Unreal engine 3 for consumers? WTF ?

Quote from Zeta

Clever attempt at retaining market share.I hope this comes with the advanced features that aren't in the UT3 sdk.

It's pretty much the latest build of UE3.

Quote from Hourences

The 2500USd is only for non game applications.If you make a game it is entirely free, but you pay 25% revenue share.

Not quite, but almost, its free for game applications for the first $5000 in revenue, then for revenue above that they pay the 2,500 and the royalty. At least thats how I read the licensing page commercial terms...

http://%7boption%7d (6th paragraph down)

Quote

# A team creates a game with UDK that they intend to sell. After six months of development, they release the game through digital distribution and they earn €15,000 in the first calendar quarter after release. Their use of UDK during development requires no fee. After earning €15,000, they would be required to pay Epic €2,500 (€0 on the first €5,000 in revenue, and €2,500 on the next €10,000 in revenue). On subsequent revenue, they are required to pay the 25% royalty.

Awesome.

Quote from madgernader

Not quite, but almost, its free for game applications for the first $5000 in revenue, then for revenue above that they pay the 2,500 and the royalty. At least thats how I read the licensing page commercial terms...

http://%7boption%7d (6th paragraph down)

# A team creates a game with UDK that they intend to sell. After six months of development, they release the game through digital distribution and they earn €15,000 in the first calendar quarter after release. Their use of UDK during development requires no fee. After earning €15,000, they would be required to pay Epic €2,500 (€0 on the first €5,000 in revenue, and €2,500 on the next €10,000 in revenue). On subsequent revenue, they are required to pay the 25% royalty.

No, 25%. The 2500USD is only for people who do not make games like posted before.

The 2500 in this example simply is 25% of 10 000.

Oh, good call. I missed that. Even better then

This is brilliant news. I'm a bit annoyed that they've done this now when I only purchased UT3 the other week to gain access to the tools.

(I haven't posted here in a few months. Good lord).

Quote from Psy

I'm a bit annoyed that they've done this now when I only purchased UT3 the other week to gain access to the tools.

Don't worry, UT3 is still an amazingly popular and fun Multiplayer game.

So what does this mean? Do you get access to the full engine or just the tools? (I'm trawling the site for info and coming up short as apparently I can't read )

Its like modding. You get engine/editor/Unrealscript. But you can't recompile the whole engine and have source code access. Just like a mod. Just like Unity.

You can however build a stand alone build, including installer, for your game, and distribute that. That copy would require nothing. Not even the UDK installed.

Thanks for clearing it up I doubted they'd go the whole nine yards, but it's still a nice thing to see.

To what degree is UE3 modable? For example, would creating a new weapon (model, animations, code, all that jazz) require some access to the source code of the engine or can it be done purely through scripting?

Scripting. Look at all mods that exist for any UT game. All of that was done with scripting.

Look at the example games on the UDK page. Those too are just scripting.

How difficult would you say it is for a non-coder to pick up the scripting in unreal?

It is not really scripting IMO. It is really close to proper programming. At least for me, from artist POV. So the question is, can you program? Math and all that.

It is comparable to java (not javascript - real java)

wow this is awesome for modding, not having to buy anything to play is a huge plus!

it's been long time since I've used the unreal engine, do I still want to download that 3rd party unrealscript IDE or is the editor decent now?

EDIT: additive brushwork? it HAS been a long time

Quote from Psy

This is brilliant news. I'm a bit annoyed that they've done this now when I only purchased UT3 the other week to gain access to the tools.

I did the same thing, but last christmas.

Quote from robert.briscoe

How difficult would you say it is for a non-coder to pick up the scripting in unreal?

The extent of my ability to program in a real coding language is making a command prompt-based random number generator, but I have absolutely no problem reading and editing existing Uscripts to get what I want. It's really pretty clearly laid out when you read a script, so long as you know the entity names and can keep track of basic syntax.

Quote from SpicyTanuki

do I still want to download that 3rd party unrealscript IDE or is the editor decent now?

I don't think it has a built in IDE anymore, at least I haven't come across it yet...

Just tested this version and I must say I'm impressed with lightmass. It's a huge improvement from previous versions! I still think UE3 should have better real time lighting support though, I hate screwing around with lightmaps

Trust me lightmaps have their charm ;P Real time is awesome but you often miss the control lightmaps give you over a scene.