Unreal Engine is Now FREE!!!

[vitinho444]

Hey guys, so... You probably already know, but for those who dont, UNREAL ENGINE 4 IS NOW FREEEEEEEEEE!!!!

So... Uninstall Unity and get busy exploring Unreal Engine
Im joking, but that's what I should do..

It's free indeed for every use, but there's a "but", if you make >3000$ in a quarter (4 months) after publishing, you owe Epic Games 5% of that "profit". A small amount to pay in my eyes for that amazing engine... just saying.

You can get it here: https://www.unrealengine.com/ and I hope everyone starting in 3D game development, thinks twice before choosing Unity.
Don't get me wrong, Unity is great for starters, but if you are looking for that visual touch and/or you don't have 1500$ on your pocket to have shadows in your game... Unreal is the way to go.

[hallsofvallhalla]

Unreal has always been free and had the 5% royalty deal. Am I missing something? Or are they talking about source?


trust me this engine is no Cakewalk. It is very difficult to end up with a final product. Requires a good no great artist.

[Chromeozone]

Unreal has never been free.

UDK was free - Unreal 4 was $19 a month + 5% commission on profit.

Today is a big day for a lot of people as Unity are holding a press conference about this - so changes to their plans could be made.

[SpiritWebb]

That's awesome. I may look into this.

[Xaleph]

Aye the same. Never spent a lot of time in Unreal but I might check it out now

[Jackolantern]

The full UE I didn't even think was publicly available until just a few years ago, but I could be wrong. I know when UDK first came out, the royalty was something ridiculous like 20%, which essentially made it useless for commercial online game development since many large games work on margins lower than 20%.

[vitinho444]

Yeah UDK was the one that was free, but now Unreal Engine itself is free and comes with the full source code, that I doubt anyone will even look at because it's very hard to improve the beastiality of Unreal.

@Halls, in fact I thin you're right, if you take a crappy 3D model with low res textures, and you place it in Unreal it will look ugly, but I think it paysoff just for the shadows. Shadows in 3D games are essential, and Unity asks for 1500$ or 75/month to give you shadows...

[hallsofvallhalla]

ahh I see. thanks for the clarification.

I agree the Unreal engine can make even the simplest models look great with all its features. I might even look into playing around with it.

[Xaleph]

Aye, Unreal engine is quite a beast. It can even transform low poly models and make them high poly. It`s not the best looking model after, but a lot better then then low poly one. Not to mention the sheer shading power of Unreal. Their shading is one of the best, shadows, lighting, filters etc, they know their graphics .. Looking forward to playing with it

[hallsofvallhalla]

Yeah I have about $10k worth of assets lying around and even a licensed copy of 3ds Max. Might be time to put them to good use

What type of coding/scripting does it use now?