UDK new royality limit.

Good to hear, that Epic Games has raised the limit from which you need to pay 25% royalities. Instead of old $5K its not $50K.

http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=764485

What do you think about it?

 

If you ask me it was a required step in the light of the 25%, as $5k free does not even allow you to get a single member on the team payed through even a simple releasable project so you are deemed to lose money right from the start without even getting that base investment back without the 25% cut ...
I know several teams that decided to not use it due to the implications it had financially

The truely interesting thing will be the reactions from Crytek and Unity Technologies.

Crytek meant to release a UDK alike licensing model this year and UT with its Win + iOS + Android single seat licensing is significantly exceed the costs of UDK, even if you don't make a single dime from it.

If Epic just finally got an acceptable editor for scripting in place. Its laughable that the only really usable editor costs beyond $1000 per seat

 

Yeah, I find the weakest thing with UDK the scripting editor too, Unity-s system is much better IMO

 

dreamora is so right about that....

I was completely outraged when I realized what was going on, even if it was free, it completely made me lose my time! It says it's an user friendly editor, all I saw was a silly level editor which is like for babies or something. See, when I first tried UDK I was VERY excited about it.. after I finally downloaded it, took me a couple of hours to realize what was going on: NO SCRIPT EDITOR! You know what you have to do before you can do any scripting.......?

Ok, first things first, it has many seemingly awesome features, EXCEPT FOR A SCRIPTING EDITOR... to do anything you gotta modify an .ini file and god knows what else, I never even got to make the usual 'hello world' app you can in every game engine in the first 5 seconds... Oh... and guess what, no help files either, you have to research for hours to find out what's the deal with udk scripting. The real unreal script help is in some wiki website, forget that, unity made everything simple from the beginning, that gave unity the needed head start.

So dreamora is quite right....

 

dogzerx, what dreamora said has nothing to do with what you said. Furthermore, you are quite wrong. I am an avid unity user but UDK's editor is nowhere nears as basic or as "silly" as you put it. It's windows-inclined and a bit behind on the UI graphics but surely not basic.

Also, we've gotten way further than hello world even though my background is in design/ web programming. Help files are fewer than Unity's, true, but they exist. They also have complete projects put up for dissection (heavily commented too).

Yes, the fact that it requires an expensive scripting editor (or that you have to give up most of the commodities of an integrated editor) is annoying but with the royalty level drop it is now an actual competitor to Unity (with Android support and market being what they are right now).

As dreamora said, Crytek's and Unity's reaction will be interesting to say the least.

 

Cool!

Now if they only had a web plugin ...

 

I heard rumors of this last week, glad it wasn't just a rumor.

I use Notepad++ with console/Unreal Front End. Hit a button to compile and launch game, it tells you the error on what line. I use Notepad++ with Unity as well. Hit a button to compile, I am told what error and what line. Same, same. Last project the guys I worked with used Visual C++ without nFringe.

Dogzerx, very much misinformed. No ini's get edited other than to set up very specific things. Anyways, I am sure this will be familiar to you.

Code (csharp):

1. /**
2.  * Copyright 1998-2010 Epic Games, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
3.  */
4.  
5. class MobilePawn extends GamePawn;
6.  
7. var bool bFixedView;
8. var vector FixedViewLoc;
9. var rotator FixedViewRot;
10.  
11.  
12. /** view bob properties */
13. var float Bob;
14. var float AppliedBob;
15. var float BobTime;
16. var vector WalkBob;
17. var float OldZ;
18.  
19. /** Speed modifier for castle pawn */
20. var config float CastlePawnSpeed;
21. var config float CastlePawnAccel;
22.  
23. simulated function PostBeginPlay()
24. {
25.     Super.PostBeginPlay();
26.     OldZ = Location.Z;
27. }
28.  
29. exec function FixedView()
30. {
31.     if (!bFixedView)
32.     {
33.         FixedViewLoc = Location;
34.         FixedViewRot = Controller.Rotation;
35.     }
36.     bFixedView = !bFixedView;
37. }
38.  
39.    
40. simulated function bool CalcCamera( float fDeltaTime, out vector out_CamLoc, out rotator out_CamRot, out float out_FOV )
41. {
42.     // Override camera FOV for first person castle player
43.     out_FOV = 95.0;
44.  
45.     // Handle the fixed camera
46.     if (bFixedView)
47.     {
48.         out_CamLoc = FixedViewLoc;
49.         out_CamRot = FixedViewRot;
50.     }
51.     else
52.     {
53.         return Super.CalcCamera(fDeltaTime, out_CamLoc, out_CamRot, out_FOV);
54.     }
55.  
56.     return true;
57. }
58.  
59.  
60.  
61. /**
62.  * Updates the player's eye height using BaseEyeHeight and (head) Bob settings; called every tick
63.  */
64. event TickSpecial( float DeltaTime )
65. {
66.     // NOTE: The following was pulled from UT's head bobbing features
67.  
68.     local bool bAllowBob;
69.     local float smooth, Speed2D;
70.     local vector X, Y, Z;
71.  
72.     // Set ground speed
73.     GroundSpeed = CastlePawnSpeed;
74.     AccelRate = CastlePawnAccel;
75.  
76.     bAllowBob = true;
77.     if ( abs(Location.Z - OldZ) > 15 )
78.     {
79.         // if position difference too great, don't do head bob
80.         bAllowBob = false;
81.         BobTime = 0;
82.         WalkBob = Vect(0,0,0);
83.     }
84.  
85.     if ( bAllowBob )
86.     {
87.         // normal walking around
88.         // smooth eye position changes while going up/down stairs
89.         smooth = FMin(0.9, 10.0 * DeltaTime/CustomTimeDilation);
90.         if( Physics == PHYS_Walking || Controller.IsInState('PlayerClickToMove') )
91.         {
92.             EyeHeight = FMax((EyeHeight - Location.Z + OldZ) * (1 - smooth) + BaseEyeHeight * smooth,
93.                                 -0.5 * CylinderComponent.CollisionHeight);
94.         }
95.         else
96.         {
97.             EyeHeight = EyeHeight * ( 1 - smooth) + BaseEyeHeight * smooth;
98.         }
99.  
100.         // Add walk bob to movement
101.         Bob = FClamp(Bob, -0.15, 0.15);
102.  
103.         if (Physics == PHYS_Walking )
104.         {
105.             GetAxes(Rotation,X,Y,Z);
106.             Speed2D = VSize(Velocity);
107.             if ( Speed2D < 10 )
108.             {
109.               BobTime += 0.2 * DeltaTime;
110.             }
111.             else
112.             {
113.                 BobTime += DeltaTime * (0.3 + 0.7 * Speed2D/GroundSpeed);
114.             }
115.             WalkBob = Y * Bob * Speed2D * sin(8 * BobTime);
116.             AppliedBob = AppliedBob * (1 - FMin(1, 16 * deltatime));
117.             WalkBob.Z = AppliedBob;
118.             if ( Speed2D > 10 )
119.             {
120.                 WalkBob.Z = WalkBob.Z + 0.75 * Bob * Speed2D * sin(16 * BobTime);
121.             }
122.         }
123.         else if ( Physics == PHYS_Swimming )
124.         {
125.             GetAxes(Rotation,X,Y,Z);
126.             BobTime += DeltaTime;
127.             Speed2D = Sqrt(Velocity.X * Velocity.X + Velocity.Y * Velocity.Y);
128.             WalkBob = Y * Bob *  0.5 * Speed2D * sin(4.0 * BobTime);
129.             WalkBob.Z = Bob * 1.5 * Speed2D * sin(8.0 * BobTime);
130.         }
131.         else
132.         {
133.             BobTime = 0;
134.             WalkBob = WalkBob * (1 - FMin(1, 8 * deltatime));
135.         }
136.  
137.         WalkBob *= 0.1;
138.     }
139.  
140.     OldZ = Location.Z;
141. }
142.  
143.  
144. /**
145.  * GetPawnViewLocation()
146.  *
147.  * Called by PlayerController to determine camera position in first person view.  Returns
148.  * the location at which to place the camera
149.  */
150. simulated function Vector GetPawnViewLocation()
151. {
152.     return Location + EyeHeight * vect(0,0,1) + WalkBob;
153. }
154.  
155.  
156. defaultproperties
157. {
158.     Components.Remove(Sprite)
159.  
160.  
161.     Begin Object Name=CollisionCylinder
162.         CollisionRadius=+0021.000000
163.         CollisionHeight=+0044.000000
164.     End Object
165.     CylinderComponent=CollisionCylinder
166.  
167.     ViewPitchMin=-10000
168.     ViewPitchMax=12000
169.  
170.     // How much to bob the camera when walking
171.     Bob=0.12
172.  
173.     // @todo: When touching to move while already moving, walking physics may be applied for a single frame.
174.     //   This means that if WalkingPct is not 1.0, brakes will be applied and movement will appear to stutter.
175.     //   Until we can figure out how to avoid the state transition glitch, we're forcing WalkingPct to 1.0
176.     WalkingPct=+1.0
177.     CrouchedPct=+0.4
178.     BaseEyeHeight=60.0 // 38.0
179.     EyeHeight=60.0 // 38.0
180.     GroundSpeed=440.0
181.     AirSpeed=440.0
182.     WaterSpeed=220.0
183.     AccelRate=2048.0
184.     JumpZ=322.0
185.     CrouchHeight=29.0
186.     CrouchRadius=21.0
187.     WalkableFloorZ=0.78
188.    
189.  
190.     AlwaysRelevantDistanceSquared=+1960000.0
191.  
192.     RotationRate=(Pitch=20000,Yaw=20000,Roll=20000)
193.     AirControl=+0.35
194.     bCanCrouch=true
195.     bCanClimbLadders=True
196.     bCanPickupInventory=True
197.     SightRadius=+12000.0
198.  
199.     MaxStepHeight=26.0
200.     MaxJumpHeight=49.0
201.  
202.     bScriptTickSpecial=true
203. }
204.  
205.  

 

Well I agree with Lamont too. You can use free tools, I use free tools anyway. For me I think its not that much the lack of UDK-s script editor, but being spoiled by Unity. I love to just drag the scripts and stuff around in the editor.

 

@azzogat
Now, azzogat... dreamora did say: "If Epic just finally got an acceptable editor for scripting in place. (...) ", so he is right, UDK haven't got an acceptable editor for scripting in place. So correct me if I'm wrong, but ... did UDK get an acceptable editor in place already? I haven't heard about it.
Again, I wish I cared enough to get into the world of UDK and learned its scripting, but what shook me off was the claim of a "user friendly" game engine, and the only user friendly thing I saw was the "level editor" thing and other gadgets, but the most important thing, the scripting editor, is missing!
See, to make it easy so you understand, what bugged me is that UDK claims its user friendly, and there's no integrated script editor. This is a personal opinion, subjective, it's how *I* feel about it, not you, so how can I be wrong about it? X)

Yes, dreamora ALSO said in his post what you're explaining to me. And I'm glad you had the patience to learn UDK, the graphics features are impressive! Although, I see very little non FPS games in UDK, AND THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT.
Anyway, the non FPS games I've seen have amazing graphics, probably done by a whole team, with coders that took the time to learn UDK scripting.

 

@dogzerx
The reason you see only FPS games mostly is that to make a FPS game with UDK you need absolutely no scripting, all you need is Kismet, and most artists like it that way.

 

When I looked at UDK there were a couple things that disappointed me (besides the licensing terms). Still, I also think competition is a very good thing. It is to all our advantages, as consumers, that more companies step up and keep the pressure on UT to continue to deliver greatness.

 

You know, I like the idea of "artists developing videogames". Not long ago it was usually the smart guys who could get things done, but with all these game engines almost everyone can try developing games. Kismet was the single thing I was most excited about UDK, but I didn't know it was so basic, it's only good for setting up a FPS game right? I don't want to make a FPS game, I want to CREATE games, being the imagination my limit. Now you say artists like it that way, if I were to consider myself a "game developer artist", I would want to do more than just FPS .

 

You can use kismet to do many things, even create your own kismet nodes.

Think of Kismet as the tweaking of the game rules you are currently using. I did an elevator action rip off in an afternoon while back without touching code. If you really want to get into UDK, just hang out on the forums, PM me, or ping me on MSN. Really, there is nothing to be afraid of, much better than guessing.

 

It would actually be nice if Unity had a similiar license for Pro. I would enter into an agreement that for my first released title, I'll give UT 25% royalties once I get 50k from it myself. Then just buy the Pro version.

Actually it'd be smarter for UT to do it so that, you can use the Pro version, but they get 20% royalties UNTIL you reach 50k. So then for a single title released from Unity Pro, UT would get 10,000. Hell of alot more than the $1500 for just a straight up license. But I sure as hell would agree to give UT 10,000 if I made 50k from using there Pro Engine. This would expand Unity's userbase and get UT more income from singular use of Unity Pro.

 

It wouldn't expand the userbase much more than it is and that at a nearly granted lose game for them.

Especially when you hope to get more than the desktop license like this which you normally would as the other platforms pro addons require unity pro and alike ...

I think such a license could not work with unity.

if, then it would need to be per project and project wide, so that the said project and all devs on it have pro but the project has to pay its 20%+ share from $0 onward. That way it makes it a $0 till release and beyond that they pay back their prior 0 risk path ...
but I don't think this is going to happen as 3rd alternative license for registered business with office locations

 

Unitys UI(asset import, scripting, objects) + UDK's graphics == [censored]

I tried using udk after unity - aside from very pretty effects I kept missing unity. Setting it up is a pain, and so are importing assets. It's an incredible engine, just not tailored to people like me.

 

I'm opposite. I like the asset workflow of UDK. You're just used to Unity, once you just look at it from a different perspective, it's almost the same.

Unity's license should stay the same, gives me something to save towards. It would be nice to have all the bells and whistles at a lower price ($3k, just to get in with Asset server/iOS...), but I'll make due with what I have.

 

I develop in Unity for the web player.

But if UDK introduced this (which they most likely wont) then I would definitely look into UDK.

Their new licence certainly embraces the indie community.

This is a battle for game engine dominance - I guarantee that in a few years - when the smoke clears - that there will be ONE engine left standing - the rest will disappear!

I once developed in Director 3D engine - dead - due to lack of vision.

I hedged my bets on Unity - they give us Beast over a solid Recast solution for AI - not a good move in my book. Why give us lightmapping when most artists can create them in other 3D apps???

Crysis is gonna play their cards soon.

Blender still may come through with something special - or Shiva - or ....

In the end it will be up to the vision of the companies who develop them. I still hope that Unity pulls out all the stops and give developers something really special - things that they really need!

And I know can speak for a LOT of Unity developers and say that the pro licence is still costly!!

 

I think its more a battle for not losing completely.

The Unreal Engine, as much as it always was hyped, has found an unreasonable low usage outside of epic own projects.

On the other hand engines like Gamebryo and Trinigy Vision have been used much more although not half as hyped and not technically up to it ...
CryEngine is suffering the same kind of problem

at 1-2 games per year they just don't pay their development anymore, especially not if the main driving forces were own games with 30M+ budgets that have to fight to break even at worst

I think this move is primarily to get the engine used more to spread it actively to its potential customers.

Also 25% of a successful game on steam can make them equal or more than what the traditional licensing made them
and they no longer need painfull negotiations with schools for their academic licensing.

 

Yeah! Epic just announced, that UDK will support Mac OSX. http://twitter.com/MarkRein/status/42236794099466240#

 

Yet another interesting development to appear for GDC. Almost wish I was going now.

 

I really don't think UDK has the future that Unity has, it just does not have the usability that Unity has. I am sure there is going to be a handful of really amazing games that come out on UDK, no doubt about that. But Unity is going to have a wider userbase.

 

I am a programmer and not all places you can get good artist, for example my place, a good artist is very exclusive commodities, most of them i've found is either doesn't know about displacement map not even normal map! , and plus most of them is modeling in sketchup and god knows why their fbx export is uber trash, i need to export to dae, re-export into fbx, check in unity if there is reversed face, make my own normal, disp, occ map by autonomous program, if none problem continue to placement then light mapping, being a programmer i even doesn't know how to model simple house in 3dsmax, even more advanced stuff like light mapping, sketchup quite easy though but i really hate when the exporter doing extraneous gazillion of extra polygon from a simple model.