The Escapist Presents: Epic Games - UDK

[Team Hollywood]

Epic Games - UDK

Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games, talks to us about Unreal Development Kit - a free version of Epic's Unreal 3 engine available to all up and coming video game makers.

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[CezarIgnat]

It's so great they decided to launch UDK. I like it a lot more than Unity.

 

[Warrior Irme]

I have messed around with it for the past couple months. I have no computer science background, or anything remotely game design and the tools were fairly easy to pick up and learn in terms of creating simple things. I obviously haven't made anything all that great, but I was able in the first 5-6 hours or so created a maze that people could walk through. I hope to go learn game design after I get a college degree and this is a great way to tide me over until then.

 

[Rigs83]

Awesome and now I need to learn how to code.

 

[Seamus8]

Awesome and now I need to learn how to code.

Same, drat that whole discipline thing...

 

[Nincompoop]

It's so great they decided to launch UDK. I like it a lot more than Unity.

Unity has what UDK doesn't have. As they explained, maybe in the future they'll be able to compile applications into something other than PC. Unity already has this kind of support, to an extent of course.
Unity is also more practical to some, as it has a novel way of compressing and extracting java code, which makes it 20 times faster than average java. So if you are familiar with java, Unity is spectacular.
Unity also has some thirdparty software integrated, which would, by the way, cost in the thousands to lease.

However, Unity seems to not be as professional as UDK might be. There are often petite indie games released in Unity. With the exception of Interstellar Marines of course.

__
I am definitely going to try this engine out.

 

[Andraste]

Unity has what UDK doesn't have. As they explained, maybe in the future they'll be able to compile applications into something other than PC. Unity already has this kind of support, to an extent of course.
Unity is also more practical to some, as it has a novel way of compressing and extracting java code, which makes it 20 times faster than average java. So if you are familiar with java, Unity is spectacular.
Unity also has some thirdparty software integrated, which would, by the way, cost in the thousands to lease.

However, Unity seems to not be as professional as UDK might be. There are often petite indie games released in Unity. With the exception of Interstellar Marines of course.

__
I am definitely going to try this engine out.

UDK is pretty slick. True, Unity does have some of the support UDK doesn't currently have, but it's interesting to hear Epic's looking at putting that in as well. I wonder how long that'll take?

What's nice about UDK is that it's practically the same thing as the most commonly leased engine for AAA developers. So you guys thinking to learn to make a game on UDK? Good plan.

 

[Nincompoop]

Unity has what UDK doesn't have. As they explained, maybe in the future they'll be able to compile applications into something other than PC. Unity already has this kind of support, to an extent of course.
Unity is also more practical to some, as it has a novel way of compressing and extracting java code, which makes it 20 times faster than average java. So if you are familiar with java, Unity is spectacular.
Unity also has some thirdparty software integrated, which would, by the way, cost in the thousands to lease.

However, Unity seems to not be as professional as UDK might be. There are often petite indie games released in Unity. With the exception of Interstellar Marines of course.

__
I am definitely going to try this engine out.

UDK is pretty slick. True, Unity does have some of the support UDK doesn't currently have, but it's interesting to hear Epic's looking at putting that in as well. I wonder how long that'll take?

What's nice about UDK is that it's practically the same thing as the most commonly leased engine for AAA developers. So you guys thinking to learn to make a game on UDK? Good plan.

Thanks.

Yeah, I really like the thought behind projects like this. Trying to help the 'indie' side of game development.

 

[Tom Phoenix]

This has a lot of potential. Combined with Steam or some other manner of digital distribution, this could result in a large influx of new PC games.

Of course, if that happens, at least a part of them (if not more) will be complete garbage. Still, considering the current state of the PC gaming market, it is worth to remain optimistic.

 

[Virtual_Dom]

Well I just downloaded source SDK, but this sounds pretty good. I haven't tried either so how good is Source? Where can I get UDK?

 

[Worgen]

very cool, its always nice when devs give the tools to users to make new stuff

 

[Utarefson]

This has a lot of potential. Combined with Steam or some other manner of digital distribution, this could result in a large influx of new PC games.

Of course, if that happens, at least a part of them (if not more) will be complete garbage. Still, considering the current state of the PC gaming market, it is worth to remain optimistic.

By the way, the last update added steam support.
Now they just have to put in a .blend importer, and its the most awesome engine out there.

 

[CoreKrogoth]

I'd love to see more like this. Maybe you could do one on Runic games. I say them just because everything but their naming schemes were very elegant in Torchlight.

 

[Retardinator]

Hey, little practice never hurts. Of course. having some background in coding and such would work, but from what I've heard, some people who aren't apt in it found it enjoyable and 'easy' to work with.

Seems like I'm the only utterly confused retard when it comes to it's interface. Or making anything in particular. Maybe I got too used to the simplicity of Source SDK.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

Hey, little practice never hurts. Of course. having some background in coding and such would work, but from what I've heard, some people who aren't apt in it found it enjoyable and 'easy' to work with.

Seems like I'm the only utterly confused retard when it comes to it's interface. Or making anything in particular. Maybe I got too used to the simplicity of Source SDK.

Source SDK is no walk in the park. Adding custom models is about the biggest pain in the ass I've ever had the displeasure of failing so hard at. It's just barely worse than dealing with Faceposer. Add to that the rather spotty documentation, and you can see why UDK is potentially easier to deal with once you learn the interface. Like any new program, it just takes time.

 

[Ranooth]

Learning this as part of my games course in September, loved UnrealEd and cannot wait to use UDK!

 

[MercurySteam]

I know a couple of people who have this and the things they can do with it are awesome.

 

[Galaxy613]

Well I just downloaded source SDK, but this sounds pretty good. I haven't tried either so how good is Source? Where can I get UDK?

If you can't even bother to do a basic google search to find out where you can get UDK, why do you suppose you'll be able to get far anything at all? Rarely if every will ANYONE hold your hand during the learning process, if you can't even find the first step by yourself, that ain't a good sign.