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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperTechnical (Moderator: ThemsAllTook)Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free
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Author Topic: Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free  (Read 3067 times)
Potato
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« on: March 02, 2015, 11:12:14 AM »

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Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free, and all future updates will be free!

You can download the engine and use it for everything from game development, education, architecture, and visualization to VR, film and animation. When you ship a game or application, you pay a 5% royalty on gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter. It’s a simple arrangement in which we succeed only when you succeed.

This is the complete technology we use at Epic when building our own games. It scales from indie projects to high-end blockbusters; it supports all the major platforms; and it includes 100% of the C++ source code. Our goal is to give you absolutely everything, so that you can do anything and be in control of your schedule and your destiny. Whatever you require to build and ship your game, you can find it in UE4, source it in the Marketplace, or build it yourself – and then share it with others.

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free
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Superb Joe
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« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2015, 11:46:12 AM »

so many tools with which to not make games. you're living in the days of plenty now my bitch.
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« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2015, 02:50:12 PM »

has anyone used unreal? is it as easy as unity? Cause the basic games look damn better.
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« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2015, 03:25:31 PM »

has anyone used unreal? is it as easy as unity? Cause the basic games look damn better.

I use it a lot along with unity.  One part it has that unity doesn't are good starting projects like first person, third person, car, some others.  They also have a pretty large starter content import that has a lot of good looking materials.  You can build level geometry with BSP and get moving on an idea right away.

Right now I've stuck to using unity for 2D and have been exploring 3D ideas in unreal.  2D has definitely improved in Unreal, I think in the latest 4.7 update they added support for tile maps. 

One thing though is that unreal is a hog on mac which is a bummer.  I have a good PC rig with good specs to push graphics but I like to use a macbook air when I'm on the go. 
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« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2015, 03:37:34 PM »

I'm not sure this topic really belongs in General. It seems it should either go in Games, Technical, or possibly Business.

But to the topic at hand, this is a great change for smaller, indie developers. The switch to a subscription model for UE4 that we found out about last year was already a step in the right direction. This announcement tears down one of the last barriers to entry for indies, students, and hobbyists.

I'm not planning on stopping my Unity development, I just have a lot of experience with that engine. But I will seriously consider porting my current tool project over to UE4, especially if I don't find any comparable lip-sync tools already integrated. Now that I don't have to pay to get access to the engine, why not?
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« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2015, 04:03:36 PM »

has anyone used unreal? is it as easy as unity? Cause the basic games look damn better.

for 3d stuff it's ultra-turbo super easy to use. if you're afraid of real code, blueprints are there to help you, but if you can do code, it pays off to learn unreal brand of c++, having immediate access to source code, when ever something unclear pops up or happens, is illuminating, no other word.
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« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2015, 07:03:25 PM »

has anyone used unreal? is it as easy as unity? Cause the basic games look damn better.

They are both equally easy to use.  Unreal has some features that only 0.1% of game developers would use.

When you see a high quality demo, realize that it's the artists and programmers who made that demo shine.  Spend more money on people and you will get a nicer demo.
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« Reply #7 on: March 03, 2015, 02:36:54 AM »

has anyone used unreal? is it as easy as unity? Cause the basic games look damn better.

I'm using both and in my opinion Unity is more immediately accessible and user friendly but Unreal has more potential, particularly for more advanced/experienced users and people willing to code.

The biggest difference in feel between the two for me is that Unity is clearly designed from the ground up to be a generic game engine which it does a good job of.  It adheres well to its entity component design and gives you a lot of flexibility in structuring and organising your game as you see fit.  Unreal on the other hand has clearly evolved from a bespoke tool and is still carrying around a lot of baggage and legacy from its origins.  As a result it can be quirky to use since it makes a lot of unwanted assumptions for you regarding your game that makes it less flexible but also makes me distrust it since it can sometimes do unwanted things behind your back.

The flip side of that coin is that there's nothing Unreal can do which you cant figure out if you put the time into debugging it since you get all the source code to work with.  This also means that if the engine is missing some feature which you later realise you need there is always the option of extending the engine.  That makes it a lot safer prospect since Unity is a black box so you always run the risk that you might run into an issue which you simply cant analyse or fix which could sink your project.  This can turn out to be very important since support for both engines sucks.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2015, 02:48:11 AM by motorherp » Logged
InfiniteStateMachine
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« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2015, 05:19:26 AM »

has anyone used unreal? is it as easy as unity? Cause the basic games look damn better.

I"ve used both. Unity was a bit easier to learn at first but over time I found Unreal easier to understand. I vastly prefer Unreal to Unity but I also don't work on mobile often. Unreal still has some work to do in the mobile space but they are making progress rapidly.
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« Reply #9 on: March 03, 2015, 05:29:42 AM »

This is definitely a step in the right direction for Unreal. Now there's a good reason for anyone to get into 3D game development. Good move on their part!
« Last Edit: March 03, 2015, 06:30:12 AM by snowstorm » Logged

Craig
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« Reply #10 on: March 03, 2015, 06:26:33 AM »

Now there's no reason for anyone who's been thinking about getting into 3D game development to do so.
Yeah, now we'll get rid of all pesky 3D games. c;
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« Reply #11 on: March 03, 2015, 06:31:20 AM »

Now there's no reason for anyone who's been thinking about getting into 3D game development to do so.
Yeah, now we'll get rid of all pesky 3D games. c;

Oh no, my bad! Cheesy I fixed my original post.
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Craig
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« Reply #12 on: March 05, 2015, 10:43:47 PM »

I already had a license because of some competition that was giving out keys, but now I can just update whenever which is cool.

I haven't actually had the chance to use it, so I might check it out this weekend and learn how to actually make a game in it.
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« Reply #13 on: March 07, 2015, 09:25:32 AM »

If you know how to use Unity you will be able to figure out how to use Unreal. The biggest difference is whether you're comfortable in c# or c++ and how important the various advantages and disadvantages of each are to you. Unreal looks better graphically and has full source access while Unity has a lot of obtuse elements that you're just stuck with, but that 5% royalty might not be worth it, for instance.
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« Reply #14 on: March 07, 2015, 02:30:06 PM »

If the event occurs that you make a crapload of money I'm sure Epic would let you just buy a license and knock out the royalty.
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« Reply #15 on: March 08, 2015, 02:03:42 AM »

The only thing I dislike with UE4 so far is that it's using naming conventions that contradict mine (a subset of Hungarian notation - I don't describe variable's type, only stuff like being const, a pointer, an argument, static, etc.)

Really upsetting Waaagh!
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« Reply #16 on: March 08, 2015, 03:06:18 PM »

What does this engine actually do for you that you could not do yourself?
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Richard Kain
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« Reply #17 on: March 09, 2015, 11:38:47 AM »

What does this engine actually do for you that you could not do yourself?

Not really the point, is it? The real question is, "what does this engine do for you that would take an obscene amount of time to do yourself?"

Most engines provide functionality that you could replicate on your own if you had the time, experience, and know-how. A game engine isn't a necessity for a capable programmer, it's a shortcut. It's a means of stepping from point A to point B much more quickly than if you attempted to do it all on your own. In this fashion, it is similar to a lot of the programming libraries that many programmers take advantage of. Sure, you could replicate the functionality of OpenGL yourself if you really wanted to. But most coders just use the library that already exists. In the same way, many developers and designers will just use the engine that already exists.

I would think that you would look on Unreal 4 even more favorably than most other engines. It actually allows for source-control access, even for the free option. If there's anything low-level that you feel like tweaking in UE4, you can do it.
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ThemsAllTook
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« Reply #18 on: March 09, 2015, 12:33:28 PM »

What does this engine actually do for you that you could not do yourself?

Not really the point, is it? The real question is, "what does this engine do for you that would take an obscene amount of time to do yourself?"

Same difference. I'm also curious what specific things draw people to use something like Unreal instead of implementing from scratch. The potential benefits aren't obvious to everyone.
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« Reply #19 on: March 09, 2015, 01:26:27 PM »

I perfectly understand it when a bunch of scripters and artists meet to create a carbon copy of Gears of War or something originating from the same pipeline established for them.

But if you are someone who wants to be in exact control of mechanical interactivity (gameplay, physics, collision etc.) and code system architecture it is hard to see a benefit to it. I would feel more safe to create my own engine than hunting down the bugs in a foreign one.
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