Unreal Engine for everybody!

Bobby Miller 5 Nov, 2009 at 4:00pm ET Article published in Gaming

Whoa, wait. what? Seriously?

Epic Games is giving away the full Unreal 3 engine SDK for free. The entire professional development framework is being offered for free to give users real tools for developing cutting edge games. This is an incredible move by Epic Games. And here we thought they wanted to abandon the PC platform…

Epic has launched a web portal for the Unreal Development Kit (UDK) where you can download the toolset, read documentation on the engine, see examples and showcases, and access the community, among many other things. The UDK comes weighs in at 563MB and comes with… well, everything.

The UDK is meant for non-commercial use, and is aimed at professionals and students alike who don’t have access to high-level game development toolsets. This is music to the ears of anyone who wants to dig into the likes of game development, character animation, digital filmmaking, 3D viz, asset creation, shader programming, and who knows what else—the possibilities are incredible.

If you’ve been wanting to dig into a high-end game engine and learn the trade of video game development, this is an excellent place to start. Everything you need to get started can be found at the portal. Now is your chance to make something Unreal.

GG Epic, GG.

Comments

6 Nov 2009 ~ 10:30am chrisWhite Holy hell that's awesome!
6 Nov 2009 ~ 10:53am RWB Is this the same thing you get when you buy the Unreal 3 game?
6 Nov 2009 ~ 11:04am ardichoke No, this is just the core game engine and the tools to develop games using it. It doesn't include any of the Unreal game content. That said, the core is a huge part of game development and releasing the core like this a great boon for indie and open source game developers.
6 Nov 2009 ~ 11:08am RWB

ardichoke wrote:

No, this is just the core game engine and the tools to develop games using it. It doesn't include any of the Unreal game content. That said, the core is a huge part of game development and releasing the core like this a great boon for indie and open source game developers.

Wat I mean is doesn't the Unreal Game itself come with these tools? Or does it only come with Unreal Editor. I see this release comes with a bunch of editors like animation and physics on top of the Unreal Editor.
6 Nov 2009 ~ 7:12pm not 3d realms sweet, now i can finally make duke forever.
6 Nov 2009 ~ 7:18pm Thrax ^ Best troll of the week.
6 Nov 2009 ~ 7:50pm primesuspect 10/10
6 Nov 2009 ~ 7:55pm chrisWhite ^5
6 Nov 2009 ~ 10:11pm UPSLynx

RWB wrote:

Wat I mean is doesn't the Unreal Game itself come with these tools? Or does it only come with Unreal Editor. I see this release comes with a bunch of editors like animation and physics on top of the Unreal Editor.

This is a significanly bigger release than unreal editor. This is access to the full SDK, documentation, source, community, everything. Where as Unreal Editor pretty much left you limited to mods, the UDK will give you full tools to literally produce and develop an entire game from the ground up.

And it is friggin awesome.
6 Nov 2009 ~ 10:38pm ardichoke /me suddenly wants to take the Unreal engine and use it to make some ridiculously absurd game.
6 Nov 2009 ~ 10:57pm UPSLynx ICHQ CRASHERS.

It's like castle crashers but you're going through ICHQ fending off drunk neighbors and forum trolls, and the bosses are debt collectors. At the end of the boss battles, you get to fight over who gets to plant one on Shwaip.

You can play as Primesuspect, Lincoln, Thrax, or Snuffie. You can unlock CB, but it doesn't actually mean anything when you do.

Weapons include bell's Oberon, a turkey stout (held by Cliff), DSLR cameras, MSI Winds, Grilled Stuft Burritos, a bottle of New Amsterdam, a fightstick with pink pushbuttons, WWII rifles, Ryder's SS Monte Carlo, and the supar sekrit weapons are things like high level NVIDIA Quadro cards and Intel chips.

Somebody PLEASE fund it.
6 Nov 2009 ~ 11:01pm NiGHTS I laughed
6 Nov 2009 ~ 11:08pm Bandrik I'll put $2 towards it. And a bottle of root beer.

I also request GQ's laughter as a weapon as well. It's that legendary.
6 Nov 2009 ~ 11:16pm ardichoke Forum trolls as an enemy? You mean I finally get to be a generic FPS enemy?!?! My dreams have come true!!!
6 Nov 2009 ~ 11:40pm AlexDeGruven

not 3d realms wrote:

sweet, now i can finally make duke forever.

I love you, whoever you are.
7 Nov 2009 ~ 1:49am chrisWhite Wait, wait, wait, I'm pretty sure rulers and the Spanish Inquisition should be worked into this too.
7 Nov 2009 ~ 8:27am mertesn

UPSLynx wrote:

ICHQ CRASHERS.

It's like castle crashers but you're going through ICHQ fending off drunk neighbors and forum trolls, and the bosses are debt collectors. At the end of the boss battles, you get to fight over who gets to plant one on Shwaip.

You can play as Primesuspect, Lincoln, Thrax, or Snuffie. You can unlock CB, but it doesn't actually mean anything when you do.

Weapons include bell's Oberon, a turkey stout (held by Cliff), DSLR cameras, MSI Winds, Grilled Stuft Burritos, a bottle of New Amsterdam, a fightstick with pink pushbuttons, WWII rifles, Ryder's SS Monte Carlo, and the supar sekrit weapons are things like high level NVIDIA Quadro cards and Intel chips.

Somebody PLEASE fund it.

You forgot deep fried Whitecastles. Those can be the health boosters.
7 Nov 2009 ~ 9:03am mas0n More like +20 energy but -10 health.
7 Nov 2009 ~ 11:04am UPSLynx Ok, good point.

Deep fried whitecastle as an item. Scotty's deepfryer as a weapon. The spanish inquisition as a weapon. And OCZ dog tags as a weapon.

I like this, good ideas.
7 Nov 2009 ~ 12:29pm Snarkasm

You can unlock CB, but it doesn't actually mean anything when you do.

lmfao

OCZ dog tags are +5 to shields, not a weapon. Ryder's anti-stupid stick is a weapon, though.
7 Nov 2009 ~ 1:30pm Ryder

Snarkasm wrote:

Ryder's anti-stupid stick is a weapon, though.

You win the game and eleventy billion internetz if you unlock this.
7 Nov 2009 ~ 5:36pm GTA FAN I'm gonna release GTA San Andreas using the UE3!
I need cookiez