Unity3D and Unreal Engine FREE!

[DaFool]

This is news I can barely contain myself, I am so giddy with joy.

Last October 28, Unity released the Indie version (a former $200 value) of 2.6 now is free for free and commercial projects. Unity is like the 3D equivalent of Flash

http://www.unity3d.com

but some noteworthy games were made with it. I've tried some and the standalone executables don't feel like they were lagging or were emulated. It's also probably the easiest engine to develop for the iphone (though the iphone kit is still too costly for me).

Epic responds November 5, by releasing the Unreal Engine for non-commercial projects

http://www.udk.com/

Unreal engine is known for titles such as Last Remnant (Square's PC/Xbox 360 JRPG) and plenty of non-JP FPS's of course.

Now whether there's going to be lots of shovelware remains to be seen. But I still have my jaw dropped on the ground and can't haul it back up. To think 2-3 months ago I almost paid for Torque or some other engine, mulling over whether $100 is a good investment for a professional 2D engine, and now here we have professional 3D engines open for all.

Democracy is awesome.

[jack_norton]

Hehe think I paid for Unity 2 years ago
Great tool, but I realized that making a 3d game is way too complex and requires huge investment of money. So, for now, I won't use it

[electric]

Epic responds November 5, by releasing the Unreal Engine for non-commercial projects

Actually for commercial projects too.

[JinzouTamashii]

Awesome... too bad a real 3D game is bit beyond me at the moment. You truly need to have all your bases covered, have all the plug-ins and software before you even attempt it and I would need to buy a second Slave drive just for that purpose.

[Le kitten]

*nosebleeds at the amaziness of the opportunity* *should probably only nosebleed in response to sexual matters, but oh well*

[sake-bento]

*nosebleeds at the amaziness of the opportunity* *should probably only nosebleed in response to sexual matters, but oh well*

I usually only nosebleed when I get punched in the face.

I haven't touched 3D anything for a long time. I did some 3D Studio Max stuff in high school, and I dabble in Bryce occasionally. This looks really cool, but it's so very beyond my skills. Oh well, looks like it's time to try to level up. XD Thanks for the heads up.

[oiseau]

*nosebleeds at the amaziness of the opportunity* *should probably only nosebleed in response to sexual matters, but oh well*

I usually only nosebleed when I get punched in the face.

Hahaha.

I don't know anything when it comes to 3D stuff because it's really beyond me right now, but it's nice to see that these engines are now offered for free. It's a great help for independent developers that can now use the money that they would have spent on buying the crazy expensive engine on other things that they may need for their project(s).

[sake-bento]

Well, I've been toying with Unity 3D for a bit. It's really quite beautiful. I have never even considered making a 3D game until now, but this is starting to change my mind. I don't think I'm read for UDK. My programming skills rusted years ago when I switched majors and the learning curve is steeper than I'd like it to be.

[jack_norton]

Unity3d is a powerful tool, however debugging is quite painful. Also if you make 3d stuff, you compete with AAA titles.
In general for games like adventures/VN/dating sim I think the traditional art is better. 3d characters looks bad to me. Even in Mass Effect, where they had a sort of dating sim subgame (you could seduce several crew member, and even there was even a lesbian "ending"!) the characters while beautifully done in 3d, weren't particularly exciting for me.
Of course with 3d you can also do some great stuff like the game Farenheit, where you could walk and investigate in 3d environments. Problem is that to build up those 3d worlds you need really LOT of money (unless you're a 3d modeller yourself). That's why I'm not so excited that the game is free: if you want to make a sellable game with it you need to invest minimum 10-20k on 3d stuff, just as a start

[sake-bento]

For me, the first thing that came to mind was stuff like the Myst series where there's very little interaction with people at all. Myst and Riven were my first introduction to PC gaming, and they totally hooked me. Although I wonder if I'm even capable of writing something so brilliant...

[Wintermoon]

For Myst-like games, you're probably better off using Ren'Py than any 3D engine.

[Guest]

Epic responds November 5, by releasing the Unreal Engine for non-commercial projects

Actually for commercial projects too.

If I remember correctly, royalties were around 25%.

[Inu]

For Myst-like games, you're probably better off using Ren'Py than any 3D engine.

RenPy isn't suited for Myst-like games. Sure, you can make Myst on RenPy, but it will be a process more painful than spending a vacation in any hell. Yes, Myst was developed like a VN, however Myst could have been made quicker and easier using an actual 3D engine, however the technology at the time was limited, so they were stuck to snapping hundreds of pre-rendered scenes.

Things to consider when looking at Myst being developed:
- 3D technology at the time was horrible.
- Rendering 3D scenes to 2D is time consuming. Especially when you are rendering the paths both back and forth.
- Myst was set in a 3D environment, however the user was forced to follow paths (essentially 2D travel akin to MUDs). The illusion of "freedom" was due to all the rendered scenes (pictures), many which didn't have any significance to the player (other than consuming time with more clicking) but the devs chose to render.

If you use a modern 3D engine (like a modernized Quake 1 engine enabled with Client Side QuakeC would be the bare minimum), you could essentially remake Myst-sized game of similar quality in less time.

Things to consider today:
- 3D technology is powerful and affordable.
- When making a world, you let the engine handle the scene. No need to spend extra time rendering and stringing together pictures which allows the devs to focus on other aspects such as concept, audio, puzzles, et cetera.
- True freedom. The player can actually discover the world because s/he is not stuck to pre-defined paths. The good thing is that it reduces the time devs is spending on areas which a player would deem insignificant. The devs can also increase player freedom (jumping, flying) at their own discretion.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/dear-esther

[Wintermoon]

Yes, Myst was developed like a VN, however Myst could have been made quicker and easier using an actual 3D engine, however the technology at the time was limited, so they were stuck to snapping hundreds of pre-rendered scenes.

You are confusing content production with the game engine. Content production is the same whether you use a 3D engine or not. You use some 3D modeling package, model the world, set camera points, and import the data into your engine. The difference is what you do with the data when you've got it in your engine, and Ren'Py simplifies this by virtue of being 2-D.

- True freedom. The player can actually discover the world because s/he is not stuck to pre-defined paths. The good thing is that it reduces the time devs is spending on areas which a player would deem insignificant. The devs can also increase player freedom (jumping, flying) at their own discretion.

Sorry, but that's a really stupid idea. When you let the player run around freely, the game is no longer Myst-like. The prerendered photo-gallery-like feel was 90% of the charm of the Myst series. Not to mention that realtime first person 3-D navigation is a huge pain in the ass compared to clicking arrows. (Yes, I'm aware that the Myst series eventually moved to realtime 3-D.)

[DaFool]

Inu, if I were you I'd use an Adventure Game Engine for that, such as Wintermute. Use something like Bryce to render the 3D worlds into images, then point and click you go!

What I'll probably end up doing is learn both Unity and Unreal at the same time. There are some other engines that are now free as well, but the philosophies of Unity and Unreal are the most prominent among the discussions I read. Unity is great for just picking up and messing with, but you don't get the full feature set unless you buy Pro. On the other hand, there are no royalties. Unreal is good if your game is similar enough to an FPS/TPS and you just want to start creating shiny levels with Unreal Editor. If I only focus on Unity because of desire to keep things simple, I'll be closing my doors on opportunities to network with people using the industry standard game engine today. Not to mention a very remote chance for a PS3 port. And if I only focus on Unreal because I don't want to be relegated to the handheld, web and casual bargain basement, I'll be cutting out so many platform opportunities, as well as casual players who might also be interested in a more in-depth experience later on.

In the end I'll probably design a world with the same characters, but then split it into two types of games -- a hardcore one using the Unreal engine, and a casual one using Unity. That way I can just start modelling the common shared models with a high polycount and trim down as necessary to match the engine being used. And depending on my proficiency with the different scripts, I can have the liberty to make insanely large hitpoints on one hand, as well as dumb and stupid but fun mechanics on the other.

Not that I actually have time to do any of that right now.