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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."
I found a screenshot of Doom 5.
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-- For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing.
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.
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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Wont be a Linux version, both Linux users are busy debating the root escalation flaw
+1 Footshot
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 ]
John Carmack specifically told he did not want to be like Epic. They had (relatively) huge success with Quake 3 engine sales, however he had to spend lots of time for technical support of engine licensees, while he could've spend those times on this on games.
Please look at this:
http://kotaku.com/5339057/john-carmack-ok-with-id-not-becoming-an-epic-or-valve
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!