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Epic releasing free version of Unreal Engine 3

Gomu Gomu said:
Why not? Despite the shit the engine gets from regular gamers. It is an excellent engine, that's capable of doing lots of things. And now it's free.
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I can think of a bunch of reasons.

First, any limitations that do exist in the engine will be industry-wide.

Second, any platforms that go unsupported by UE would automatically be on the out-list. Think of the iPhone and its subsequent iterations as an example.

Third, it creates extreme barriers of entry for anyone else trying to produce a commercially viable engine. Even if I made a product that was clearly superior to UE, how could I possibly compete when UE is taught in schools?
 
Naeblish said:
Oh yes, we want more games with that unique look.
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I want more games with that unique look Mirror's Edge had.

Draft said:
But couldn't a mod be pretty easily turned into a commercial product using this release?
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I think it depends on how much the mod relies on assets/code from UT3 or Gears PC, and how much of those can be used here. Turning a mod into a stand-alone commercial product might not be that easy.

Opiate said:
I still do not want an entire generation of programmers all tied to a single engine because that's how they were taught.
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This is probably Epic's goal with UDK.

Campster said:
Also, for the record, this license is attrocious and the only real benefits here are for non-commercial use. Which is cool if you're in acadamia or just want to learn the tools that the majority of the industry uses in pursuit of a job, but I seriously question if any games can make money with 25% of their revenue being taken by Epic after publishers also take their share.

There are far better engines for small games with far less restrictive licenses on your use of the engine out there.
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Yes, but this license is specifically aimed at students and indie developers. Professional developers have other options better suited to them.
 
Jocchan said:
I think it depends on how much the mod relies on assets/code from UT3 or Gears PC, and how much of those can be used here. Turning a mod into a stand-alone commercial product might not be that easy.
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Sure, of course.

But a TC using all custom assets on top of the UE3 engine just basically transformed from a mod that requires UT3 to run into a "real" game that anyone could run and could conceivably be sold for a profit.
 
Draft said:
Sure, of course.

But a TC using all custom assets on top of the UE3 engine just basically transformed from a mod that requires UT3 to run into a "real" game that anyone could run and could conceivably be sold for a profit.
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Yeah, of course.
 
Jocchan said:
Yes, but this license is specifically aimed at students and indie developers. Professional developers have other options better suited to them.
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Right, but that's my point - 25% of everything earned after $5,000 is an insanely non-trivial amount for an indie developer. That's almost the level of revenue publishers take out, but you're not getting any publishing benefits; Epic doesn't provide advertising or distribution or financial backing or an iPhone style console with an install base of 20 million. Epic is giving you an engine and expecting publisher-level returns for their generosity. Even if overcome all odds and make a game using the UT3 engine and get it put on PSN or Live Arcade, Microsoft/Sony will be taking 25-30% off the top and then Epic will demand 25% of what's left. At that point you're left with 52.5-56.25% of the revenue for a game that will have cost more to make.

Now again, this is a really sweet deal for people interested in learning the tools used by a significant portion of the mainstream games industry (especially those looking to get jobs in it someday). It's also a great deal for academia - I went to a school that had to pay substantial royalties to Epic for use of its engine for research projects and this would have been helpful for funding.

But the reality is there are better engines suited towards small independent game development if you're interested in turning a profit. You don't get source access for an engine that you might only make use of 20% of and you're giving up a quarter of your revenue for the privilege. You're tied only to the platforms they care about (I.E., PS3, 360, PC) and your business is at most a tertiary concern to them behind "real" engine licensees and their internal game development. They're not keen to support increasingly common indie features like 2D development or web browser play, and in fact all of their tools are aimed at mega-budget blockbusters released on a DVD at retail. All in all I think this is a nice gesture but it's really more about breeding the next generation of Unreal Engine developers than producing a democratized game engine for all. And the Free* comes with a giant asterisk next to it.
 
Cat in the Hat said:
Sweet! Now we can all makes games that run at 15 fps on the PS3.
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Did UT3? Because it seemed to run pretty fine to me. At least the best use of UE3 on the PS3.

Meanwhile: Boo, I rather have Doom 3's engine be GPL'ed (maybe in a few years) than this. :(
 
Dipswitch said:
Cool beans. Anyone know how big the install package is?
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It's 1 Gig on my computer right now.

And from BeyondUnreal

"With UDK, you will also be able to create commercial games to sell on digital distribution platforms like Steam. The licensing details for this have yet to be released, however it seems likely you will be able to start selling your game without spending a dime out of your own pocket."
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YuriLowell said:
Examples?
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Torque (Penny-Arcade: OTRSPOD), Unity (Blurst's stuff, Fusion Fall), Ogre (Torchlight), GameMaker (Spelunky, which granted is a stretch), GPL'd id engines. If you're a small enough indie or are interested in doing advergames, Flash (Innumerable examples).

None of these approach the power of UT3, granted, but they're all far cheaper.
 
I remember when they released Havok for free, was a heck of a lot of fun to play around with. Came with a freakin awesome visual debugger as well.
 
gofreak said:
What would be good now would be a central repository where people can easily share art assets.

I'm sure one already exists?

Just thinking of poor lone programmers and their 'programmer art' :x

Having a nice sort of 'youtube of assets' where you can browse and share etc. would be cool.
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You're talking about something like Turbosquid I guess?
 
Littleberu said:
It's 1 Gig on my computer right now.
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I downloaded a 563 MB install executable. Am I missing something? Whizzle perhaps?

Edit: I'm getting both Whizzle and the "The Ball" samples, adding up to 1 GB, so I guess it was that.
 
Campster said:
Right, but that's my point - 25% of everything earned after $5,000 is an insanely non-trivial amount for an indie developer. That's almost the level of revenue publishers take out, but you're not getting any publishing benefits; Epic doesn't provide advertising or distribution or financial backing or an iPhone style console with an install base of 20 million. Epic is giving you an engine and expecting publisher-level returns for their generosity. Even if overcome all odds and make a game using the UT3 engine and get it put on PSN or Live Arcade, Microsoft/Sony will be taking 25-30% off the top and then Epic will demand 25% of what's left. At that point you're left with 52.5-56.25% of the revenue for a game that will have cost more to make.

Now again, this is a really sweet deal for people interested in learning the tools used by a significant portion of the mainstream games industry (especially those looking to get jobs in it someday). It's also a great deal for academia - I went to a school that had to pay substantial royalties to Epic for use of its engine for research projects and this would have been helpful for funding.

But the reality is there are better engines suited towards small independent game development if you're interested in turning a profit. You don't get source access for an engine that you might only make use of 20% of and you're giving up a quarter of your revenue for the privilege. You're tied only to the platforms they care about (I.E., PS3, 360, PC) and your business is at most a tertiary concern to them behind "real" engine licensees and their internal game development. They're not keen to support increasingly common indie features like 2D development or web browser play, and in fact all of their tools are aimed at mega-budget blockbusters released on a DVD at retail. All in all I think this is a nice gesture but it's really more about breeding the next generation of Unreal Engine developers than producing a democratized game engine for all. And the Free* comes with a giant asterisk next to it.
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This is close to my sense of this, albiet with more insider knowledge than I'd ever be privy to.

This seems clearly intended to propogate Epic's dominance of the Engine-licensing industry, even if that's not actually a great deal for everyone.
 
Free for educational purposes is smart. It means college students will learn how to make games using UE3, so maybe they'll prefer UE4 when they get a job.
 
FirewalkR said:
I downloaded a 563 MB install executable. Am I missing something? Whizzle perhaps?

Edit: I'm getting both Whizzle and the "The Ball" samples, adding up to 1 GB, so I guess it was that.
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I'm talking "installed on my computer". The exe is indeed 564 MB.
 
How is this different from what is already available? If you buy UT3 you already have access to everything you need for "for noncommercial or educational use," except some lower-level engine stuff. But definitely enough for a hobbyist or indie dev.

Also licensees get documentation...will they release that?

edit: We did it with UT2K4 at NCSU a couple years ago and Epic didn't help at all. We had to buy our own copies of UT2K4 - not like I'm complaining about the price, but it was just weird how uninvolved they were with the university. There is an actual game development program now, so maybe there is a better partnership.

edit: ehh nm, you have to buy your own books too, I guess i was more upset about how little official documentation we had to go on. It would have been nice for epic to help out more at the university level, but maybe that is what they are doing now.
 
All the features listed on the UDK site look great. It's a shame that with how busy life is for me this will just go on the "woudn't it be fun to learn more about this sometime" pile along with XNA. Still better tools for cheaper is always a good thing for the industry.
 
Big thumbs up. I wish I could get the Unreal Editor working with something like Borderlands (it looks like it has most of the files there already), or UnrealScript working with Mirror's Edge...then we'd have some REAL fun.

I probably won't take the time to mess with this since I'm making my own simple 2D game engine, but it's nice to see released!
 
bistromathics said:
How is this different from what is already available? If you buy UT3 you already have access to everything you need for "for noncommercial or educational use," except some lower-level engine stuff. But definitely enough for a hobbyist or indie dev.

Also licensees get documentation...will they release that?

edit: We did it with UT2K4 at NCSU a couple years ago and Epic didn't help at all. We had to buy our own copies of UT2K4 - not like I'm complaining about the price, but it was just weird how uninvolved they were with the university. There is an actual game development program now, so maybe there is a better partnership.

edit: ehh nm, you have to buy your own books too, I guess i was more upset about how little official documentation we had to go on. It would have been nice for epic to help out more at the university level, but maybe that is what they are doing now.
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Now, you don't have to buy UT3, and the game compiled and built with the UDK are stand alone, meaning you don't need either the UDK or UT3 (or GoW) to play them.

Also, the SDK with Unreal Tournament 3 do not includes the most recent version of the tool. UDK does.

From BeyondUnreal forum :

Man, one thing I hope you guys realize is that this is almost EXACTLY the engine build that we're using here at Epic!

You get every single feature that we've been using here that aren't even in any games yet! We only got some of these features last week!

Can't wait to see some of the cool shizzle that comes out of this
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Gomu Gomu said:
Excellent. I've got questions though. So if I made a game, and wanted to make it commercial and gain profit from selling it. Then I have to pay Epic fees right? Do you have any idea how much money we're talking about? Also, why haven't they done this before? Why release a free UDK now?
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$1 million.

There's been a "free" version around for ages now, the full editor came with UT3.

Edit: They've added new indie friendly licensing terms then? Nice.
 
I hope to see more games like Shadow Complex, seems like a good start in terms of indie development.
 
cooljeanius said:
No Mac version means I keep using Unity.
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hercthumbgafav.jpg
 
I also saw that about the Unity Engine, that's neat. I'm probably wasting my time making my own stuff. :(

I forgot to mention that I -am- interested in what global illumination stuff they added that hasn't been used in games yet, and whether it's at all comparable to Beast in terms of quality.
 
Blizzard said:
I also saw that about the Unity Engine, that's neat. I'm probably wasting my time making my own stuff. :(

I forgot to mention that I -am- interested in what global illumination stuff they added that hasn't been used in games yet, and whether it's at all comparable to Beast in terms of quality.
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They released a few screenshots:

1.) http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/planetun..._screens_GDC09/jpeg/Lightmass_Daylight_01.jpg
2.) http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/planetun...screens_GDC09/jpeg/Lightmass_MeshLight_01.jpg

Personally I think Beast looks nicer, but I might be factoring in the quality of the assets Beast is usually running on versus what appears to be a quickly thrown together level for a tech demo.
 
Opiate said:
I'm quite hesitant about this. While I'm aware that Engines are more flexible than most give them credit for, I still do not want an entire generation of programmers all tied to a single engine because that's how they were taught.
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Programmers aren't "taught" on an engine. A programmer should be able to adapt to a wide variety of development environments. Do you mean designers? I could feasibly see a level designer using nothing but Unreal Engine and becoming extremely accustomed to that toolset, in the same way an artist could be really accustomed to Maya or something. But a good designer should still be able to transfer the actual underlying design skills.
 
I've used the editor that comes with the game. I don't know how different it is from the one they released today. It's a nightmare to use. If the commercial engine is anything like the editor that comes with the games, I don't know how that thing managed to become so popular.
 
brain_stew said:
$1 million.

There's been a "free" version around for ages now, the full editor came with UT3.

Edit: They've added new indie friendly licensing terms then? Nice.
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That's not true at all. It's not 1 million.

Edit : The goal of this editor is to release STAND ALONE GAME, not MODs, which required UT3. It's about userbase and accessibility.

UDK Site said:
A team creates a game with UDK that they intend to sell. After six months of development, they release the game through digital distribution and they earn €15,000 in the first calendar quarter after release. Their use of UDK during development requires no fee. After earning €15,000, they would be required to pay Epic €2,500 (€0 on the first €5,000 in revenue, and €2,500 on the next €10,000 in revenue). On subsequent revenue, they are required to pay the 25% royalty.
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That's only one of the term right now. They're working with Steam.

I've used the editor that comes with the game. I don't know how different it is from the one they released today. It's a nightmare to use. If the commercial engine is anything like the editor that comes with the games, I don't know how that thing managed to become so popular.
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What editor is easier? Keep in my mind, I don't want this to turn into an game engine war.
 
Well damn. Add it to the growing pile of things I'll have to delve deeper into to see which, if any, will fit into my aspirations going forward. DBPro popping out a free version recently was also news to me likewise
 
Chris Remo said:
Programmers aren't "taught" on an engine. A programmer should be able to adapt to a wide variety of development environments. Do you mean designers? I could feasibly see a level designer using nothing but Unreal Engine and becoming extremely accustomed to that toolset, in the same way an artist could be really accustomed to Maya or something. But a good designer should still be able to transfer the actual underlying design skills.
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This is true, but as far as what goes on under the hood - that's really important stuff to understand if you're ever doing anything not using middleware. I've always believed it helps to know the fundamentals and have got to agree with Opiate on this.
 
If you are creating a game or commercial application using UDK for sale or distribution to an end-user or client, or if you are providing services in connection with a game or application, the per-seat option does not apply. Instead the license terms for this arrangement are $0 (zero) up-front, and a 0% royalty on you or your company's first $5,000 (US) in UDK related revenue, and a 25% royalty on UDK related revenue above $5,000 (US). UDK related revenue includes, but is not limited to, monies earned from: sales, services, training, advertisements, sponsorships, endorsements, memberships, subscription fees, rentals and pay-to-play.

Example:

# A team creates a game with UDK that they intend to sell. After six months of development, they release the game through digital distribution and they earn €15,000 in the first calendar quarter after release. Their use of UDK during development requires no fee. After earning €15,000, they would be required to pay Epic €2,500 (€0 on the first €5,000 in revenue, and €2,500 on the next €10,000 in revenue). On subsequent revenue, they are required to pay the 25% royalty.
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So by stating my income in Euros rather then USD, I can avoid paying $600 more in fees?
 
This is fuckin' sweet. Especially for anybody interested in making a game that would be free in the first place, licenses aside.
 
Wow this is cool.

I had UT3 installed just to play with the mod tools. Not sure how I missed this yesterday.
 
I'm already playing around with it, loading 3d models I've done with 3DSMax and Zbrush. It's so awesome to be able to jump around buildings and stuff I've done in 3D :lol

I might use this for my next year's school project (I'm in a design school, game course)
 
Awesome. I will definitely check this out and get in way over my head.
 
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