Author Topic: Unreal Engine 3 Free For Indies  (Read 3503 times)

Jam0864

  • Contributor
  • Fanatic
  • **
  • Posts: 744
    • MSN Messenger - marmalade0864@hotmail.com
    • View Profile
    • Jam0864's Content Dump
    • Email
Unreal Engine 3 Free For Indies
« on: 2009-11-13, 05:54:06 PM »
http://www.moddb.com/engines/unreal-engine-3/news/unreal-engine-3-free-to-indies

Quote from: ModDB
Only a week after Unity announced the free use of their engine for indie and mod teams, Epic Games has unveiled UDK UNREAL DEVELOPMENT KIT (clever name that) for use by indie and mod teams. While the choice of tools and engines available to mod and indie developers increases by the day, traditionally engines the magnitude and relevance of UE have been out of the reach of smaller teams due to licensing costs edging close to a million.

However while it may be free to develop and release a non-commercial game, should you wish to profit from your hard work the current UDK license states that 25% of all revenue earnt beyond $5,000 will be paid to Epic as your licensing cost. I consider this a small price to pay with no risk for developers who now have access to proven technology.
Download UDK From ModDB

What will the developers do with this? Only time will tell, I for one see the availability of unrestrictive powerful tools like this as PROOF of the POWER that PC gaming still has. While traditional PC developers (i.e. Infinity Ward and others) may be shunning the PC crowd with "consolized" versions of their game and trying to convince us that the reason for these decisions are to provide a better experience, we know better, and we deserve better. No other platform provides the power and creativity possibilities that the PC does, no other platform makes you jump through hoops to release via digital distribution. Indie developers... I for one eagerly await the games you make because of decisions like this, as I know you only making games you want to make and play.








http://www.develop-online.net/news/33198/Epic-releases-free-version-of-Unreal-Engine

Quote from: develop online
Just a week after Unity announced its engine was 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 can be downloaded at www.udk.com, which also offers detailed product features, technical documentation, commercial licensing terms and support resources.

Epic is calling the move 'an unprecedented milestone in game development' - the Unreal Engine is widely used in games for a variety of projects. Almost ever major publisher has signed up big licensing deals for the engine to form the basis of a number of high profile titles.

The UDK contains all the most recently added features in UE3 including, the studio says, "many that have yet to be seen in an Unreal Engine game". Epic has also promised to keep releasing ongoing, upgraded builds of UDK for free.
Article continues below

Advertisement
Scaleform

Currently the UDK only supports PC development - but Epic said it was 'considering' a console version.

The studio also reckons that the commercial terms for those switching from the free version should they choose to sell their project or have it published will find that is is "easy for independent developers, start-up firms and seasoned professionals to use UDK with minimal financial barrier from concept to deployment".

« Last Edit: 2009-11-13, 05:57:16 PM by Jam0864 »

TheLaw

  • Regular
  • **
  • Posts: 96
    • View Profile
Re: Unreal Engine 3 Free For Indies
« Reply #1 on: 2009-11-13, 07:01:32 PM »
Yeah, That's awesome stuff! I've been drooling over it for a little while now, but my computer doesn't have enough horsepower to run it  :(

I sorta feel bad mentioning competition on sites like this, haha, but, while we're at it the amazing Unity is now free (with a few asterisks here and there!) http://unity3d.com/  ...Oddly they both went free at about the same time...!?

We live in exciting times!
I fought the law and TheLaw won...!

Jam0864

  • Contributor
  • Fanatic
  • **
  • Posts: 744
    • MSN Messenger - marmalade0864@hotmail.com
    • View Profile
    • Jam0864's Content Dump
    • Email
Re: Unreal Engine 3 Free For Indies
« Reply #2 on: 2009-11-13, 08:21:13 PM »
One going free can pressure others to, heard speculation that cryengine 2 is going to as well because of this.

I wouldn't really call it competition, sgdk2 is 2d and these are 3d, completely different developmental process and end result. (And the engines and games themselves both target seperate audiences.)

dutch_619

  • Regular
  • **
  • Posts: 90
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Unreal Engine 3 Free For Indies
« Reply #3 on: 2009-11-16, 12:29:08 PM »
Heh, a friend of mine and I have about 15 playable minutes of a game called "Rev 16" built on unreal. We gave up eventually as it's just too much work for 2 people. It's a helluva game engine though. The kinesthetic hooks in the software are nicely done. It beats the old style frame-select method of calling an animation.