[Dev] Unreal Engine 4 (Now free to use!)

[WHTB]

Update (March 2, 2015): UE4 is now free and no longer costs $20 per month for updates! There are still 5% royalties on any profit you make over $3k, but you no longer need to plop any money down to get started or even to release a game.

Original post follows. Will give more updates when I get home and am not bound to a cell phone!

Additional edit: I messed up the date because typing on a cell phone is terrible.

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Has anyone started using playing around with using Unreal Engine 4 for a vore game yet?

I do game dev for a living, so I jumped on right after it was publicly released and I've been toying with it. It's pretty easy to throw together simple games with it. I'm honestly getting that feeling I had back when I played with things like Gamemaker, but with a full powered 3D game engine.

I actually read the EULA for it, and didn't see anything that would restrict users here from making the kind of content we like to make. I even found this in their answers section where someone specifically asked about porn games: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questi ... games.html

It costs $20 (USD) per month to get updates, but once you get a license to use it you can stop paying for monthly updates and just use whatever version you last picked up. I personally think it's worth it to keep paying because the updates have been coming really fast and usually include some pretty cool stuff (Linux support just happened today!). But if you just want one version of the engine, you only need to shell out $20. UE4 is now free, up to a certain level of profit, and then 5% of profits you make on top of that. See: https://www.unrealengine.com/faq and https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

I tend to stick to open source and free tools, so I experimented with Blender for making models and animation, and it works great!

The Blueprints system is really easy to use to throw together game logic, and you can also use C++. (But most of the important C++ API seems to be exposed as Blueprint nodes anyway.)

This is a totally awesome deal for a game engine, especially one that is the better-developed sequel to the most licensed engine ever (UDK), but without a lot of the hangups from the last generation.

So, anyone want to make the jump to 3D vore games with me? I wouldn't mind sharing stuff I've discovered so far if anyone's interested. I can help out with Blueprints logic, some simple materials, maybe the C++ side (I know C++, but haven't messed with UE4's C++ API much), and certainly Blender use.

Here's the site for the engine: https://www.unrealengine.com/

And the tutorials start with these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMsFxzYzFJ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8WBF4A ... 2Pmmw9pvhE

[bighead]

Been meaning to give UE4 a proper look. Got a fair bit of experience with unity, and some with UDK. How does UE4 hold up against these? I'm not much of a designer, but I've got myself a degree in games programming, so ease of design is something that'd really give me a reason to look into it a bit more.

[masterofvore1]

not sure how much of a vore game could be made in UE- maybe a redux of VoreTournament that uses that instead of DP?
(provided UE allows custom weapons and such, which it should but I haven't looked too deeply into commercial engines so I wouldn't know atm)

[kdanielss]

honestly, I'd want to see more games about exploring a giant creature's digestive system.

[WHTB]

Been meaning to give UE4 a proper look. Got a fair bit of experience with unity, and some with UDK. How does UE4 hold up against these? I'm not much of a designer, but I've got myself a degree in games programming, so ease of design is something that'd really give me a reason to look into it a bit more.

I can't really say how it compares to the other engines beyond some loose impressions. I have no experience with UDK or Unity.

UDK is the previous generation of engine and presumably they've dealt with some of the pain points in UDK (like how it was supposedly only easy to make FPS style games with it). On the other hand, UnrealScript is now gone and Kismet is super-charged to replace it completely.

Unity has less advanced graphics tech, even going as far as charging you for the better graphics capability. But I'm not experienced on it, so I can't give great details. (To be fair, pretty much everyone has less advanced graphics tech than UE4, save for maybe Crytek's engine.) Unity has actual scripting where UE4 has either visual Blueprints scripting or C++, but nothing in between.

[WHTB]

not sure how much of a vore game could be made in UE- maybe a redux of VoreTournament that uses that instead of DP?
(provided UE allows custom weapons and such, which it should but I haven't looked too deeply into commercial engines so I wouldn't know atm)

UE4 isn't as geared totally towards shooters as UDK was. UE4 is more generic, and even comes with samples showing how to make sidescrolling platformers, top-down (Diablo-style) controls, Flappy Bird clones, and one of the examples is even a board game.

At this point I think I can do pretty much anything I want with it.

[Furanz]

I'd love to see some cool games/mods come from people playing about with this engine!

I really hope to sink my teeth (punpun) into the tools when I get a better computer to run it .w.

[masterofvore1]

not sure how much of a vore game could be made in UE- maybe a redux of VoreTournament that uses that instead of DP?
(provided UE allows custom weapons and such, which it should but I haven't looked too deeply into commercial engines so I wouldn't know atm)

UE4 isn't as geared totally towards shooters as UDK was. UE4 is more generic, and even comes with samples showing how to make sidescrolling platformers, top-down (Diablo-style) controls, Flappy Bird clones, and one of the examples is even a board game.

At this point I think I can do pretty much anything I want with it.

sweet! last one I used was UDK but it was very,very narrow about what could be done with it- it seemed to be mostly a level editor. on the site was a link for UE3 but I didn't look closely because, it was advertised as just being a better version with more "features",though not really a comparison that was at least a month ago,though.

[WHTB]

sweet! last one I used was UDK but it was very,very narrow about what could be done with it- it seemed to be mostly a level editor. on the site was a link for UE3 but I didn't look closely because, it was advertised as just being a better version with more "features",though not really a comparison that was at least a month ago,though.

Well, UE4 just got publicly released in March (around GDC time), so there should be much more information out about it now than there was a month ago.

[Indighost]

I'm not sure. I feel that as vore games go, simpler ones are far more likely to succeed. With a 3D game there's a big need for more coding, more art, more content, that's harder for us crazy little individual fetishists to pull together.

For an example of my point: Dwarf Fortress is 2D and ASCII ART for a reason: It's made by one crazy fanatic guy with a bizarre vision that very few others believe in (like us crazy fanatics with our idiosyncratic preferences) and has a massive scope of features. And for what it is, it works.

If someone wants to go to the effort of pulling together a team of crack professional artists, designers and coders to build a quality 3d vore game go right ahead. I'm going to stick with text based stuff so I can focus on the vore content and worry less about the code and art.

I strongly believe that written text is the most time-efficient and action-efficient content and story communication method.

[WHTB]

I'd love to see some cool games/mods come from people playing about with this engine!

I really hope to sink my teeth (punpun) into the tools when I get a better computer to run it .w.

Well, according to legend, the games running in the engine scale pretty well down to things like tablets and HTML5. (Yeah... HTML5.) I got to see a demo of one of the games being run on a tablet with a Tegra K1 processor, which is still probably pretty underpowered compared to any modern PC.

Of course, the game running on a tablet or web browser is pretty different from the editor running on it. So I'll boot it up on my not-quite-low-end-but-not-really-for-gaming laptop and see how it goes tonight. But you might be surprised to find that whatever system you have right now could handle it.

Check out the system requirements on their FAQ page: https://www.unrealengine.com/faq

[KrasnyiKoiot]

I'm still on the academic side of things (MFA about a year out), though I've worked in GML/Gamemaker Studio, UDK, and Unity.

If you're wanting to program it in Java or C++, Unity might be worth taking a look at. It's 'free' - while some base content is restricted in the free version (baked lighting, area fog generation come to mind) it does have individual additive modules available for purchase in its store - as well as for free online. It scripting functionality is fairly easy (drag and drop, even). Unity's also easy to work VR in with, if that's of interest, though UDK/UE4 would work just as well for such. You can also make 2D games in it without having to work around GML or Javascript's limitations.

Graphically speaking Unity can go fairly far depending on the aesthetic, though a license would be necessary to do such. It's lamentably $1500 for a single one or $75 a month, with differing output licenses (iOS and Android) doubling these prices - a team license adding an extra 500 or 20 to the monthly fee. It does add quite a lot to the engine's capabilities, but is definitely more of a company investment.

Now, as for Crytek's CryEngine - there is a free SDK available, though I've not worked with it so cannot state its limitations. They did at the recent GDC (March 19th of this year) announce an EaaS (Engine as a Subscription) version of the previously 'contact for pricing' Pro software on a 9.90 a month subscription basis (per user), so if you've got stellar modelers, riggers, and animators it might be the best route to take. It's also royalty free, and works for all major platforms. When they announced it they said it would come out this May. It's geared towards the independent developer market and should contain all of the engine's features.

[WHTB]

I'm not sure. I feel that as vore games go, simpler ones are far more likely to succeed. With a 3D game there's a big need for more coding, more art, more content, that's harder for us crazy little individual fetishists to pull together.

For an example of my point: Dwarf Fortress is 2D and ASCII ART for a reason: It's made by one crazy fanatic guy with a bizarre vision that very few others believe in (like us crazy fanatics with our idiosyncratic preferences) and has a massive scope of features. And for what it is, it works.

If someone wants to go to the effort of pulling together a team of crack professional artists, designers and coders to build a quality 3d vore game go right ahead. I'm going to stick with text based stuff so I can focus on the vore content and worry less about the code and art.

I strongly believe that written text is the most time-efficient and action-efficient content and story communication method.

That's why I expressly pointed out that it does not require much, or any coding. The Blueprints system is simple and powerful.

And I'm still not talking about building some big AAA title, or even working together as a team. I'm not talking about art on the level of any of the Unreal series games. Like I said earlier, there's even a Flappy Bird clone as an example of its ease of making 2D gameplay using simple sprite graphics.

I am expressly recommending UE4 for its simplicity in opening up the realm of good looking 3D games, with or without any code at all.

I'm also, admittedly, a person who values visuals over strong plot (especially in my porn). I doubt I even have the attention span to make any progress in even playing a text-only game with extensive reading. So I'm personally going to emphasize visuals and tech in any game dev discussions here.

[WHTB]

I'm still on the academic side of things (MFA about a year out), though I've worked in GML/Gamemaker Studio, UDK, and Unity.

If you're wanting to program it in Java or C++, Unity might be worth taking a look at. It's 'free' - while some base content is restricted in the free version (baked lighting, area fog generation come to mind) it does have individual additive modules available for purchase in its store - as well as for free online. It scripting functionality is fairly easy (drag and drop, even). Unity's also easy to work VR in with, if that's of interest, though UDK/UE4 would work just as well for such. You can also make 2D games in it without having to work around GML or Javascript's limitations.

Graphically speaking Unity can go fairly far depending on the aesthetic, though a license would be necessary to do such. It's lamentably $1500 for a single one or $75 a month, with differing output licenses (iOS and Android) doubling these prices - a team license adding an extra 500 or 20 to the monthly fee. It does add quite a lot to the engine's capabilities, but is definitely more of a company investment.

Now, as for Crytek's CryEngine - there is a free SDK available, though I've not worked with it so cannot state its limitations. They did at the recent GDC (March 19th of this year) announce an EaaS (Engine as a Subscription) version of the previously 'contact for pricing' Pro software on a 9.90 a month subscription basis (per user), so if you've got stellar modelers, riggers, and animators it might be the best route to take. It's also royalty free, and works for all major platforms. When they announced it they said it would come out this May. It's geared towards the independent developer market and should contain all of the engine's features.

I can only repeat rumors of Crytek's engine, but I've heard that it's pretty hard to work with.

As far as Unity, I have a pretty hard time justifying getting into it now. I dabbled in it very briefly, but aside from the scripting interface I would almost say that UE4 is a superset of the functionality that Unity has, at an even lower price. And that price gets you some extra goodies like full source code access. It really looks like Epic wanted to invade Unity's market for indie games and from what I can see, it looks like they're succeeding. I think the Unity devs got blindsided by UE4's release, but hopefully the need to compete in the indie market will end up as a benefit to users of both these engines.

[WHTB]

The big challenge to getting some nice 3D content that I see for this community using this tech is the availability of good 3D art stuff. So to that end, I think I'm going to start sharing pieces of content that I think others might find useful.

Like if I make a material for a stomach lining, or a scene. Maybe an animation rig that's particularly suited to vore scenes (has a tongue and a belly-scaling setup, for example). I'll post these things for other to use, hopefully to get the ball rolling on some quality content.

I invite anyone else who might have an interest in 3D art to do so as well. Maybe we can make a resource pool specifically for vore games. Then those who don't want to climb the learning curve of 3D art or coding and just use our pooled resources and the Blueprints system to knock out a decent looking 3D vore game.

In the meantime, I can show some of the specific stuff I've been messing with.

[Cilis]

What about UDK itself? If you do nothing commercial with it, no license is required. It has pretty much most of what unreal 4 does.

[reclusenutcase]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one thinking of something similar. I've messed around with UDK for a long time and found myself able to pull off feats that even i didn't know where possible, I even made a greenlight on steam once for a game I made in Kismet, but am now thinking of remaking the whole thing completely after a long series of dick punches to the well... you know.

If you want resources, I can start working on stuff again. I've done a lot of models in Maya, and even have the ut3 cooker for .ase files. Though I presume, you'll be wanting fbx files, or presumably another cooker format. I've dabbed for about 2 years in UDK that, I feel confident in it, and presume UT4 will be much easier and faster to compile ideas.

To put it simply, I'm down for helping make stuff, but I suppose it would depend on the content and if you'd be leaning towards realistic or stylized. Shoot me a PM if you want to speak more about a potential project.

[KrasnyiKoiot]

I can only repeat rumors of Crytek's engine, but I've heard that it's pretty hard to work with.

As far as Unity, I have a pretty hard time justifying getting into it now. I dabbled in it very briefly, but aside from the scripting interface I would almost say that UE4 is a superset of the functionality that Unity has, at an even lower price. And that price gets you some extra goodies like full source code access. It really looks like Epic wanted to invade Unity's market for indie games and from what I can see, it looks like they're succeeding. I think the Unity devs got blindsided by UE4's release, but hopefully the need to compete in the indie market will end up as a benefit to users of both these engines.

Aye, UE4 is fairly nice. Everything I've heard of Crytek thus far is that it's a programmer's engine, with all of the pros and cons associated therewith. High ceiling, high curve.

[WHTB]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one thinking of something similar. I've messed around with UDK for a long time and found myself able to pull off feats that even i didn't know where possible, I even made a greenlight on steam once for a game I made in Kismet, but am now thinking of remaking the whole thing completely after a long series of dick punches to the well... you know.

If you want resources, I can start working on stuff again. I've done a lot of models in Maya, and even have the ut3 cooker for .ase files. Though I presume, you'll be wanting fbx files, or presumably another cooker format. I've dabbed for about 2 years in UDK that, I feel confident in it, and presume UT4 will be much easier and faster to compile ideas.

To put it simply, I'm down for helping make stuff, but I suppose it would depend on the content and if you'd be leaning towards realistic or stylized. Shoot me a PM if you want to speak more about a potential project.

Awesome that you're that deep into Kismet already! Because Blueprints are like supercharged Kismet, from what I've heard. (I've never used the original Kismet.)

I'll probably just post .blend files and .fbx files myself. There's plenty of good reason to want the original data along with whatever exported version too, regardless of what format it's in. I mean, in Blender I'll have a big modifier stack for mirroring, edge splitting (or smoothing groups in other contexts), and so on. There's also a bunch of data that gets lost on export like where I placed UV seams for automatic unwrapping, and possibly all of the nice quads that may get turned into pairs of triangles.

[WHTB]

I forgot to take screenshots of it last night, and my Blueprints are turning into a bit of a rat's nest (uh, no offense to any rats furs), but I have a little multiplayer demo working now.

It's just a bunch of spheres with cones to indicate the direction they're pointing. Controls are WASD, with mouse for aiming, from a top-down point of view. Think of the way Hotline Miami controls, and you'll have the right idea.

Getting the network replication stuff going was less of a challenge than I thought it'd be. Maybe I'm suddenly interested in multiplayer 3D vore games.

I'll post more about this, with some screenshots of the Blueprints when I get back home tonight (PST).