Unreal Development Kit

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udkThe Unreal 3 Engine is now available for free, non-commercial use!  Check it out here.

Thanks to Augusto Rodrigo for the suggestion!

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    • Unreal.Blender

      My first time using Blender was in creation of static meshes for Unreal Tournament 2004. The release of UDN is unbelievably awesome!

    • Bastian

      You basicaly have to make a full conversion mod of a basic UT skeleton and the Unreal Editor is limited to closed environments. I dont think you could make much more than another FPS or action game with it. Other engines are more open and give you more freedom.

    • http://www.flyguymovie.webs.com Steve Cameron

      Heard about this last week, I just hope that somebody can make an exporter for Blender to work with UE3.

    • tim, LA

      There is also a free version on unity3d.com!
      Commercial (and professional) Software goes free! I love it!!

    • G.o.D

      actually it does not allow commercial development… ok, it does, but then it costs money. so IMHO there is no difference in the PLE of stonetrips shiva ( stonetrip.com ) – which does support mac, linux, iphone and more, other then UDK which only supports windows.

    • tyrant monkey

      @Bastian is it really only closed enviroments am not into game dev so I thought this was the perfect time to get into modding or making a few levels here and there but there so many games made with the unreal engine mirror’s edge for example that have open space so I thought this was a given.

    • heke

      That’s pretty neat!
      It’s a shame though that only the UE3, not any of the older are free, since most people probably don’t have computers nearly as powerful as recommended:
      http://www.udk.com/documentation.html

      Heck, I bet that even the minimum is too much for some.. :(

    • http://www.sleepwalker-games.com MSZ

      These two news (UDK and Unity 3d) are simply great. This is really something for indie game devs.

    • Bastian

      @tyrant monkey: I meant, for example, worlds like in Oblivion or other RPGs. UE3 is best designed for FPS levels with fixed (level) borders. You can make outdoor levels and stuff, maybe you can make levels like in STALKER, but a flightsim or an RPG with an open world is, at least, difficult. However, if you want to go into modding or full conversion and/or want to start game development UE3 seems to be a very good choice. Experienced game-developers may find the UE3 unusual or limited. Like i do. However, its very powerful in its own way and im a BIG fan of all Unreal games, including UT3! … and the best thing to measure a engine is to look at the released games.

    • Jeroen

      @Bastian: You make all kind of assumptions and state them as facts without having done any research at all it seems. What you’re saying is like “The Blender game engine is limited. You couldn’t make more then an FPS or action game. ” Which we all know isn’t true. You say UE3 is limited. I say the people who say that have limited imagination or are talking out of their @ss. As an “experienced game developer” you should know there isn’t a game engine who’s good at everything. A flight sim is different kind of breed. Also indoor and outdoor lighting require different lighting techniques and shaders for good fast/efficient results (look at the dev blogs and interviews of the development of Crysis). The Unreal 3.0 engine supports level and texture streaming, so it’s possible to make large open worlds like Oblivion’s. As far as I have seen the UDK offers a level editor, a physics and effects editor, a node based gameplay events editor, a script editor and a java like scripting language. All in all much like what Blender’s game-engine offers. But the Unreal engine offers more advanced techniques, effects, graphics and possibilities as opposed to Blender’s game-engine. Also the documentation is quite extensive and in depth. I really appreciate Epic Games for giving hobby and indy game developers these powerful tools for free.

    • Unreal.Blender

      @ Steve Cameron: There’s already a couple. :)
      http://www.katsbits.com/htm/tutorials/blender_ut3_smooth_groups.htm
      Also, Ue3 supports importing Collada.

    • Bastian

      Please dont be so offended by my comment…
      Ive done research and stated my opinion based on that.
      I was a little bit disappointed by the way it works because it feels limited and unusal to me. That might not be true for you! Its a great engine but not the right choice for all of us (or better-for every game)!

      However, the engine is only free for non-commercial use – like most other engines.

    • http://sinsoft.com Sinan

      You can use the UDK for commercial use. see http://udk.com/licensing.html

      There is 3rd party export tools that exports static meshes/skeletal/animations from Blender to UDK (Unreal Engine).

      Although they might need further work.

      Please see this forum post for links to the export scripts:

      http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?p=26969931

    • Pelle Johnsen

      Having worked on a commercial UE3 based product for about 6 months as technical artist (character setup, lighting, vfx), I would say it is a pretty good engine and tool set. And yes you can do larger outdoor scenes, as mentioned the engine supports level streaming and also has good terrain support. There are always things that can be improved, as I would expect there are with all engines, however UE3 is ‘battle proven’ on numerous commercial games for PC and consoles.

      I’m currently playing around with Unity3D and so far I like what I see :) Having .NET (mono) based scripting is really nice, I never was a big fan of UnrealScript (why invent yet another proprietary scripting language, which by the way has to be compiled as a separate step). However Unity3D does not (yet) have the track record that UE3 does. Anyway different engines may fit different projects better or worse. Having ‘sort of free’ versions of UE3 and Unity3D is still great news :)

    • -V-

      @Bastian: Actually, with:

      “Experienced game-developers may find the UE3 unusual or limited. Like i do.”

      you are wrong, maybe you meant:

      “Unexperienced wanna-be game-developers may find the UE3 unusual or limited. Like i do.”

      I think this will fit more, reading your statements and assumptions, since you probably don’t even understand the way the engine works. It works like this because you are supposed to reuse code already proven to work well, not because it is geared to make mods, it is structured for big companies who can’t waist time re-inventing the wheel, that’s why the Unreal code is included ( if you had used the older versions you would know what I’m talking about, but again if you really were an “experienced game-developer” I wouldn’t even have posted… )

      @Jeroen: 100% agreed

      EDIT: By the way, for commercial uses you have to pay 99$ if I don’t go wrong, and you can take 100% earnings, but if you make more than 5000$ then 25% of the earning goes to them. Not that expensive after all…

    • Splunker

      Wow this looks so cool….but I have Linux! Not Windows! Arrghhh…

    • XeroWolf

      @Bastian
      I’m not sure where you’ve done your research but I think you have been misinformed. I have first hand experience modding the Unreal Engine and I have found it to be very flexible at developing a wide range of game types. UT3 and Gears of War maybe it’s flag games but the engine is definitely not limited to only FPS games.
      Lost Odessy, Hail to the Chimp and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe are three games that are as far from a fps as you can get.

    • Zombine

      @Bastian – I have never seen more inaccurate information. Where are you getting this random information from?

      @Everyone Else – Please don’t regard any statement made by Bastian as anything even close to a fact. Give UDK a shot.

    • Proportion

      on the download site they say there is a game entirely made with the udk and that u can download the source just to see how its all made. AWSOME.

    • Gryphon

      I wonder, what kind of documentation and support are available with the free release? Not to diminish the value of source code and examples, but if there’s some real learning material available, then this could be huge.

    • llamalizard

      Honestly? I can’t get my head around how to use it, but it seems like a really powerful toolset. Sure, it’s useful, but what if you want to make something other than an FPS, or change the starting guns, or swap out the models using blender…or even export from the Speedtree that came with the toolset? I can’t say I’m going to use this more than Oblivion for gamemaking practise.

      For those interested in…mildly easier modding, I’d recommend getting either Fallout 3 or Oblivion for PC, or anything that has a built-in toolset. They’re easier to use, no matter how powerful this program might be.

    • http://www.fablefox.com Fable Fox

      As documentation goes, I haven’t check the free ones yet. But there are three very thick book about it on Amazon. KL Library has a book on it and I plan to borrow it and read it.

    • Bastian

      Making insults isnt appopriate at all! And if you cant even discuss the downsides i dont see why anybody should take you serious.

      If you can read i also stated a few very positive facts and recommended it for action and FPS games.

    • http://www.odedge.com Odedge

      I have experience creating levels for UT 3 and that editor is just a “younger” version of the UDK editor (and other tools). My site has a page dedicated to UT 3 tutorials (links to various tutorials). Most of these tutorials should related to the UDK. Also, 3DBuzz.com (they make the “official” video tutorials that come with the collector’s edition of UT 3) stated they are in the process of finishing up some UDK tutorials. Don’t know if they will be free or not though.

      As I discover UDK related tutorials, I will add them as well (Hourences, a very well respected Unreal modder has created a few so far). Also, I have a section dedicated to Blender and how it relates to creating models for UT 3, which should be very similar to the UDK version.

      I still have a lot to learn about creating static meshes in Blender. so here is hoping that 2.5 gets officially released soon!

    • http://www.taddmencer.com Tadd Mencer

      I started playing with this a few days ago. A good friend of mine is actually using it to make a CG series – professionally. It’s not as limited as some thing it is – only limited by what you can do out of the box. It’s not a ‘point and click and DONE!’ system. There is a learning curve. Just like with any software. But the professional results are out standing. And there really is no limitation – only to what you can figure out how to do. Just like with Blender (or 3DS Max, Maya, Silo, ZBrush, Mudbox, etc) you have to figure out how to make the software work for you. Which takes time, patience and a little ingenuity.

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