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Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free

unrealengine.com

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Re: Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free

#181

Post by greggman »

ffn wrote: post #147
jokoon wrote: post #129

How really easy is it to set up a beginner's project with this engine ? I mean it's a commercial engine, it has all the bells and whistles, but how easy is it to learn it ? Does it require one to use the editor to use the engine, or can I start with a simple bit of code and start going from there ? What I hate about unity is the whole interface editor thing, it's big and you must use everything to use it. Is this Unr…

In my opinion, if you're just a hobbyist programmer who want to experiment building games on the side, it makes more sense to build your MVP demo using humble html5 canvas (I personally use pixijs, but things like threejs or whatnot might be more appropriate depending on your idea). This is because building a good indie game is a big commitment requiring lots of time (which is money), and unless you're building this…

It really depends on what type of game you're planning to make. Go to any game jam and look at the amazing games prototyped in Unity over a weekend. Compare the html5 games. It's often night and day. The amount of stuff you can get done in an engine you're familiar with so many tools and plugins at your disposal is a huge force multiplier.

Of course do whatever you want. Most of my projects have been HTML5. But at the same time I recognize that free importing of nearly any format of 3d assets into unity and built in animation, collision, physics, ability to edit nearly all parameters at runtime, even code. Is a huge boost once you get used to it.

Re: Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free

#182

Post by greggman »

jrlocke wrote: post #18

A demo of the astounding capabilities for those who haven't seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6PQ19BEE24

According to the AAA graphics programmers I've consulted with now that we're in the age of physics based renderers this level of detail is pretty much possible in all 3d engines. You could take those assets, throw them in pretty much any other physically based renderer and they'd look the same.

I would be nice to see someone try that with these assets.

Re: Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free

#183

Post by SXX »

GhotiFish wrote: post #121
SXX wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this library can now be effectively used for open source initiatives. No it's can't be because UE4 is proprietary: http://opensource.org/osd

?? ... so? What provision on that page would I violate if I made an FLOSS project based on UE4?

Your project going to be derivative work from UE4. It's mean Epic of course allow you to share it's source code, but you can't grant any more right to 3rd parties than Epic grated to you.

So no way UE4-based project will be FLOSS or even open source.

Re: Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free

#184

Post by SXX »

psquid wrote: post #144
GhotiFish wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

?? ... so? What provision on that page would I violate if I made an FLOSS project based on UE4?

#2, "The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form." Unreal's license for obtaining the source does not permit you to redistribute in source form, so you can't comply with their license and still fulfil that point. While it's certainly trivial now for most anyone to obtain that source independently, you can't include that source in your own project while sti…

I think there would be huge problem to what count as "your own project source" as it's going to will hugely use UE4 code. So I posted my thoughts on licensing above.

Re: Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free

#185

Post by SXX »

nulltype wrote: post #79
vetinari wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not Open Source either: http://opensource.org/osd

I think microsoft calls this "Shared Source"

Actually no. Microsoft branded several licenses that way, but some of them are OSI-approved and FSF-approved (while not compatible with GPL).

Re: Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free

#186

Post by shadowmint »

deelowe wrote: post #28
outworlder wrote: post #9

How does it fare against Unity? My understanding, from previous versions, is that Unity offered a lot more tooling than Unreal. Also, Unreal's SDK demanded a lot of C++ code, which can be unappealing for small studios compared to Unity's Mono and several possible (managed) language choices. However, Unreal appears to be much more capable, and better performing. Also, is Crytek still competitive? It used to be competi…

It's hard to compare unity and unreal. To answer the question about c++, with UE4, the blueprint system removes almost all of that. Entire games can be written in their visual programming language. I also think there are ways to use c# ( https://mono-ue.github.io/ ), if you prefer that as well. C++ is needed if you want to extend the native classes. Regarding the editor, unreal is pretty amazing. It really shines in…

    Regarding the editor, unreal is pretty amazing.
If it runs.

...and that's a big IF. The editor ran like absolute rubbish originally on macs, to the point where it was actually unusable.

They've done a lot of work on that, but it's still miles away from the unity editor.

I think it's really hard to argue the unreal editor is better; it's a lot slower, but it does have some nice tools.

You also can't create extensions as easily (if at all?) as you can for unity.

As you say, they're two different things, and the unreal editor is actually not bad... but if you were to compare them, the unity one would certainly rank more highly.

Re: Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free

#187

Post by daemin »

Arelius wrote: post #159
worklogin wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a state-of-the-art graphics library, a critical component to your new, moderately successful video game, doesn't deserve 5% of the revenue?

Perhaps not, as a graphics programmer, rewriting the rendering system is comparatively simple, enjoyable, and perhaps not worth 5% of a moderately successful game. However, UE4 is much more than just a graphics library. I'd argue that it's editor alone is worth many times more than their rendering features. And IMO, it's trivially worth the 5% of revenue.

Yeah, any reasonably skilled programmer can write a pretty graphics engine as a hobby project, since that is the fun part of making an engine. It's all of the other boring stuff that is worth (arguably) more than 5%. Writing the resource management system and the editors takes a long time and a lot more effort and is not as fun or glamorous as writing a rendering engine.

Re: Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free

#189

Post by WillPostForFood »

brandonwamboldt wrote: post #50
arikrak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't need the C++ performance, my guess is it makes more sense to go with Unity and use their C# version.

It's not as clear cut. You can use C# with Unreal Engine if you prefer, and Unreal Engine offers a lot that Unity doesn't (e.g. Blueprints). I recommend everyone interested in the two try both. I personally prefer Unreal Engine, but everyone is different. Unreal Engine is also moving quite quickly, adding new features, marketplace content, improving the UI, etc.

To redistribute code written with Mono for Unreal Engine, you must have a commercial license to the Mono runtime. These licenses are available from Xamarin for Mac, Android and iOS online, and you can request Windows licenses through support.

https://mono-ue.github.io/about.html

If you want to code in C# it is the primary language for Unity, and a commercial third party unsupported add on for UE4.

Re: Unreal Engine 4 is now available to everyone for free

#190

Post by daemin »

puranjay wrote: post #96
bladedtoys wrote: post #55

I'm very glad of course but... ...technically all they did was lower the price by $19 a month. ...and bought a lot of press for that ...and a lot more shots at the 5% revenue. It's really great of course. But better yet, it's really very clever.

$19/month isn't much to you, but to a 15 year old tinkerer, or the 19 year old college freshman, it's good money. Throughout its history, the best innovations in gaming have come from such people, the most recent being Palmer Luckey.

Unreal Engine was free for students since at least October last year (2014).
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