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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

#191

Post by Havoc »

antiuniverse wrote: post #133
deelowe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?52618-Large-S... According to this thread, as of version 4.6, the maximum supported multiplayer map size out of the box is 20km x 20km. Is this the limitation you were referring to? That wouldn't accommodate an MMORPG or Minecraft, but otherwise seems quite big.

Never understood the concept of measuring map size in km. It's like measuring distance on a map while ignoring scaling. Something like source's hammer units make a lot more sense to me.

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

#193

Post by neckro23 »

Havoc wrote: post #191
antiuniverse wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?52618-Large-S... According to this thread, as of version 4.6, the maximum supported multiplayer map size out of the box is 20km x 20km. Is this the limitation you were referring to? That wouldn't accommodate an MMORPG or Minecraft, but otherwise seems quite big.

Never understood the concept of measuring map size in km. It's like measuring distance on a map while ignoring scaling. Something like source's hammer units make a lot more sense to me.

In Source the scale is fixed (1 "unit" ~= 1 inch) and I imagine the same's true for UE.

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

#194

Post by neckro23 »

imaginenore wrote: post #167
higherpurpose wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Crytek's graphics look quite a bit better and more realistic then Unreal 4, but I don't know if the tools are just as good. Also not sure if Cryengine is competitive from a performance point of view (could be a trade-off with the better graphics).

Unreal Engine 4 is capable of producing VERY realistic environments. Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6PQ19BEE24&t=15s

If you prebake the lighting and use ridiculously high-rez textures, you can make any 3D engine look like that. Static geometry is cheap.

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

#195

Post by obstinate »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #178
jameshart wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems pretty gameable (and who would be better at gaming systems than games devs?). "Oh, yeah, we made $2999 on Gem Clan Quest, then $2999 on Gem Clan Quest Super Deluxe Edition, and $2999 on the Gem Clan Quest Candy Kingdom DLC, which is more of a sequel really, so it's a totally different product..."

My guess is their not interested in the small fry and are looking for companies that earn hundreds of millions. If a company was gaming this pricing creating 100 products each earning $4,000 (vs. $400k) they are saving $15,000 and are likely to hurt their business via customer confusion.

It may also be a case of people you don't want as your customer. I can only imagine that someone with this kind of attitude would use support resources very heavily if they had access to paid support. Maybe not to the tune of $15k, but who knows.

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

#196

Post by bpicolo »

antiuniverse wrote: post #133
deelowe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?52618-Large-S... According to this thread, as of version 4.6, the maximum supported multiplayer map size out of the box is 20km x 20km. Is this the limitation you were referring to? That wouldn't accommodate an MMORPG or Minecraft, but otherwise seems quite big.

sure it would. you don't have to load it all at once

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

#197

Post by antidamage »

drx wrote: post #40
walru wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wanted to know how the 5% royalty is enforced. Other, much lesser known, engines have attempted to do something of this sort by acting as an intermediary eg. publisher, planning to pay developers after they were paid by Apple. For obvious reasons that was immediately dismembered by the community. The only way I can figure is they'll ask for an iTunes connect login so they can check on the numbers for them…

Lawsuits. I imagine the revenue distribution would follow a power law here. So it would only really make sense for Epic to go after non-compliant "whales", where the unpaid royalties exceed the legal costs. Also, the more profitable the project, the lower the non-compliance rate, probably. It makes little sense to defy the royalty agreement if you have a successful project.

They don't necessarily need to do a lawsuit. They could just shut down your UE subscription until you file the relevant proof of earnings.

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

#198

Post by antidamage »

neckro23 wrote: post #193
Havoc wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never understood the concept of measuring map size in km. It's like measuring distance on a map while ignoring scaling. Something like source's hammer units make a lot more sense to me.

In Source the scale is fixed (1 "unit" ~= 1 inch) and I imagine the same's true for UE.

1 unit = 1cm in UE, so 20km has some value as a measurement in game.

Of course, what matters more is what you do in that 20km, but it's also a limit coupled tightly with distant mesh performance and float accuracy issues.

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

#199

Post by esrauch »

ctdonath wrote: post #148
gnufied wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For developing with UE4, we recommend a desktop PC with Windows 7 64-bit or a Mac with Mac OS X 10.9.2 or later, 8 GB RAM and a quad-core Intel or AMD processor, and a DX11 compatible video card. UE4 will run on desktops and laptops below these recommendations, but performance may be limited.

"Recommend". If you're trying to develop as close to "free" as possible, "performance may be limited." (I'm often puzzled that when I suggest a nigh-unto-free solution to a problem, someone usually complains some form of "but that's not optimal!" Of course it's not optimal if you're not willing to put substantial resources into it. Just because the solution isn't perfect doesn't mean there isn't one; do what you can…

I think the point is that it is going to be worse than just laggy UI, it's going to be very painful if you try to use that computer for developing using UE4.

Which isn't to discourage people, there is a lot you can do with that kind of mid tier machine, but you are probably much better off trying to something else than UE4.

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

#200

Post by darkmighty »

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.

Writing a rendering system or this rendering system? I think you're underestimating the tech here. Could you match their real time global illumination, radiosity, physically based rendering, etc with good performance? I get the impression you'd need to go over like 100 different papers to even get a baseline implementation, without any clever optimizations, for a modern engine like UE4.
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