Epic Offers Free Unreal Engine 3 For Non-Commercial Use
Big (epic?) news today. Epic Games has just launched a free edition of its Unreal Engine 3, one of the best (if not the best) game engine around to use when developing 3D games. Called the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the toolset is also distributed with support resources and technical documentation which are all available to download from the official site.
No charge will be imposed for noncommercial and educational use of UDK, although you will still need to obtain an official licensing agreement (Epic receives twenty-five percent of revenue after the first $5,000 is made) to develop a commercial product using UE3.
The UDK site is already hosting two standalone games that runs on the new UDK framework, meaning that you won't need to have Unreal Tournament 3 installed to play them. The Ball deserves a bit of a special mention though, because it was originally developed as a mod for UT3 (hence the need for the full game to play it), but has since then been turned into a standalone version using UDK to showcase the versatility of the engine.
Epic Offers Free UE3 For Non-Commercial Use (Gamasutra)
UDK Version 1.0 - beta release mirrors (Epic Games Forums)
Comments
one of the best (if not the best) game engine around to use when developing 3D games.
no .. its poor, slow and pathetic engine.
Posted by: gadget | November 5, 2009 3:53 PM
Care to elaborate? I've worked with the engine a few times (not professionally) and it seems pretty good to me. It's one of the most popular game engines in the game industry.
Posted by: Blueberry_pie | November 5, 2009 4:53 PM
In what way is the UE3 engine not excellent?
Every game I've ever played that runs on it looks and performs better than any game that isn't based on it.
Posted by: Andrew | November 5, 2009 5:07 PM
hello denis dyack
Posted by: ian | November 5, 2009 6:09 PM
requeriments?
Posted by: Elvis Brevi | November 5, 2009 6:35 PM
The Ball looks intriguing, have to keep it on my radar
Posted by: Hank | November 5, 2009 7:04 PM
Wow, first Unity now this. engines engines everywhere,. . is getting easy to get sidetracked. Gamemakers make games.
Posted by: jph | November 5, 2009 9:43 PM
The demo game Whizzle took 3 people 2 months to make...and it's really not that good. This seems like it will be great for teams of people, but I can't see this being a tool of choice for lone wolf developers.
Posted by: TheBlackMask | November 5, 2009 10:17 PM
Install error while trying to install .Net Framework 3.5. :(
Wow, the super-high-end-mega-game-engine is not able to do a simple, clean installing.
Now i have a half gigabyte of garbage on harddisk...
Many thanks, Epic Fail!
Posted by: wtf | November 5, 2009 11:05 PM
PC specs
Minimum:
* Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
* 2.0+ GHz processor
* 2 GB system RAM
* SM3-compatible video card
* 3 GB Free hard drive space
Recommended for Content Development:
* Windows Vista 64 SP2
* 2.0+ GHz multi-core processor
* 8 GB System RAM
* NVIDIA 8000 series or higher graphics card
* Plenty of HDD space
Posted by: FizzyBlood | November 5, 2009 11:40 PM
For me? Thanks!
My PC specs should fit.
Ok, got it.
After half night installing frameworks it works now... Sorry for the rant, just was annoyed cause other engines had not these problems.
Wherever.
Played with some examples and it looks very niiice and smooth. :)
Posted by: wtf | November 6, 2009 2:50 AM
I agree with @TheBlackMask :
This sdk is not for a lone wolves developers.
I was playing with it and it was a deception. It is mainly a powered version of the old-good unreal editor without the unreal, so while you can do other games but it fit for fps games
Posted by: magallanes | November 7, 2009 12:54 AM
I don't get it the idea of Epic but may be:
a) they are trying to popularize unreal engine 3 before they launch ue4 (2012?)
b) it is a way to protect against crytek, that their engine is fairly better.
Posted by: magallanes | November 7, 2009 1:09 AM
So after Unity, Unreal Engine, now let's wait for the free version of Crytek Engine...:D
Posted by: AM Putra | November 7, 2009 3:09 AM
For those saying that this is not for lone wolf developers, I'll have you guys know that my own game, Hazard: The Journey Of Life, is an Unreal 3 product, created solely by myself.
I'm in the process of porting it to the UDK now. There's a big difference between those who know what they're doing with Unreal, and have been using the Engine for years already, and solo people coming in from scratch.
Posted by: Alexander Bruce | November 7, 2009 6:12 AM
There's a difference between a game engine being slow and pathetic, and you just being a moron for not knowing how to use it.
Posted by: xeno | November 7, 2009 1:48 PM
Of course you can develop a game in plain assembler, so the point is not if it is possible or not to do it but how much effort and time is needing to do it.
Anyways, to develop a fps using UDK is most likely to mod a game.
Posted by: magallanes | November 9, 2009 7:00 PM