Unreal Engine 3 goes free and indie, Free for non-commercial use Options

[Ultima]

Eh, Unity has been free for a month and we've not seen any of that :P I doubt a lot of people are going to bother making Unreal Engine sonic games :P

I heard about Unity being free a few days ago, give me some time!

No, fuck you, go with Unreal :p

XD, was gonna say that but I figured if I spent days learning to use some engine I'd already be so far in that I wouldn't want to bother for at least a few months :P

[Gen]

Unreal actually has a far bigger learning curve than Unity does. Sure, it can do "more" than Unity out of the box, but be prepared to spend a month or so learning the engine, and not being able to have the same level of control over the engine as you'd have with Unity's scripting system (for example, me and some of the people I work with have managed to create a deferred renderer that runs on top of Unity's renderer).

[Shadow Hog]

I've gotta say, having used a shit load of Hammer in recent years, UnrealEd3's interface is... perplexing. Like, it's hard to do the things I need it to do as quickly and as intuitively as I could with Hammer. Probably because I'm still so new to the engine, but still...

Nice to see that they swapped to additive geometry instead of subtractive, though. Even nicer, they legally let you go into the void, so I don't have to worry so much about leaks. That'd make levels made out of displacements (or whatever the UnrealEngine3 equivalent is) a lot less painful than it is in Source, since in Source they don't block leaks, while in UnrealEngine, it doesn't give a damn.

[Gen]

I've gotta say, having used a shit load of Hammer in recent years, UnrealEd3's interface is... perplexing. Like, it's hard to do the things I need it to do as quickly and as intuitively as I could with Hammer. Probably because I'm still so new to the engine, but still...

Nice to see that they swapped to additive geometry instead of subtractive, though. Even nicer, they legally let you go into the void, so I don't have to worry so much about leaks. That'd make levels made out of displacements (or whatever the UnrealEngine3 equivalent is) a lot less painful than it is in Source, since in Source they don't block leaks, while in UnrealEngine, it doesn't give a damn.

Subtractive geometry is still here to stay :p it's just not the default method of adding brushes anymore. Now you can construct entire levels with static meshes, and the equivalent to "Displacement Surfaces" are terrains, which come with their own material and foliage system.

[Techokami]

Carmack promised that Doom 3 will eventually go GPL as well. Can't wait for that.

There have been a few snags of the "Creative Labs blackmailed id Software HARD" variety, but it should be happening soon

[Gen]

Carmack promised that Doom 3 will eventually go GPL as well. Can't wait for that.

There have been a few snags of the "Creative Labs blackmailed id Software HARD" variety, but it should be happening soon

Mmm, delicious patent on Carmack's Reverse owned by Creative Labs, you must threaten to sue with it.

[Shadow Hog]

At least he didn't use the word "Edge" anywhere in the title.