Unreal Engine 4 for $19 a month

[Arnox]

I've been working with it for two years, now I can finally talk about it if anyone has any questions

I also intend to get a couple of indie projects up and running (ok, I actually already have one project in the works). I'm tempted to do a multiplayer shooter and already began prototyping. It doesn't work like UT though, I wanted to work with more organic rather than rigid mechanical systems.

Didn't know you were working on the UE.

themoreyouknow.jpg

 

[ambershee]

I've worked both on the engine, and on projects using the engine

 

[GreatEmerald]

I've been working with it for two years, now I can finally talk about it if anyone has any questions

Question 1: What is "it"?
Question 2: How?

Garbage collection still exists. It's a critical system in any modern game engine.

That's interesting. It's too bad they didn't go with D, then. D is the most similar to UnrealScript real language I have seen so far, and it's also cross-platform. In D the garbage collector is part of the language core. Although UE3 core is written in C++, so going in all C++ does make sense from that point of view...

 

[ambershee]

Question 1: What is "it"?

Unreal Engine 4.

Question 2: How?

It's my job?

 

[GreatEmerald]

It's my job?

Question 3: What is your job?
Question 4: How come the early access was that early?

 

[rejecht]

So.. can they unlock all the docs on UE2.5 now?

 

[rejecht]

I did think about "ambershee" whenever I saw comments like these, though might be another amb. :]

event Created(); //amb: notifiction for object based classes only (not actors)

Is there stock AI in UE4?
Is it mainly implemented in C++ or blueprints?

 

[ambershee]

Haha, my comments would be prefixed with £££ or lparkes so that I can find them easily. I usually deleted them before submitting code though, so I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't any in the source.

Question 3: What is your job?

I'm a game developer. I've worked on a few projects (Fable series, Gears series, Unreal Engine 4) over the years

Question 4: How come the early access was that early?

I was working on 'proper' projects, so for example whilst I was at Lionhead, they had already licensed the engine for future products (what is now Fable: Legends).

 

[Arnox]

There is one question I have for ya', amber. What is your opinion on the new CryEngine?

 

[DeathBooger]

ambershee, why does Tim Sweeney's head keep changing shape each year?

 

[ambershee]

There is one question I have for ya', amber. What is your opinion on the new CryEngine?

I couldn't say much, as I've not worked with it. The cheap license doesn't contain source code, you still can't edit the shaders (whut?) and the animation pipeline is still absolute hell. Otherwise it's probably pretty solid.

ambershee, why does Tim Sweeney's head keep changing shape each year?

Tim Sweeney's head takes on a new form every time Microsoft change the appearance of Visual Studio. Why? Space magic. That's why.

 

[GreatEmerald]

I couldn't say much, as I've not worked with it. The cheap license doesn't contain source code, you still can't edit the shaders (whut?) and the animation pipeline is still absolute hell. Otherwise it's probably pretty solid.

It's not even that cheap, it's $10/user/month (whatever they consider a user), while UE4 is $20/month for the whole team (although they do take 5%).

 

[ambershee]

Unreal's license is also per seat:

The Licensed Technology is licensed to you for use by a single User. The User may store the Licensed Technology on any of the User’s computers, but the Licensed Technology cannot be shared with others (including any other employees or agents) except through a permitted Distribution as described above.

 

[Hunter]

It's not even that cheap, it's $10/user/month (whatever they consider a user), while UE4 is $20/month for the whole team (although they do take 5%).

No, its $20 per user:

How much do I have to pay for Unreal Engine 4?
UE4 is available for $19 per user per month, with a 5% royalty on gross revenue from commercial products.

 

[rejecht]

 

[Arnox]

Unreal's license is also per seat:

What would be a permitted distribution then? I'm guessing a team needs to be cleared in advance before they can use it.

 

[GreatEmerald]

Oh. Huh. Well then. Did they copy this from each other or what?

 

[Sir_Brizz]

My guess is that Crytek had their thumb on the pulse of this for a while and intentionally undercut them.

However, you have to deal with Crytek's poor tools compared to UE, not having full source code access, not being able to edit shaders, and a MUCH smaller community of developers. UE is the better platform and it's way cheaper to use UE4 than it was to use UDK for for-pay products.

 

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

I wish they would release the original unreal source code then and UT for free. What's the harm now really? And if they don't have it, ask smirftsch to release the 224-226 sources and the ut ones. Anyone can buy uengine 4 and take a gander so why not make the original unreal source public?

 

[Arnox]

I wish they would release the original unreal source code then and UT for free. What's the harm now really? And if they don't have it, ask smirftsch to release the 224-226 sources and the ut ones. Anyone can buy uengine 4 and take a gander so why not make the original unreal source public?

Because most of the time, dev teams and/or publishers are so busy with what they're currently doing that they forget all about their past games. Some of them do remember once in a while of course such as Raven Software who somewhat recently released the Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy source.