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Epic launches and demonstrates Unreal Engine 4 at GDC 2014

by Mark Tyson on 20 March 2014, 12:45

Tags: Epic Games

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At the GDC yesterday we saw Epic Games releasing a number of demo videos showing off its newly released graphics engine, Unreal Engine 4.

A demonstration of the capabilities of the Unreal Engine 4 are shown in the video below, including items such as full-scene HDR reflections, the ability to put thousands of dynamic lights into a scene, a bulk of post processing effects, physically-based shading, GPU particle simulation and collision and in-program features like surface editors and cascade effects.

An overview of the Unreal Engine 4 Editor Tutorials was also provided, showing developers what they will be able to do with the new tools, available to them in quick and simple ways.

If you are hungry for more tutorial videos, you can find dozens on the official Unreal Engine YouTube page.

New licensing model

With the release of the engine, a new subscription licensing model was also announced. According to Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney, for $19 a month, you will gain "access to everything, including the Unreal Editor in ready-to-run form, and the engine's complete C++ source code hosted on GitHub for collaborative development." A 5 per cent of gross profit royalty fee on UE4 games will also be collected by Epic.

The company has formerly only made its Unreal Engine available to large AAA game development teams at a cost of millions. Sweeney thinks that the decision to change the engine's licensing model was a reflection of changes in the industry. "Looking at the new shape of the industry now, we realize that's an outdated tool," he said. "Looking at the possibilities for the engine, we started from scratch and thought 'How can we make the engine available to more people?" he said, explaining the decision.

The subscription will be monthly as developers can "come and go as they please," said Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games. For those who cancel their subscription will be able to retain access to UE4 tools though they will not be able to take advantage of the updates planned for the engine.

Flexible licensing options for those such as universities and schools that would prefer not to pay a royalty fee on game sales are available; they can pay an upfront flat licensing deal.

Crytek hits back

To tackle the release of the UE4 Engine and development tools, Crytek is offering developers access to its full CryEngine for $9.90 a month. The subscription will also be "royalty free", says Crytek. The firm has also recently announced that it will be incorporating support for AMD's Mantle API.



HEXUS Forums :: 11 Comments

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Blue print using Visual scripting and debugging.
Matinee cinematics.
Cascade vfx.
Persona animation.

This engine editor feels more like it has got enough stuff to make a movie than a game.
a shame next gen consoles cant handle it lol.


Look at watch dog. complete joke on the next gen. they dumbed it down massively graphics wise
abychristy
Blue print using Visual scripting and debugging.
Matinee cinematics.
Cascade vfx.
Persona animation.

This engine editor feels more like it has got enough stuff to make a movie than a game.

Yeah, in fact, most games now seem like they're made to be a movie and you're the invincible hero. Just like in Crysis 3, that game had very movie-like cinematics and the game devs hired some well known composers for the game.

This also seems to be the case in Mass Effect 3, where it was more like a movie because of the something-that-looks-like-film-grain blurring the scene.
j.o.s.h.1408;10579
a shame next gen consoles cant handle it lol.


Look at watch dog. complete joke on the next gen. they dumbed it down massively graphics wise

To be fair, we're not going to see what the new consoles can do for a while yet. Remember, for most of the development of games like Watch Dogs, the teams have been building games without a definite idea of what the consoles would be on release. So, we're going to be seeing games for the first 18 months that are compromised in their designs and scaled, then we're going to see a period of better games after that that were built in full knowledge of the PS4/XO hardware, and then after that we'll see gradual improvements in coding efficiency that will be many orders better than Knack, Ryse, Titanfall etc.

I agree that the most interesting thing to happen during this gen (as always) will be on PCs and not consoles though. I'm dying to see what happens when DX12 and Mantle take away the traditional handicap of PCs, and allow for some of the efficiency consoles have always enjoyed.
this is massive, surprised epic have released it at such a low price point. well done