, a fact proven wrong again and again and again.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
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.
Yay!
No. Bad design makes it really easy to make cheats. A server naive enough to trust the clients makes it really easy to make cheats. A well designed multiplayer game is no easier to cheat in with or without the source code. If releasing the source code makes it easier to cheat, the game was poorly designed. Conversely, if a developer knows the source code will be available, they may be motivated to do the job right. Since people can make cheats for a poorly designed game anyway, regardless of whether you release the source code or not, a game that releases the source code and is designed to be secure anyway is certainly going to be harder to make cheats for than games which mistakenly think if they don't release the source code, their game will be more secure, a fact proven wrong again and again and again.
The same thing was said by open source supporters when Quake 1 source code was released and cheating went rampant. It's, of course, absolutely true, if you desing so that automating your input doesn't give you an advantage, and so that having the information that your RAM hides doesn't give you an advantage, then there's no cheating problem! The catch? This involves adding auto aim into a FPS game and not hiding players behind walls, which would make them flicker on sight, degrading severely the gaming experience. And yes, open source supporters said this. I'm quoting from here, for example: http://catb.org/esr/writings/quake-cheats.html
If Quake had been designed to be open-source from the beginning, the performance hack that makes see-around-corners possible could never have been considered and either the design wouldn't have depended on millisecond packet timing at all, or aim-bot recognition would have been built in to the server from the beginning.
Yeah, that would be really fun. Carmack himself, the guy that gave you the GPL'd quake code said that the only solution to the cheating problem is a little closed source program that verifies the binaries, i.e: closed source.
You're delusional if you think that's just a plain-jane Tech3 engine too, pal.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Nah, XReal has some significant enhancements. It can render much more detailed scenes than a stock id tech3 engine can.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I did a considerable amount of mapping and modding for UT'99 through to UT2k4. Although UnrealED was a bit of a bear, it was easy to use. UnrealScript and the art of making mutators was wonderfully simple, much better than clunking around with DLL's like the Quake world.
UT'99 was bliss to play. So many maps, mods and mutators. But then came UT2k3 and the damnable "Standard Server" switch. Suddenly Epic made the entire spectrum of Unreal maps and mods completely invisible. TO the uninitiated, the "Standard Server" switch, which is enabled by default, basically filters out any server that isn't running a stock UT server with default settings. Run a mutator, and BAM! you were off the list (unless you unclicked the standard server check box, which 99% of the players did NOT).
Yes, with UT2k4 they introduced "whitelists" and "blacklists" and all kinds of bullshit to allow "certain kinds" of mutators, but whatever. Why bother making a system that is so insanely configurable if you're going to punish people for actually doing it? All they managed to do was create a server list full of clones, all running the same damn thing (Usually DM-Antalaus). No variety, no mutators, no mods.
Screw Epic. And I'm still pissed off at CliffyB blaming the PC market for the failure of the craptastic UT3.
Any popular multiplayer game is going to get hacked (especially PC FPS's). There really is no way around it. Whether your source is out there or not, people will reverse engineer the code and find a way. As an indie developer, I can only hope that my game becomes popular enough that people would create cheats for it. Regardless, security through obscurity is not something that a developer should rely on, and rarely does these days. Most companies take a proactive stance against cheating, which is really the best way to combat it.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
unreal tournament = Epic Doom = ID software
No thanks, we've already got 3 Quake engines and a bunch of quality open-source developed ones. But we greatly appreciate the gesture!
GrumpySteen is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
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.
Troll? Thanks guys, I love you all. Too bad you guys didn't get the joke. You know.. some of use have waited *a long time* for a Linux port of Unreal 3. And you can bet your arse that their commercial SDK isn't coupled to a Windows build environment.
Just a small point - but very often game development doesn't involve building an engine at all because an existing general engine is used. The situation isn't all that different to building a database application - you could start by building a database engine, but to do that right it'll be much more than half your time. Or, you could use one of the existing database engines. Many game engines are flexible enough now that you can do everything you need to for a wide variety of games without modifying the core engine itself.
epic doom? Is that better or worse than epic fail?
Hold my beer and watch this!
Oh, clearly you misunderstand this screen shot. Our hell spawn battling protagonist is getting ready to shoot something and as an enhancement for Doom 5, he not only puts down his flashlight but now also closes his eyes too. It's all very atmospheric...
yeah, sorry about that... i forgot that the slashdot editor doesn't understand the enter key and you have to break the lines yourself with html...
fixed:
unreal tournament = Epic
Doom = ID software
Full freedom would be to have a hyper-intelligent oracle that produces a completely bug-free and perfect implemention of any software idea you can imagine, with infinite resources behind it and available to everybody instantly and with no cost.
A civilization without instrumentalities ?
Yes, but the Krell forgot one thing - monsters from the Id !
Squirrel!
OK: you're a sandwich.
This is true, but rarely do you get one that is of high enough standards for todays gaming environment (Which is why every release of the Unreal, Source, Doom, Quake, etc... is such a big deal)
The Original Half Life Series is run off a modified Quake Engine, I believe. and I wouldn't be surprised if the first Unreal Tournament did too. But when you look at how the Unreal engine has evolved and how Source has evolved they are very different.
If you aren't modifying the engine at all, what you're mostly doing is an elaborate Mod (See Total Conversions). If it looks like a duck, Renders like a duck, and handles lighting like a duck, it still feels like a duck when you play it, no matter how much you alter speeds/weapons/textures/Maps. Even when you take an FPS designed Engine and try to run an RTS on it, you will typically have to write in your own scripting.
I found a screenshot of Doom 5.
People were excited when they said Duke Nukem Forever had been ported to HTML 5 <canvas>, but man, Doom 5 uses plain old HTML 3.2! (Though I'm fairly sure Carmack is ashamed of the fact that the highly broken Microsoft HTML generator was used.) Clearly more impressive, even when the engine may be a bit outdated by now!
You can change to Plain Old Text in settings and then enter works as normal (and html tags too)
It's free to use. It is not free to distribute games, even FREE games. Make a simple game, give your brother a free copy and you are required to PAY!
Free is cool but their license is kind of scammy in the way it slides in those requirements. It will be interesting to see them try to enforce it as unsuspecting users who didn't actually read the licensing details.
Did you actually, you know, read your own link? As explained in that very article, the closed source binary checking program wouldn't work. Hacking that sort of thing is ridiculously easy - it's identical to a no-cd patch, and those come out minutes after a CD rip.
Even when Quake was closed source, (and again, I'm citing your article) there were proxy aimbots that would sit between the client and server and "correct" the client's aim. Making it open source only let hackers build those features into the client itself.
Carmack chose for Quake to be performant; as a result, it's inherently insecure. (again, a direct paraphrase from your article) This is true regardless of Quake's openness.
You miss the point entirely. I'm a developer, so I know that you can change how an assembled piece of machine code works, thanks, captain obvious. Parent was implying that quake has a bad design, but I say that what he calls a good design is actually a worse design, because it leads to a more boring game. How can you call something a bad design when it's a necessity? So the alternative proposed is not playing aim games, *at all*. You criticize an unsurmountable difficulty without ever providing a solution. Don't you see the problem? The open source solution involves removing features, ergo, there's no open source answer to this problem. Which leads me to my original point: that a GPL engine for a shooter is useless, because it promotes cheating. Can we agree on that? And don't tell me that people will cheat the game the same. They will. If you are a hardcore gamer you'll know that the shooters with more cheating of the history have been: Quake 1 it was open sourced and Warsow which always was open source. Quake 3 was also open sourced, but there wasn't such a rampant cheat problem because the servers required punkbuster in the client (a closed source cheat detection component). Warsow is about to implement something similar soon, in response to the cheating problem. Funny how everybody agrees that open source and available documentation and a helping community help people make software projects, but magically that doesn't apply when your software project consists of a wallhack of an aimbot. Yay double standard.
s/They will/They won't/g
s/Quake 1 it was/Quake 1 after it was/g
I'm used to posting stuff without previewing and then reading it and clicking the edit button if I find a mistake... Still not used to the fact that the damn slashdot doesn't have an editing function. They could give you 5 minutes or something...
The other reason Quake 3 didn't have much cheating was that the mods that people played (nobody played baseq3) remained closed source.
Please answer these series of questions:
Is it easier making changes to open source software than proprietary software?
What's easier for one to modify and add functionality to, Linux or Windows? Firefox or Explorer?
Yeah, I thought so. One of the good things about Open Source software if that you can modify it, right? That's the point of the movement.
Now why isn't the same true of wallhacks and aimbots?
Logic doesn't cut it for you? Do you prefer proof? Go play Warsow, an open source shooter. Or read about the glorious days where Quake 1 was open sourced and cheating increased tenfold.
I also would like to note. I'm not against open source in any way. In fact, I'm a regular contributor of a major open source framework. What I'm saying is that this attitude of denial is ridicule. Can't we accept that Open Source isn't the ultimate answer to everything? That maybe its strength at empowering people to modify, turns against you when you are trying to stop cheating? Maybe your answer is "then don't play with people on the internet". But there are people that prefers to play and take the risk, and whenever possible they would like to minimize the occurrence of that, and closed source is undeniably the first step you want to take. No other form of counter-measure is so easy yet so effective at reducing cheating. Because you actually have to work more to make something open source than to keep it open!
But about old the double standard of "they'll modify the game anyway" astounds me. Why do we need the source for Linux then?
*closed :P
I found a site that shows off the difference between the engine version used in UT3 (version 3809) and the UDK engine (version 5860): http://www.laurenscorijn.com/udk-comparision.html
id is B(L)ACK!
I am not devoid of humor.
So Doom IV will be released December 2099 and Doom V will be released right before the end of humanity as we know it. Big deal.
I am not devoid of humor.
Look at any multi-player game that runs on the Source engine. The source code isn't released and there are cheaters everywhere.
Quake is a poor example because it was one of the first FPS multiplayer games that became popular. If the amount of cheaters start at 0 or a very small number, increasing the amount by tenfold isn't really hard to do.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
So Doom IV will be released December 2099 and Doom V will be released right before Duke Nukem Forever. Big deal.
There, fixed that for you.
It's a question of perspective.
GPL enforces full freedom for the end-user.
GPL, specially version 3, makes it so that - no matter what happens, you'll always be guaranteed to hack your freedom to tinker and hack whatever GPLv3 software you stumble upon.
Whereas a public domain software could still be locked behind some patent or blob-signing mechanism.
So you find a device, using some public domain software in its firmware. Theoretically you are allowed by the public domain status to do whatever you want with the software. Except that actually you can't, because the device checks the firmware's signature and will refuse to run whatever you want it to.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Public domain material is, within its own context, fully free, and there is no way that it can in of itself lead to tyranny either.
Two words :
Code signing
If the device on which the public domain soft runs use signature checking, no matter how much "free" the public domain status is supposed to be, you're still restricted to exercise your freedom to hack it.
GPL, specially version 3, is designed to enforce passing freedoms to the next user in chain. From the users' perspective, GPL offers more freedom.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
That's the point of public domain. It's the "do what you want, I don't care" option.
From a corporation's point of view - yes.
But *not* from a end-users point of view. GPL is the only license which enforce the his/her freedom to "do what you want", by blocking whatever a corporation may try to invent to stop the user's right to exercice the "do what you want".
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]