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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

#231

Post by talmand »

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.

Also, keep in mind that's likely 20km x 20km x 20km.

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

#232

Post by feyzee »

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…

CryENGINE is now available as Software as a Service model. $10 a month and no royalties

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

#233

Post by moogleii »

walru wrote: post #31
scott_karana wrote: post #3

It appears they've backed off on the royalties, too: originally, it was 5% of gross[1], and now it's 5% of gross after $3000 sales per quarter.[2] 1 https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/welcome-to-unreal-engine-4 2 https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

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…

Speaking as another developer, their terms sound incredibly fair.

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

#234

Post by k00pa »

malkia wrote: post #30
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…

Can you even compare them :) Evaluation of software, be it library, framework, sdk or a whole engine+tools is much much harder than writing actual software, especially when royalties, copyright and other legal issues are involved. In reality there is no way of knowing what would do your best, so you can look at specific bad parts and take that into decision making, for example, for what I've heard (and possibly it co…

I have never heard about this "fame", yet I cannot think about game that is 30-only fps?

I can think a lot of games that are ue1-4 that are not bound by fps limits at all.

Editor in UE4 is streamlined from what UE3 was. Its now quite easy in the end.

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

#235

Post by j_s »

rplnt wrote: post #157
zerr wrote: post #93

I wish Xamarin had a similar license...

I wish Xamarin had any license accessible to hobbyists.

In case you are not aware, last fall they doubled the free edition size limit and introduced a $25/month subscription option (eventually the same price at $300/yr).

https://store.xamarin.com/

Xamarin is free for students.

https://xamarin.com/student

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

#236

Post by hasenj »

EpicEng wrote: post #221
hasenj wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural definition for "free" in the software development world has come to mean "open source". It doesn't matter what the word means outside this sphere. Otherwise, "engine" usually refers to something like a car engine.

That's a bold claim. I have been writing software for more than a decade and I still associate "free" with "no monetary cost".

Are you talking about the product or the source code?

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

#237

Post by ttctciyf »

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…

For some developers, source access must be a huge deal over Unity free version - if you want to roll your own entity system or do a native plug... WAIT! unity 5 is now out, including all features in the unity engine for free (including native plugins), with no subscription, and entirely invalidating the premise of this comment.

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

#238

Post by malkia »

k00pa wrote: post #234
malkia wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you even compare them :) Evaluation of software, be it library, framework, sdk or a whole engine+tools is much much harder than writing actual software, especially when royalties, copyright and other legal issues are involved. In reality there is no way of knowing what would do your best, so you can look at specific bad parts and take that into decision making, for example, for what I've heard (and possibly it co…

I have never heard about this "fame", yet I cannot think about game that is 30-only fps? I can think a lot of games that are ue1-4 that are not bound by fps limits at all. Editor in UE4 is streamlined from what UE3 was. Its now quite easy in the end.

Sorry, I wasn't clear - from what I know, on the consoles only few Unreal games on one specific console made it to 60fps. I could be wrong, and have old information, and yes this greatly relates to older Unreal engines, and from what I've heard (over and over from people working with it) it was the script language and kismet (maybe I'm confusing terms here) that was the limiting factor.

Now I'm a generalist, that ended up as tools engineer, so I might be talking complete non-sense, but again when I've talked to anyone from my previous studio or others that was the overall sentiment - Unreal can't give us 60fps unless Epic are directly involved and custom version for a game is done.

(Obviously you can do 60fps always, but it may not be up to the visual quality of other 60fps games).

Looking at UE4 and blueprints, it seems that they've understood their weak point and worked aggressively on fixing it. So it could be that UE4 would deliver 60fps just fine matching visual quality of other products at the same fps. (aaah, now someone would add - what about resolution? heh, I dunno - I think upscaling is just fine, but then you have all these crazy journalists digging up... frame rate is much more important though)

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

#240

Post by EpicEng »

hasenj wrote: post #236
EpicEng wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bold claim. I have been writing software for more than a decade and I still associate "free" with "no monetary cost".

Are you talking about the product or the source code?

As in beer, so, the product. Having source code is great, but when I'm trying to get something done I don't really care about e.g. the EFF's moral stance.
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