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Unreal Engine 3 now free!

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  • moose
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    moose polycount sponsor
    it is a seperate executable, from UT3, and Gears PC, not a patch for Gears or UT3.
  • Em.
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    Em. polycounter lvl 17
    Hmm, well, I was excited about getting our UC scene into this, but every time I try to load one of our packages it crashes while it's busy compiling our shaders. If anyone else had this issue and comes up with a solution to it, I'd love to hear it, otherwise it's back to the other one. No time to try to work it out at the moment. :(
  • Talbot
    This is perfect timing to include stuff in my college app portfolio!
  • ae.
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    ae. polycounter lvl 12
    Em. wrote: »
    Hmm, well, I was excited about getting our UC scene into this, but every time I try to load one of our packages it crashes while it's busy compiling our shaders. If anyone else had this issue and comes up with a solution to it, I'd love to hear it, otherwise it's back to the other one. No time to try to work it out at the moment. :(

    had the same issue but open up your generic browser in UDK and load your packages for the map you want to import, then import the map afterward :)
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    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?

    Thanks for the explanation. I guess I was used to seeing Torques license fee per seat. On top of that, they now want an artist seat fee as well.... heh, I bet the heads at GG are feeling the burn (and good! How they treated the transform from TGEA to Torque 3d was handled so misappropriately and how they raised the cost so much).
  • Swizzle
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    Swizzle polycounter lvl 15
    DKK wrote: »
    This makes me all the more excited to see what comes out of Valve next.

    Hopefully an entirely new engine.
  • kat
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    kat polycounter lvl 17
    ... The pricing for UDK is reasonable, but structured to take its toll on the more successful projects produced...
    Especially when you consider that's more than likely a quarter of your *gross* income and not your *net*.
  • Vrav
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    Vrav polycounter lvl 11
    kat wrote: »
    Especially when you consider that's more than likely a quarter of your *gross* income and not your *net*.
    It's really a free headstart, so free income if you're successful out of pure passion (ie, poor and homeless to begin with). If you lay down your development schedule beforehand and need a certain profit from the UDK-made game to break even, I don't think this licensing is really the way to go. For the other side, it's pretty grand, assuming you really want to ship a game that uses UE3 (as opposed to, say, Unity).
  • ElysiumGX
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    ElysiumGX polycounter lvl 18
    DKK wrote: »
    This makes me all the more excited to see what comes out of Valve next.


    PC games that people are still playing. :D I kid I kid.

    I'm glad to see a good lighting solution come from Epic. Can't wait to try out some maps with this. I had started a mod project, so this will change things greatly.
  • illadam
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    illadam polycounter lvl 14
    haha I just bought unreal 3 off steam a couple weeks ago for the engine. :\
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    I think that besides the smart move about the new license models, it is also a very good (and simple!!) way to get the engine out there. I heard the following so many times from people in the industry (not artists, more like higher level positions) :

    1/ "Wait what are you talking about Unreal3 does not come with an editor?"
    2/ "Oh but come on it cannot be the real thing? Must be a trimmed down version?"
    3/ "Beh I don't want to install Unreal3 anyways!"

    So now with an easy standalone package (still featuring UT3 assets!! How cool is that) and a hassle-free download and install, I can see many people testing shit with UDK, showcasing it's advantages, eventually leading to a possible increased number of full licenses!

    One question tho - does it now antialias?
  • JordanW
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    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    "One question tho - does it now antialias?"

    No but you can always tiledshot to render a huge image :)
  • MM
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    MM polycounter lvl 17
    6ymd5y.jpg

    wont start! i am on xp64.
  • DEElekgolo
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    DEElekgolo interpolator
    I cant run Speed Tree Modeler...
  • Richard Kain
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    Richard Kain polycounter lvl 18
    oXYnary wrote: »
    heh, I bet the heads at GG are feeling the burn (and good! How they treated the transform from TGEA to Torque 3d was handled so misappropriately and how they raised the cost so much).

    I haven't had any faith in Garage Games since my personal idol, Jeff Tunnel left. It doesn't surprise me that things have been going south since then.

    And yeah, this drastically changes the landscape of indie game development. (and the engines that fuel it) It steps the competition up dramatically. I'm still planning on using Unity for my next game project. But I will also be giving UDK a try. I am especially interested in the potential to use UDK for machinima. It looks like it has the kind of animation and scripting tools I would want, and the quality of the presentation is obviously much higher. I'll try importing some animated assets into UE3, and see how that goes.
  • empeck
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    empeck polycounter lvl 18
    bitmap wrote: »
    how the hell did you do that?
    i'm usin win 7 64bit.
    maybe that's it?

    It's not like I did something to run it. Just installed, and started, it worked.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    works great. just like the old days having max, photoshop and unreal open at the same time:)
    still get a decent framerate. I am really stoked about this release. nice one epic
  • Lee3dee
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    Lee3dee polycounter lvl 18
    empeck wrote: »
    It's not like I did something to run it. Just installed, and started, it worked.

    I'm running win 7 x64 professional and it load fast and works great :)
  • ColinR
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    ColinR polycounter lvl 9
    Lee3dee wrote: »
    I'm running win 7 x64 professional and it load fast and works great :)
    I think a few people were originally coming to the conclusion that it may be Win7, but obviously that's been debunked now. A thread over on Epic's UDK forums has a reply with acknowledging that there is a problem, and that they'll try to figure out exactly what it is. Not working here anyway either.

    Really enjoying the updated engine though, and seems far faster loading wise with everything. I've got a feeling it might take a little time to get used to the new content browser, just so used to the old one. :)
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    JordanW wrote: »
    "One question tho - does it now antialias?"

    No but you can always tiledshot to render a huge image :)

    so can i do it in realtime, render it bigger and scale it down? ;)
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
  • CrazyButcher
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    CrazyButcher polycounter lvl 18
    And yeah, this drastically changes the landscape of indie game development. (and the engines that fuel it) It steps the competition up dramatically. I'm still planning on using Unity for my next game project. But I will also be giving UDK a try. I am especially interested in the potential to use UDK for machinima. It looks like it has the kind of animation and scripting tools I would want, and the quality of the presentation is obviously much higher. I'll try importing some animated assets into UE3, and see how that goes.

    it changes the landscape for the more "hi-tech" oriented ones. Personally I think UDK is not THAT much of a threat to Unity. I'd say Unity's stable and easy to use browser plugins are a very good reason for indies. Also I'd be interested in how heavy unreal is on "low systems", ie I wonder how fast that "whizzle" game runs on "casual" machines... because installation with all that physx and what not stuff, isn't exactly "lean" for small games...

    udk definetely sucks for those engine makers who tried to compete with the "top tools". But I'd think that unreal's toolbox (despite being extremely complete and battle proven) is also more "professional/complex" than other stuff... But I have no experience how "simple" it is to do "simple" stuff with ue3...

    as for scripting, people need to get away from the opinion that scripting makes things impossible. The amount of time the engine will spend on game-logic is typically a fraction of what is going on with the graphics system (animation updates, particles, physics, scene management....) which is written in the fastest possible way.
    So even when it's slower than writing in C/C++, it's easier to write (ie faster to develop with) and as it only has a fraction of the total frame, the time difference will not make things slower...

    You typically don't do major number crunching in scripting...
  • SyncViewS
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    SyncViewS polycounter lvl 13
    @ MM: I just installed it on xp64 and seems to run smooth. It could be some issue on your machine. Make sure you have latest video drivers and DirectX as well as .Net Framework 3.5 SP1. Last one is enforced by the installer. Hoping this helps.
  • vj_box
    Got mine and installed the kit and i must say,its full of awesomeness.Just cant stop looking at the lighting enhancements made in the engine.
  • JFletcher
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    JFletcher polycounter lvl 13
    Well fiddle my sphincter! I didn't see this coming. This should really be great. :)

    Just gotta learn to import models into UT3 now.
  • martinszeme
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    martinszeme polycounter lvl 8
    Downloading now! Just downloaded the Unity engine too. Soooooo Excited! :)
  • Zpanzer
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    Zpanzer polycounter lvl 8
    JFletcher wrote: »
    Well fiddle my sphincter! I didn't see this coming. This should really be great. :)

    Just gotta learn to import models into UT3 now.

    Export to .ase, make a new package inside the content browser inside unreal, drag and drop your .ase file into the emtpy space, done :P
  • JordanW
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    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    Neox wrote: »
    so can i do it in realtime, render it bigger and scale it down? ;)

    Heh you could always try doing some Edge smoothing Post.
  • doc rob
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    doc rob polycounter lvl 19
    If you are pros looking to get Unreal for free, that ain't going to happen. So, the limited platform selection and the licensing terms are a small price to pay to have access to this. This is awesome news even if you are a Unity faithful because it will push Unity to stay competitive.

    Like you guys have said, there's not much market overlap between Unreal and Unity, so I think most teams will have an easy choice on which one to use.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    good point Doc_rob, but there is nothing stopping a group of pros creating a prototype in this version with no upfront engine costs and using that to pitch to publisher to aquire a full license, especially if its a group of people leaving established studios to do their own thing.

    creating some awesome ohh ahh visuals for investors and such. plus having a playable prototype is always a plus, then all you need t do is port the content to the licensed build.
  • Jeremy Wright
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    Jeremy Wright polycounter lvl 17
    ...there is nothing stopping a group of pros creating a prototype in this version with no upfront engine costs and using that to pitch to publisher to aquire a full license.

    This is a good idea.
  • Vailias
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    Vailias polycounter lvl 18
    Scripting: Anyone here actually scripted anything on the latest Unreal engine? stop worrying about it. As of UE3 the scripting even has a precompiler.

    The first time I ever touched C# I went, "Oh. Microsoft copied Unrealscript." While I am biased, unrealscript has to be one of the most powerful scripting languages out there, and with the way that unreal titles code is setup usually you can do just about anything you want in script as easily, or even more easily than if you had source access in another engine. (Im looking at you torque)

    There certainly is a learning curve to some of Unreal's stuff, but the power is obscene enough to warrant it.

    If only I were at my home workstation to download this. Its the sort of thing I've been waiting for for years. The UE2 version of this didn't quite stack up for me as you weren't allowed to make games with it.

    Also on the 25% being "a lot"...
    Really?
    Xbox Indie Games has a higher royalty fee than that, and it starts with your first sale.
  • Richard Kain
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    Richard Kain polycounter lvl 18
    Vailias wrote: »
    Also on the 25% being "a lot"...
    Really?
    Xbox Indie Games has a higher royalty fee than that, and it starts with your first sale.

    Well for me, the issue isn't the 25% so much as it is how that is going to cut into my total revenue, on top of other expenses. If I use someone elses digital distribution system, they are going to be taking a hefty chunk of the sales, and the total amount I can expect to make in revenue is much smaller.

    The ideal situation is to distribute it yourself digitally. But that has a whole different set of costs involved. Of course, for an indie project it may actually be best to slap a PayPal icon up there, and go the donation route. (since this would save you the expense of distribution as well as copy-protection measures) The downside is that your overall revenue from this method is highly unreliable, and there is no way to track your "sales." It would be an approach that a very small team of one to three people might take. But a larger team couldn't make do with that.

    Of course, this release actually has us all thinking about these things. That is perhaps the most encouraging development. We're all wondering how we could leverage this new development to create and market our own titles. Vive indies!
  • Vrav
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    Vrav polycounter lvl 11
    Richard, this post was interesting when it was still ongoing - at least it offers a list of digital distribution companies, now. There are similar posts under the business tag. http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/01/indie-friendly-online-distributors/

    A ton of other ways to give your money to an indie developer: http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/04/wolfire-now-accepts-amazon-payments/ (I'm not trying to advertise the game, but they have many payment options. And they're cool anyway.) If you're public enough about something, and really don't want to give up a further royalty cut, you don't actually need to use Steam... or you could just offer it everywhere imaginable like these guys did.
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    Heh. I wonder if they consider episodic games one or more? In example. You create each episode for $25 cents. Then release 10 at a time that smoothly can connect into one another like loading new levels. Now, that would require many more purchases of each episode to reach the 5000 mark. 20000 to be exact.

    I know, its a cheap way to overcome the percentage system. ;)
  • notman
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    notman polycounter lvl 18
    No doubt people are going to find ways around this system, but in all honesty, do you really think they don't deserve the 25% cut? I know that's an assload of money if you consider how many games may be developed from this, but their software will be providing over 25% of any project you'll use it for.

    Not to mention, how many FREE projects will be able to exist from this? I'm considering working with it now, and I won't be charging for my final product. Even if I did, I wouldn't have issue with sharing the 25%.
  • TWilson
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    TWilson polycounter lvl 18
    Indy Development! FUCK YEAS
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    Honestly? I wouldn't have as much issue if Epic did this. Use the 25% it acquires from you as downpayments for full license (plus a extra percentage required since you didnt buy the license outright when first starting). When you reach that, you auto get the full source, and your percentage requirement drops down to the normal 3% for all sales after that point. This is also accumulative. So if your first game only reaches half that point, your second game sales are added to the total that Epic has. Versus each game you having to restart from 0.

    Now that, would be awesome. I understand, not as profitable for them. But sure would make the 25% more swollable to indies actually trying to survive/thrive. If Epic doesn't see this light, make Crytek will.
  • notman
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    notman polycounter lvl 18
    Well, if you look at iPhone apps, many developers have gotten around Apple's cut by offering an app for free, then use a login, which ties to a web system. You pay for an account online, then use that login to use the app. Then Apple gets nothing. Same could apply here.

    But again, personally, I don't have much issue with them earning something when using their product. And who knows what will happen in the end. Maybe they will adjust their agreement later, to provide an option as you referenced. It's worth at least trying it. If your game pays out, and you no longer want to share this way, then develop the sequel on a different sytem.
  • shadows
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    shadows polycounter lvl 18
    Anyone else having issues with this engine version being a total crash fest? Right now it's worst than the "customized" (ie. we fucked it up,removed a few things..have fun) version we used to get from clients.
    I've mainly been using the material editor so far, but it crashes at random. Example just connecting a node might crash the engine. I reopen it and reconnect the same node and it works fine, until I do something else it doesn't like.

    The latest UT3 engine version was really stable for me, so this is kind of a surprise that it's crashing so much.
  • Vrav
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    Vrav polycounter lvl 11
    Not really crashing for me, but I am on XP 32bit with somewhat low specs, so I'm not doing anything super intensive. Just sorta hoping the non-crashiness doesn't change when I hear stuff like that, hahh. That's lame.
  • Xoliul
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    Xoliul polycounter lvl 14
    All systems go here on Windows 7 64bit, Speedtree works too.

    Just played their little demo; it's INSANE how much better those UT3 maps look with the lighting all redone! I really need to get something in there ASAP :)
  • achillesian
    Holy shit...more than $5000?...25% of your income...really good deal...


    wait,... what?
  • JasonLavoie
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    JasonLavoie polycounter lvl 18
    Xoliul wrote: »
    All systems go here on Windows 7 64bit, Speedtree works too.

    Just played their little demo; it's INSANE how much better those UT3 maps look with the lighting all redone! I really need to get something in there ASAP :)

    Ditto mc doritos on that one man.

    Ruz - nice example man, I'm surprised it kept your style intact (from your own renders compared to in unreal).
  • shadows
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    shadows polycounter lvl 18
    Rebuilt the shader inside the UDK version from scratch and it seems to be much more stable so far. Still crashed a few times, but a lot less compared to when I was using the shader that was made in the UT3 version.Bleh
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    speaking of cuts, how much do publishers like EA take?
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    ZacD wrote: »
    speaking of cuts, how much do publishers like EA take?

    just the tip
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    jason, yeah it seems a bit easier these days to get the results I am after in the engine.

    I have worked with it before professionally, so i had some idea how to use it.

    whether the stuff I am doing is the way some shader expert would do it is another matter:)

    crashes a bit and it chugs a bit on my quad core, though i am on 32 bit Win xp, so I can only use around 3.5 gigs or so of my 8gigs of ram

    also a bit of graphic corruption when using my dual monitors. bit irksome, but not a show stopper
  • Xoliul
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    Xoliul polycounter lvl 14
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