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UE4 is now free, F-R-E-E


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https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

 

Pricing structure is the same as UDK when shipping a completed job, which now includes royalties on arch viz stuff. "When you ship a game or application, you pay a 5% royalty on gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter. It’s a simple arrangement in which we succeed only when you succeed. "

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It doesn't matter if it is stills, video, or app. If you use UE4, you owe them royalties.

 

However, what if the job was a total of $10,000. Rather than pay royalties on all $10,000 you put in a line item that's $2,000 for UE4 services and bill modeling and such out separately. That should get you well under the $3,000 per project per quarter royalty requirement. I don't know how this would all work and if Epic would come after you and say that the total bill is what is considered the income for the project and not the UE4 line item.

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I'm not sure that it means arch viz is included in that... Arch viz and linear media (movies) created with the engine still seem to be exempt from the royalties.

 

This move really only removes the $20/month sub from people like us. Maybe they just want people using the engine?

 

edit*

 

From the EULA:

 

"However, no royalty is owed on the following forms of revenue:

 

The first $3,000.00 in gross revenue for each Product per calendar quarter;

Consulting fees or work-for-hire fees which are non-recoupable for services performed using the Licensed Technology (e.g., an architect-created walkthrough simulation or a contractor-developed in-house training simulator);

Revenue from non-interactive linear media (e.g., broadcast or streamed video files, cartoons, or movies) which is Distributed in a form that does not contain or, in order to deliver, rely on servers running the Licensed Technology;"

 

happy days!

Edited by ryannelson
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I'm not sure that it means arch viz is included in that... Arch viz and linear media (movies) created with the engine still seem to be exempt from the royalties.

 

This move really only removes the $20/month sub from people like us. Maybe they just want people using the engine?

 

edit*

 

From the EULA:

 

"However, no royalty is owed on the following forms of revenue:

 

The first $3,000.00 in gross revenue for each Product per calendar quarter;

Consulting fees or work-for-hire fees which are non-recoupable for services performed using the Licensed Technology (e.g., an architect-created walkthrough simulation or a contractor-developed in-house training simulator);

Revenue from non-interactive linear media (e.g., broadcast or streamed video files, cartoons, or movies) which is Distributed in a form that does not contain or, in order to deliver, rely on servers running the Licensed Technology;"

 

happy days!

 

Very interesting indeed!

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Don't forget the dark UI, that's only included in Unity Pro.

 

I would say it depends on your target. If you want mobile and web, Unity is probably the way to go as it runs on the widest range of platforms. UE4 struggles on Android (or so I've heard) and it can still tax most mobile/web devices if you do not highly optimize the scene. If quality rules all and if you can convince your client to buy a NASA grade space computer to run your visualizations, UE4 is the way to go. If you just want video/stills, UE4 is probably the best at that.

 

All in all, both are fantastic products.

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Not sure if this is the case with other countries and educational institutes (no doubt it is), but Victoria University here in New Zealand are now including Unity in their course offerings for post-grad (masters) study.

 

It's not a core paper, but is taught within the school, by an architect. I walked into the first lecture hoping there might be something like Unity or Unreal used - was the day that Unreal went free actually! Cool to see even little old NZ embracing this stuff. I believe Unity is chosen purely due to the cross-platform nature, and reasonably non-taxing hardware requirements - also the UI seems quite user-friendly.

 

PS working my way through your thesis Scott. Interesting read thus far.

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...If quality rules all and if you can convince your client to buy a NASA grade space computer to run your visualizations, UE4 is the way to go...

 

NASA grade space computers or a modern smartphone. Either one should work.

 

To put smartphone progress into perspective, a smartphone today has more computing power than all of NASA did when it put a man on the moon in 1969.

 

Source: http://forwardthinking.pcmag.com/ces/292745-intel-enters-smartphone-chip-race-for-real

 

We built Elemental to push high-end PC and console features, and also to show early capabilities of Unreal Engine 4. As seen with today’s demonstration of Elemental on Tegra X1, NVIDIA continues to extend what developers can create with striking results. With its Maxwell architecture, Tegra X1 is equipped to run rich, beautiful experiences not previously seen on mobile devices.

 

Source: http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2015/01/04/tegra-x1-elemental/

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