I figure this is as good a spot as any to ask. I'm getting weird lighting issues with my scene - any ideas? I've turned on both AO and Lightmass, preview settings then baked.
EDIT: I fixed the black pod by unchecking 'Use precomputed shadow' on the mesh's settings.
This must mean an all new expensive UE4 must be around the corner. Why give up the cash cow?
Who says they are? They'll make more money this way. Also, they undercut all the smaller free engines. Who wants to use Torque when you can use Unreal?
@Adam, had the same issue myself, it's because all lights have been turned into modulate lights, select all lights in the scene and set their shadow mode to default/normal fromModulate. You may have to mess about with the lighting channels too as they'd have been reset.
Another thing, have a play with the lightmass brightness control as it's default (1.00) was too high and washed out the scene. Also be prepared to delete all of your bounce lights that you placed, as lightmass really takes care of all of it, just place light sources and a very weak ambient/skylight.
Oh and about the spots: Do they have an emissive material? They will illuminate the surrounding area if so, this can be dissabled.
Yeah, if you really want to convert a map to use with lightmass you should delete all of your lights, use a dominant directional light for your primary sun/moon whatever, it'll give you really nice sharp shadows. And use environment color in worldproperties->lightmass to get light from the sky. DO NOT use skylights, they just add an ambient light color and dont get occlusion.
Also make sure all of your assets have lightmap coordinates, vertex colors are lame.
Just to be clear... baking w/ lightmass takes time? I'm 10 minutes in and roughly 5% through (with my lightmassimportancevolume set around a small percentage of the overall scene) and the bake quality is 'Preview'.
25% is a lot of money. a fucking lot. Richard Kain is right.
I'm interested in comparing this to unity3d, which is a much better deal financially, and will run in your web browser should you want that. unreal 3 is certainly more powerful.. buuuutttt is an indie team generally going to use that power difference, for the extra money?
Heh heh...my ego always loves being told it is right.
These are some very good questions. With this release, Unity3D and UE3 are placed in direct competition for the indie scene. They both have their pros and cons.
As far as cross-platform development is concerned, Unity3D wins hands-down. I don't think there is any question in this category. Unity3D is cross-platform as hell! It allows for development on Windows and Mac OSX, and can export executables for Windows, OSX, Linux, Web Player, Wii, and soon even the XBox 360. UDK currently only runs and exports executables for Windows. Although the possibility for porting in the future exists, Unity takes the cake for cross-platform.
For graphics, it is an obvious victory for UDK. UE3 is already known for having some of the best rendering in the industry. UDK does not limit the user in any way, giving them full access to all the shaders and graphical tools available for the engine. Unity3D limits the lighting and shadowing possible in the free version. Although you can use lightmaps, it will not allow real-time 3D shadowing in the free version. Unity is also generally optimized for lower hardware specs than UE3.
Neither engine allows source code access in their free iteration, so that is a wash. Both offer scripting. Unity has greater variety, allowing you to use multiple different langauges. UDK provides better scripting tools in the Kismet visual scripting system. Only further use and experience with both systems will determine which a developer prefers.
The pricing structure heavily favors Unity, which requires zero money for full commercial ventures. The pricing for UDK is reasonable, but structured to take its toll on the more successful projects produced.
This is ultimately going to come down to preference, and the scope of the project being developed. UDK has more graphical features and tools, while Unity is much friendlier on pricing and distribution. A small game focused on using stylized graphics would probably be better produced by Unity. A game focused on using advanced shaders, or possibly machinima projects, would be better produced by UDK.
You either have a slow pc or you have some crazy lightmap resolution settings. That or your scene has way more meshes than mine. Baking our scene in ~3 minutes on production quality w/ no importance volume.
Just to be clear... baking w/ lightmass takes time? I'm 10 minutes in and roughly 5% through (with my lightmassimportancevolume set around a small percentage of the overall scene) and the bake quality is 'Preview'.
It does take longer yeah, it'll usually sit on 10.1% in the log for a bit and then continue. Then the lightmaps will be encoded as usual.
You either have a slow pc or you have some crazy lightmap resolution settings. That or your scene has way more meshes than mine. Baking our scene in ~3 minutes on production quality w/ no importance volume.
It's likely my mesh count, judging by your recent pics. My lightmap resolutions aren't anything bananas, and right now I have 1 directional in my scene. Still taking some time, will see how she goes.
question can you upgrade to a purchases engine if your game starts doing well like say my project starts selling, and i predict that it will rake in tons of money before i hit the 5k mark can i upgrade to the standard license? also what if i pay the 25% long enough to earn cash to upgrade and buy a licents can i do that and not keep paying 25%? if so then the worry of paying them 250k on a million buck selling game is not a problem
Cool stuff guys! I think for my UC entry I will continue on with UT3 editor. Too far in the game to up and change what I have, risk problems, etc. etc.
Who says they are? They'll make more money this way. Also, they undercut all the smaller free engines. Who wants to use Torque when you can use Unreal?
For some reason I missed the 25% part.
Anywho I won't complain. I've been curious about lightmass for a while now so this is all good. :thumbup: I can now uninstall UT3 from eating 8GB of space on my ever dwindling hard drive.
Never really messed around with Unreal Engine 3, despite buying the special edition of UT3. Didn't really like the game, etc... so it's great to have this now. Simply reading the startup tips has got me liking it. Whoever wrote those tips is awesome. (I'm assuming the entire team!) I can imagine releasing portfolio levels as standalone playable apps, just for fun... but then if I got a job I'd probably owe Epic 25% of my paycheck the rest of my life, hahah.
edit: god I hope not. The only way to circumvent it would be to get a job at Epic, and how likely is that? Ha.
question can you upgrade to a purchases engine if your game starts doing well like say my project starts selling, and i predict that it will rake in tons of money before i hit the 5k mark can i upgrade to the standard license? also what if i pay the 25% long enough to earn cash to upgrade and buy a licents can i do that and not keep paying 25%? if so then the worry of paying them 250k on a million buck selling game is not a problem
Yea thats what Im wondering. If you go past the point of a normal license cost. Will they have a cutoff? I mean I expect some bonus beyond the normal license cost since we originally got it for free. Maybe twice the amount of a license per seat. After that though, we get the full engine/source beyond that profit point. I mean it doesnt make sense in that.
Indie makes a huge success, reaches over 1/2 mill sales. Epic keeps raking in the 25%. Ok, so wheres the payoff for the Indie. They are beyond the cost of 1-2 normal licenses. Does that mean when they reach that point, Epic will give them the full source code so they can further optimize/improve the game and export to other systems? Or will the Indie be stuck the just the UDN with Epic getting 25% for the life of the product. With no option to get it on other platforms?
This all sounds good initially, but Richard is right (oh god i just stoked your ego more ). There is some left over questions and suggestions I would want to see answered/explained.
god epics going to make so much money.... Seriously...
There are sooo many people who want to start off a company but don't have the money... now they get one of the best engines on the market for a very low cost. Most publishers want to see atleast 1 shipped game for a company in order to give funding, so i think that alot of indies will be popping up here shortly.
I am having the same problem as bitmap where I cant open the speedtree modeler in vista 64 bit. Besides that it is nice to play around with the newest editor .
It's a shame programmers can't do much with this, otherwise I bet a lot of mods from different engines might convert to this, but getting a whole game play to work just with scripting won't work I suppose. I feel this still limits people from going all the way with this, or am I wrong?
work out for airborn, as an addition to the style, not like doesn't work in general
didn't want to bitch around, i love whats happening with udk and i bet we will switch we just have to see what works out for us and what not, there are currently different things going on, these are crazy times and we have to sort out what would work best for us, i have no doubt that all the new features are fine as they are, wished we had them before
god epics going to make so much money.... Seriously...
There are sooo many people who want to start off a company but don't have the money... now they get one of the best engines on the market for a very low cost. Most publishers want to see atleast 1 shipped game for a company in order to give funding, so i think that alot of indies will be popping up here shortly.
is 25% really a low cost to you? Or is it just that you don't intend to make money?
It's a shame programmers can't do much with this, otherwise I bet a lot of mods from different engines might convert to this, but getting a whole game play to work just with scripting won't work I suppose. I feel this still limits people from going all the way with this, or am I wrong?
It depends. It looks like several teams have used the engine and scripting to create games that are not FPS mods. So it is definitely possible to create custom gameplay with just scripting. It will place limits on the development. The only way to have full control is by supplying the full source code. But a lot of basic gameplay and game logic doesn't need to be low-level. You'd be surprised what can be accomplished through scripting.
People used to make full Flash games using just Actionscript 1.0 and 2.0. (which were definitely scripting langauges) So the potential is definitely there.
Douchebaggery incoming. Why are you assuming that you will make millions from this?
Isn't this a great foot in the door anyway? Release a title. Get some cash, recognition, experience and then BUY A PROPER LICENSE FROM THE MONEY YOU GOT and release another product and "cash in on those millions".
Or do you have cash laying about that you can spend on buying a proper liscense for everybody from the get go? It's not like some random producer will hand you a mil for development anyway. UDK seems to be the most logical riskfree choice right now for indies.
is 25% really a low cost to you? Or is it just that you don't intend to make money?
think of what you'd pay to get the unreal engine and how many units you have to sell till you have the point where it doesn't give you the cut you have now, once you have the money you could still buy the real deal engine and stop paying royalties. Of course if you sell millions of games at some point it will hurt you but in the end, you came there for free with a toolset thats outstanding and doesn't need as much work as some other free engines might need to get to that point of productivity.
is 25% really a low cost to you? Or is it just that you don't intend to make money?
It's a matter of balancing overhead. If you are going with a digital distribution title, you can probably afford the 25% overhead for the game engine. If you only end up making $10,000 on your first game, then Epic's cut is less than if you had bought a full developers liscence.
If you hit it big and make some serious money off of this, Epic gets a big fat percentage. This is the price of not paying for the development tools initially. In exchange for zero up-front investment, you promise to deliver a sizeable chunk of revenue. The barrier to entry is lowered, while the eventual royalties increase.
And 25% isn't so unreasonable, especially considering the kind of engine you are getting. Ultimately, the feasability of using it depends on the situation you find yourself in. A small team of 10-15 developers probably won't want to use UDK. A team like that is going to have a substantial amount of overhead from their salaries and living expenses alone. An additional 25% shaved off of their sales would not be sustainable. A small team of 2-5 developers, on the other hand, would be able to handle a 25% cost for the engine.
Another big factor is how much of a slice your distribution channel takes. The publisher usually gets the biggest piece of the pie. If you use a digital distribution service that only takes a 5 - 10% slice, then 25% is sustainable. If your digital distribution is insisting on their own 25% chunk, then that combined with the cost of the engine is too much.
Right now, one of the most accessible markets for indie developers is the iTunes store, and that takes a 30% chunk without offering any game engine. And don't even get me started with retail distribution. If you go through retail channels, you'll be lucky to keep 25% of the profit, no matter what engine you're using.
think of what you'd pay to get the unreal engine and how many units you have to sell till you have the point where it doesn't give you the cut you have now, once you have the money you could still buy the real deal engine and stop paying royalties. Of course if you sell millions of games at some point it will hurt you but in the end, you came there for free with a toolset thats outstanding and doesn't need as much work as some other free engines might need to get to that point of productivity.
notorios beat me on this one ^^
Aaw but your opinion/support/post is valid anyway. After all, You're probably one of those that are most likely to cash in on those "millions" anyway. ;D
Has this been confirmed though Notorious and Neox?
That you can simply upgrade to a full license at the point you become profitable? Or are you contracted to use the UDK for the life of the game? I mean, if you originally created the game in UDK, at what point are you no longer financially responsible for the 25%? I didn't see a mention of the 25% being dropped once you became profitable and purchased full license. Also, what if you created the UDk with a team of people, but in the end, only have one person needing a full license. Did not Epic get screwed?
I'm speaking about a whole new product/game and I assume neox is doing so aswell.
I have no idea about the situations you bring up.
EDIT: To clarify. You "cash in" on the first project and pay 25% to epic and then use the money you have left to pay for licenses to do another game / project without the 25% epic tax.
UDK seems to be the most logical riskfree choice right now for indies.
I wouldn't go quite that far. As I pointed out earlier, Unity is probably the best riskfree choice for indies. That doesn't mean its the best option overall. But it is definitely the option that represents the lowest amount of risk. (you spend nothing, and continue to spend nothing, zero overhead is always nice)
Out of the more graphical intensive game engines, I would be willing to concede that UDK is probably the best. You're getting a lot, and the hypothetical 25% doesn't even come into play until you've managed to make a sizeable chunk of sales.
And a big push for UDK isn't even going to be for commercial products. It's primary purpose is likely for education, recruitment, and solidifying the Unreal 3 engine's dominant position in the present industry. It will be very interesting to see how the other engine developers react to this. I'll bet Torque and ID are wetting themselves.
Thats what I am speaking about. Creating a new game from the UDK. Can one upgrade to the full version and not be responsible for the 25% then. If possible, is that before or after release? Like again purchasing one copy of full license in end, while in actuality an entire team used the UDK and normally would have required multiple licenses (which would screw Epic, so I assume something is not allowing this in the legality).
Or is the developer stuck with the UDK once they begin a project on it. Period. No upgrades available if they can afford to eventually buy the full sdk. No ability to export to other platforms as well if the SDK is locked out with the license agreement.
There is this glaring hole I havent seen anyone attempt to tackle yet.
Notorious: I saw your edit. That still doesnt make sense for the current game released.
Or is the developer stuck with the UDK once they begin a project on it. Period. No upgrades available if they can afford to eventually buy the full sdk. No ability to export to other platforms as well if the SDK is locked out with the license agreement.
A non-refundable, non-recoupable license fee is due on execution of the agreement. The cost is US $350,000 for one of the available Unreal Engine 2 platforms, plus US $50,000 for each additional platform. A royalty of 3% is due on all revenue from the game, calculated on the wholesale price of the product minus (for console SKUs) console manufacturer fees. In the case of massive-multiplayer online games, the royalty is also due on the additional forms of revenue including subscriptions and advertisements.
Those terms are for the Unreal Engine 2. Not 3...2. So to liscence the Unreal 2 engine you have to pay $350,000 up front, an additional $50,000 for any subsequent ports, and then 3% on any and all revenue that the game earns. Developers already have to pay royalties for Unreal engine liscencing. And I imagine the fees are even higher for UE3.
This isn't like liscencing for 3D software. It's not an issue of purchasing liscences for each employee. The liscencing is usually handled per title, and how many people are working on it is largely immaterial.
Do you want to pay the 25% of your theoretical profits? Or do you want to pay nearly half a million up front? If you manage to score $1,000,000 with your first UDK title, Epic will take $250,000, and you will probably end up spending less then if you opted for the regular plan.
The only way you really lose out with this is if you are knocking down tens of millions in sales. And at that point, is 25% really that big of a deal?
Replies
EDIT: I fixed the black pod by unchecking 'Use precomputed shadow' on the mesh's settings.
Here's what it looked like in UT3 editor:
EDIT: Set one around my foreground objects, baking now. Will report results.
I've added one in around the foreground area of my shot and will report the results.
Who says they are? They'll make more money this way. Also, they undercut all the smaller free engines. Who wants to use Torque when you can use Unreal?
Another thing, have a play with the lightmass brightness control as it's default (1.00) was too high and washed out the scene. Also be prepared to delete all of your bounce lights that you placed, as lightmass really takes care of all of it, just place light sources and a very weak ambient/skylight.
Oh and about the spots: Do they have an emissive material? They will illuminate the surrounding area if so, this can be dissabled.
Also make sure all of your assets have lightmap coordinates, vertex colors are lame.
Heh heh...my ego always loves being told it is right.
These are some very good questions. With this release, Unity3D and UE3 are placed in direct competition for the indie scene. They both have their pros and cons.
As far as cross-platform development is concerned, Unity3D wins hands-down. I don't think there is any question in this category. Unity3D is cross-platform as hell! It allows for development on Windows and Mac OSX, and can export executables for Windows, OSX, Linux, Web Player, Wii, and soon even the XBox 360. UDK currently only runs and exports executables for Windows. Although the possibility for porting in the future exists, Unity takes the cake for cross-platform.
For graphics, it is an obvious victory for UDK. UE3 is already known for having some of the best rendering in the industry. UDK does not limit the user in any way, giving them full access to all the shaders and graphical tools available for the engine. Unity3D limits the lighting and shadowing possible in the free version. Although you can use lightmaps, it will not allow real-time 3D shadowing in the free version. Unity is also generally optimized for lower hardware specs than UE3.
Neither engine allows source code access in their free iteration, so that is a wash. Both offer scripting. Unity has greater variety, allowing you to use multiple different langauges. UDK provides better scripting tools in the Kismet visual scripting system. Only further use and experience with both systems will determine which a developer prefers.
The pricing structure heavily favors Unity, which requires zero money for full commercial ventures. The pricing for UDK is reasonable, but structured to take its toll on the more successful projects produced.
This is ultimately going to come down to preference, and the scope of the project being developed. UDK has more graphical features and tools, while Unity is much friendlier on pricing and distribution. A small game focused on using stylized graphics would probably be better produced by Unity. A game focused on using advanced shaders, or possibly machinima projects, would be better produced by UDK.
It does take longer yeah, it'll usually sit on 10.1% in the log for a bit and then continue. Then the lightmaps will be encoded as usual.
Even though they would take 25% for a profitable release, still better for a indie dev then buying it!
It's likely my mesh count, judging by your recent pics. My lightmap resolutions aren't anything bananas, and right now I have 1 directional in my scene. Still taking some time, will see how she goes.
Works for me. Vista Home Premium 64bit.
I've even compiled one example, and imported it into editor.
For some reason I missed the 25% part.
Anywho I won't complain. I've been curious about lightmass for a while now so this is all good. :thumbup: I can now uninstall UT3 from eating 8GB of space on my ever dwindling hard drive.
I wonder the same. But think they have to pull something out of their hat now.
edit: god I hope not. The only way to circumvent it would be to get a job at Epic, and how likely is that? Ha.
1 Light.
moar --- 1 directional light
UDK does NOT support xbox and ps3 right now. they're currently interested in that, but they need support from each console to pull it off.
nice renders guys. man, this engine sure looks nice.
Yea thats what Im wondering. If you go past the point of a normal license cost. Will they have a cutoff? I mean I expect some bonus beyond the normal license cost since we originally got it for free. Maybe twice the amount of a license per seat. After that though, we get the full engine/source beyond that profit point. I mean it doesnt make sense in that.
Indie makes a huge success, reaches over 1/2 mill sales. Epic keeps raking in the 25%. Ok, so wheres the payoff for the Indie. They are beyond the cost of 1-2 normal licenses. Does that mean when they reach that point, Epic will give them the full source code so they can further optimize/improve the game and export to other systems? Or will the Indie be stuck the just the UDN with Epic getting 25% for the life of the product. With no option to get it on other platforms?
This all sounds good initially, but Richard is right (oh god i just stoked your ego more
There are sooo many people who want to start off a company but don't have the money... now they get one of the best engines on the market for a very low cost. Most publishers want to see atleast 1 shipped game for a company in order to give funding, so i think that alot of indies will be popping up here shortly.
how the hell did you do that?
i'm usin win 7 64bit.
maybe that's it?
work out for airborn, as an addition to the style, not like doesn't work in general
didn't want to bitch around, i love whats happening with udk and i bet we will switch we just have to see what works out for us and what not, there are currently different things going on, these are crazy times and we have to sort out what would work best for us, i have no doubt that all the new features are fine as they are, wished we had them before
is 25% really a low cost to you? Or is it just that you don't intend to make money?
It depends. It looks like several teams have used the engine and scripting to create games that are not FPS mods. So it is definitely possible to create custom gameplay with just scripting. It will place limits on the development. The only way to have full control is by supplying the full source code. But a lot of basic gameplay and game logic doesn't need to be low-level. You'd be surprised what can be accomplished through scripting.
People used to make full Flash games using just Actionscript 1.0 and 2.0. (which were definitely scripting langauges) So the potential is definitely there.
Isn't this a great foot in the door anyway? Release a title. Get some cash, recognition, experience and then BUY A PROPER LICENSE FROM THE MONEY YOU GOT and release another product and "cash in on those millions".
Or do you have cash laying about that you can spend on buying a proper liscense for everybody from the get go? It's not like some random producer will hand you a mil for development anyway. UDK seems to be the most logical riskfree choice right now for indies.
think of what you'd pay to get the unreal engine and how many units you have to sell till you have the point where it doesn't give you the cut you have now, once you have the money you could still buy the real deal engine and stop paying royalties. Of course if you sell millions of games at some point it will hurt you but in the end, you came there for free with a toolset thats outstanding and doesn't need as much work as some other free engines might need to get to that point of productivity.
notorios beat me on this one ^^
It's a matter of balancing overhead. If you are going with a digital distribution title, you can probably afford the 25% overhead for the game engine. If you only end up making $10,000 on your first game, then Epic's cut is less than if you had bought a full developers liscence.
If you hit it big and make some serious money off of this, Epic gets a big fat percentage. This is the price of not paying for the development tools initially. In exchange for zero up-front investment, you promise to deliver a sizeable chunk of revenue. The barrier to entry is lowered, while the eventual royalties increase.
And 25% isn't so unreasonable, especially considering the kind of engine you are getting. Ultimately, the feasability of using it depends on the situation you find yourself in. A small team of 10-15 developers probably won't want to use UDK. A team like that is going to have a substantial amount of overhead from their salaries and living expenses alone. An additional 25% shaved off of their sales would not be sustainable. A small team of 2-5 developers, on the other hand, would be able to handle a 25% cost for the engine.
Another big factor is how much of a slice your distribution channel takes. The publisher usually gets the biggest piece of the pie. If you use a digital distribution service that only takes a 5 - 10% slice, then 25% is sustainable. If your digital distribution is insisting on their own 25% chunk, then that combined with the cost of the engine is too much.
Right now, one of the most accessible markets for indie developers is the iTunes store, and that takes a 30% chunk without offering any game engine. And don't even get me started with retail distribution. If you go through retail channels, you'll be lucky to keep 25% of the profit, no matter what engine you're using.
Aaw but your opinion/support/post is valid anyway. After all, You're probably one of those that are most likely to cash in on those "millions" anyway. ;D
That you can simply upgrade to a full license at the point you become profitable? Or are you contracted to use the UDK for the life of the game? I mean, if you originally created the game in UDK, at what point are you no longer financially responsible for the 25%? I didn't see a mention of the 25% being dropped once you became profitable and purchased full license. Also, what if you created the UDk with a team of people, but in the end, only have one person needing a full license. Did not Epic get screwed?
I have no idea about the situations you bring up.
EDIT: To clarify. You "cash in" on the first project and pay 25% to epic and then use the money you have left to pay for licenses to do another game / project without the 25% epic tax.
I wouldn't go quite that far. As I pointed out earlier, Unity is probably the best riskfree choice for indies. That doesn't mean its the best option overall. But it is definitely the option that represents the lowest amount of risk. (you spend nothing, and continue to spend nothing, zero overhead is always nice)
Out of the more graphical intensive game engines, I would be willing to concede that UDK is probably the best. You're getting a lot, and the hypothetical 25% doesn't even come into play until you've managed to make a sizeable chunk of sales.
And a big push for UDK isn't even going to be for commercial products. It's primary purpose is likely for education, recruitment, and solidifying the Unreal 3 engine's dominant position in the present industry. It will be very interesting to see how the other engine developers react to this. I'll bet Torque and ID are wetting themselves.
Or is the developer stuck with the UDK once they begin a project on it. Period. No upgrades available if they can afford to eventually buy the full sdk. No ability to export to other platforms as well if the SDK is locked out with the license agreement.
There is this glaring hole I havent seen anyone attempt to tackle yet.
Notorious: I saw your edit. That still doesnt make sense for the current game released.
is this an upgrade/patch to the exisiting Unreal Editor?
or a completely new application installed separatley?
Here's an excerpt from Epic's website...
Those terms are for the Unreal Engine 2. Not 3...2. So to liscence the Unreal 2 engine you have to pay $350,000 up front, an additional $50,000 for any subsequent ports, and then 3% on any and all revenue that the game earns. Developers already have to pay royalties for Unreal engine liscencing. And I imagine the fees are even higher for UE3.
This isn't like liscencing for 3D software. It's not an issue of purchasing liscences for each employee. The liscencing is usually handled per title, and how many people are working on it is largely immaterial.
Do you want to pay the 25% of your theoretical profits? Or do you want to pay nearly half a million up front? If you manage to score $1,000,000 with your first UDK title, Epic will take $250,000, and you will probably end up spending less then if you opted for the regular plan.
The only way you really lose out with this is if you are knocking down tens of millions in sales. And at that point, is 25% really that big of a deal?