Unreal Engine 4 Released

[Xycaleth]

Epic recently released Unreal Engine 4 to the public. They now charge on a subscription basis of $20/month which gives you full access to the C++ source code as well as all the tools and editors. You have to start paying royalties when you publish your game and make money from it. I don't know how much royalties you have to pay though.

 

Check it out at http://unrealengine.com

[Onysfx]

On of my favourite games, Metroid Prime, is based on the unreal engine. I'm going to check this out .

[CrimsonStrife]

UE4 subscribers can release games commercially by paying 5% of gross revenue from product sales to users (regardless of who collects the revenue). With this model, a game that sells to users on the App Store for $10 would incur a royalty of $0.50 (5% of $10), while you as the developer might receive $7 from Apple (after Apple deducts their 30% distribution fee).

 

UDK developers have the choice of sticking with the current royalty and license system, or using the UDK under these same terms as UE4.  Also we get a free subscription to UE4 for a year.

[Tempust85]

It's a good deal to get full access to an engine + monthly updates for a minimal monthly fee. However, I don't see many free game projects doing this like MB3.

[CrimsonStrife]

It's a good deal to get full access to an engine + monthly updates for a minimal monthly fee. However, I don't see many free game projects doing this like MB3.

 

Well the UDK is still available as far as I can tell, so there is still a completely free option for non-commercial projects, but no source-code access there.

The UE4 upgrade applies to those of us with COMMERCIAL UDK licenses, so I'm not certain how it might apply to any new applicants.

[CrimsonStrife]

I thought you guys might be interested to know, that you can actually get UE4 for only one payment of $19.  You can sign up, and cancel after the first month, and still use the software as you would normally, with the exception of updates.  You can then simply renew for another month every so often to get the latest updates.

 

I'm not sure if this means an inactive subscription still counts as a commercial license, where you could still sell your products.  But you can certainly still use the entire engine.  You'd have to contact their support to find out how this affects commercial use.

 

https://www.unrealengine.com/faq

My favorite part:

"Do I have to worry about a billing contract or penalties for cancelling my subscription?
Your subscription payment automatically recurs, but you’re free to cancel at any time. There’s no penalty for cancellation.

When you cancel your subscription, you won’t receive access to future releases of Unreal Engine 4, however your login will remain active, and you are free to continue using the versions of Unreal Engine 4 which you obtained as a subscriber under the terms of the EULA."

 

 

[Stoiss]

I can for sure recommend this payment I bought my version of this yesterday

And it's a great time learning how to map in it and play around with it the engine

[Tempust85]

So everyone on a team would need to buy it for themselves?

 

EDIT:

 

So you could buy it for $19, cancel your sub and you only have paid $19?

[CrimsonStrife]

So everyone on a team would need to buy it for themselves?

 

At the moment yes, from talking to the licensing team (Helical needs to get our other ones set up) they are working on team licensing and such, but that is still a ways off.  So for now, the only option is for every member to have an account and pay at least the first month.

 

EDIT:

 

So you could buy it for $19, cancel your sub and you only have paid $19?

 

Exactly yes, BUT you would only be able to get updates and such for the first month.  So if there were a major update a few months later that fixed some issues, or added something you wanted, you would have to renew for at least another month to update.  Therefore paying another $19.  But even doing it that way, you wouldn't be paying for every month in between.

[Boothand]

Exactly yes, BUT you would only be able to get updates and such for the first month.  So if there were a major update a few months later that fixed some issues, or added something you wanted, you would have to renew for at least another month to update.  Therefore paying another $19.  But even doing it that way, you wouldn't be paying for every month in between.

 

I wonder if not every (private) person would choose to do it this way. What would be the benefit of keeping the subscription all the way through a year?

[CrimsonStrife]

I wonder if not every (private) person would choose to do it this way. What would be the benefit of keeping the subscription all the way through a year?

 

It would likely come down to the frequency of the updates, which, at least this early on will probably be quite frequent.

[CrimsonStrife]

Fun little screenshot of UE4 running with Visual Studio 2013 integration for source code edits.

 

 

 

 

 

I was in the Beta on this bad boy, so nice to finally not have to keep it under wraps.

[Tempust85]

Bit surprised discovering an illegal version of UE4 already.....

[CrimsonStrife]

Bit surprised discovering an illegal version of UE4 already.....

 

Not really, but the catch with something like this is while, yes you'd probably get away with using it personally, but you'd have an issue the moment you tried to distribute, free or not.

[eezstreet]

Hmm. Later on when or if I make a sequel to Rapture, I might consider using a heavily modified UE4 renderer. I can't use the whole engine; I need to integrate it with my engine and strip out some useless junk (their entity/Actor management system is pathetic, and they STILL don't have decent geometry/terrain editing tools)

[Tempust85]

The editor crashes every time I make some walls. :\

 

*unsubs for now*

[Stoiss]

i never had that problem, DT, i got a hold house now with wall, windows and doors and shit in itand it works perfect on my build

[Tempust85]

It seems to crash as soon as the cam collides with a wall.

[Stoiss]

what code do you compile and debug with ? to launch the editor ? i use blueprint first person and i have any problems, i follow the tut there is show in there on there site and i had no problems with it

[Stoiss]

@@DT85 https://jkhub.org/images/XgmoLeQ.jpg

[Tempust85]

I'm fairly certain I picked development editor or whatever it's called. The code compiled fine with no issue.

[Stoiss]

thats also the right one, but could be that the crash comes because you use a different source for how you game should be, like i said i use blueprint first person cam

[CrimsonStrife]

@@DT85

 

Possible your machine isn't quite powerful enough maybe?

[Tempust85]

I doubt that would be the issue:

 

4th gen core i5 4440 3.1 GHz

8GB DDR3 ram

GTX 650 1GB GDDR5 DX11

64bit Windows 7 Ultimate

 

Everything matches or is better than what EPIC recommends.

 

I had a cruise around in UE4 editor just now and nothing crashed when going up against walls, so no idea. I'll just stick with UDK for now, wait until UE4 is out of its infancy.