Unreal Engine goes free

mid_gen · 2 Mar 2015 at 17:10

www.unrealengine.com

Well, no upfront cost, still has the 5% royalty on titles over a certain gross revenue....it was very good value anyway, but now you can download it and complete source code for nothing.

Thinking of switching my prototyping to it from Unity as the bugs and lack of source get on my tights sometimes, and I could do with brushing up my C++. Mobile support is improving all the time too...

mid_gen · 2 Mar 2015 at 19:53

Mind is already made up for me, just porting my current prototype over (it was v early phase anyway).

Source access plus no feature paywall = win. Not as fussed about mobile support as I used to be.

mid_gen · 3 Mar 2015 at 06:58

Unity Pros

Popular
Range of accesible coding options (JS etc)
Great mobile support
Good 2D tools to get started with

Cons

Buggy!
No source code access to investigate/fix said bugs
You're not going to push the limits of hardware using it
Feature paywall you will hit very fast if you do anything serious
Expensive up front cost or sub to unlock all features (could change)

Unreal Pros

Cutting edge gfx engine
Full source access, fix bugs yourself and contribute!
No upfront costs
No feature paywall
Great development env
Proper coding! C++
Blueprint system

Steeper learning curve, C++ isn't as easy for people to pick up
Lacking in 2D and mobile support compared to Unity

The UE marketplace is starting to fill up with real useful stuff. I can see them starting to take a big chunk of the indie dev space. Certainly if anyone was starting out learning how to create games, I would point them at UE4 now.

mid_gen · 3 Mar 2015 at 13:05

Blueprints are very cool, even if you know C++. When I'm coding I have a mental image floating around my head anyway, so having it down in visual format is a nice way to work on scripting elements.

Lots of good video tutorials around now, and the developers do regular twitch Q&As, good community engagement.

mid_gen · 3 Mar 2015 at 15:47

Well, good to see there's no feature paywall now....but still no source access? Biggest sticking point for me, especially given their tardiness in fixing bugs.

No profiling on free? Restricting the dark editor theme to pro? :|

Competition is all good though, Autodesk have thrown their hat in the ring too today.

mid_gen · 4 Mar 2015 at 08:51

jsmoke said:
There has been source since day one.

It's not a priced option, you have negotiate and pay extra $$$$ to get source access. The biggest issue with Unity for me.

mid_gen · 4 Mar 2015 at 09:19

Zhokel said:
Just looked it up and we do get the profiler free (99% sure). "Game Performance Reporting" says

"A preview of a new service that monitors and analyzes managed code crashes from your games."

Profiler falls under the engine features http://unity3d.com/unity/engine-features

More here
http://unity3d.com/get-unity

Can't download at the moment because, well, site is getting hammered haha, so I could be wrong but would be nice.

Good that you have that now. I am still put off by the no source. I was doing some prototyping and found a bug in some fairly basic stuff (2D physics trigger event problem), that had been in there for 6 months at least and not fixed. Could have fixed it myself in a few minutes if I had source, but instead I had to write an ugly hack to deal with it.