UDK’s tools and tech the same as UE3’s, says Epic
Epic’s free new development platform ‘is not watered down in any way’, according to the firm’s VP Mark Rein.
The UDK is Epic’s new alternative to the Unreal Engine 3 that, while tied to different royalty rates, is completely free to download and operate.
However, Rein claims that UDK – despite being free – “isn't watered down” in any way.
“We could expect to see anyone from beginners to professional developers using it,” he said, speaking in an interview with ArsTechnica.
“The tools and technology are the same. However, a 'full' license includes the underlying C++ source code to the engine and tools, which allows licensees to make virtually any change they want and potentially ship their game on consoles, provided they're licensed by the console manufacturer.”
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Epic recently announced that over 50,000 users installed UDK in the engine’s first week of availability.
The fact that the 'full' version is the only one that includes C++ access renders this worthless. I told Mark Rein this myself at the UT3 launch in Birmingham. When Valve and iD offer source code access, and more recently CryEngine, this looks increasingly lazy, lame and limited. For my programming students at Newport, this offer of FREE 'tools' is useless. We have far better access to far better tools. Sorry to be so blunt, but when all the others have some form of decent SDK, why is Epic so defensive?
Mike, why would would a tech company like Epic that originally sells it's engine for a million dollars put it down for free with the full source code just so that your students can learn to code? Nevertheless, your programming students can get their feet wet on a technology that's so widely used by some many gaming companies in the world and also code their game entirely on UnrealScript which is also an OOP and is very similar to JavaScript. I don't see any source code for the Doom 3 engine or the Source engine yet. What ID released was their previous gen engine source code. This is undoubtedly a great initiative by one of the pioneers of engine technology. Anyways, you've got nothing to lose, it's FREE!!!!
Epic's royalty rates for this are pretty steep - to the point where I can't really take the engine seriously.
UE3 is of course fantastic, but only if youhave the money. Not sure UDK remedies this.
Barcelona, UDK essentially reduces your initial technology investment to zero for protoyping something that may become a viable product.
If you don't have the capital to license UE3 then UDK is a good way to prove your concept, team and development process to yourself and a potential publisher. If you have a competitive product, do you honestly think that it would be difficult to find the capital to fund a project and subsequently license the full UE3?
Seems like a much sunnier option than forking over a large initial investment only to fail in the end.
This is obviously a fantastic deal for indy devs. How much does a UE3 'full' dev license cost? $1mil? More? Even with 25% of earnings going to Epic, that means as an indy dev, my game would need to make at least $4 million before it became more financially viable to rob a bank to afford a full license.
And as for: "The fact that the 'full' version is the only one that includes C++ access renders this worthless. I told Mark Rein this myself at the UT3 launch in Birmingham."
ORLY? Useless? Good thing Mark Rein doesn't base his business decisions on your advice. It might not offer you much for your particular goals, but speaking as an indy developer, the UDK as a toolset is arguably the most comprehensive, capable - and accessible - game dev kit on the market. And for anyone who isn't interested in following a software engineering career, UnrealScript offers a great deal of programmability without the steep learning curve of C++.
So sure, it might not be the greatest thing sinced sliced bread for everyone, but for indy devs, this is huge.
I think it's great that epic has released this, its useful to indies and even other developers who dont use unreal engine as reference (both good and bad)
DrMike - I wonder how many of your students will even get a job, last time I looked there were more courses let alone students in the uk than there are vacancies to fill!
@blah - vacancies vs students does not mean a teacher can't desire to teach their students to the best of their abilities.
@all - with agreement with DrMike, kind of - My whole issue is that Rein claims it's not watered down... but it is. UDK requires you to program in UnrealScript, this isn't a full engine particularly. It's a mod tool. It lets you modify the underlying Unreal game via their proprietary script. The learning of which is viable ONLY to developing with UDK. A toolset though quick to learn, is not a strong viable tool set to go into the market with.
I'm happy they have released it, it makes it fun for any of us indies or hackers who want to play and mod the thing. You could even hack up a decent game with it, BUT it's still watered down tech plain and simple. To say it's not is complete bs! Because it's not UE3, it's UT with a modding script. A very powerful modding script, but a modding script none the less.
Do not misconstrue what I say though, I don't think it's useless. Shit the Gmod for Half-Life is arguably useful to a large group of users, and this is far more useful then that thing. Yey to Epic for releasing it for free, I like free. It's still watered down.
