Unreal 4 engine now free
category: code [glöplog]
Question is: does Unreal come with a bundle of clues?
What I find interesting is that Unreal is being presented as something to help bridge the gap between movie production and game production. One of the demonstrations at GDC is of Smaug from the Hobbit movies being rendered in realtime by UE4. I'd say that creating a flashy movie-like experience in realtime is something which should totally be aimed for with high-end hardware.
I personally have no problem if an engine is used so long as that fact is made clear to the audience (because demos are still judged on technical merit). Hey, the souce code of UE4 is available and I think a demo would not require royality payment so there's a chance of extending the engine to do something even more amazing using custom code - that's even not super-far away from 4k's using standard APIs is it?
I personally have no problem if an engine is used so long as that fact is made clear to the audience (because demos are still judged on technical merit). Hey, the souce code of UE4 is available and I think a demo would not require royality payment so there's a chance of extending the engine to do something even more amazing using custom code - that's even not super-far away from 4k's using standard APIs is it?
imerso, please don't give up your point of view simply because a lot of people here are ganging up on you - that's happened to me pretty much every time I've posted here, and even when I've been on IRC, and *I* still haven't left (or changed my mind!) :)
I hear what you're saying, and though I've never made a demo (which will no doubt be the 1st thing that all of Pouet will jump to point out), it's hard to believe that someone who is talking about and trying to protect what is in fact the very essence of the demoscene has to actually resort to *pleading* - that's what your last post sounded like - "can you guys at least do that?" :) No, I think you're EXACTLY right in the spirit of what you said, please continue to do what you feel like regardless of what people here say.
As far as the actual situation is concerned, well, I've never *used* Unity or Unreal Engine or any of their ilk, mainly because I never had any clue what they are (not to mention I probably don't have the hardware required to run them *anyway*), but also because the very word "engine" made me afraid of exactly the sort of thing that you are suggesting - I simply never had the urge to download these things and try them to see what they were, the way I've always used a computer (a simple text editor) is enough to keep me busy. And now of course, someone like you who says you actually use them for work confirms my opinion! What I suspect they do is to, as other people pointed out, is to allow "good looking stuff" to be made ASAP, which is the attraction for the young people of today. Now obviously, since I've not done the former, I cannot say whether Unity or Unreal programming is more complicated than even modern 3D card programming, but at the very least they're separate compos.
However, that being said, I understand the attraction of these things for artists - those who have no attraction towards code at all, but those who have maybe seen demos or games and want to simply "make stuff", like the ones they've seen - I think that spirit should be encouraged, yes, as much as possible, but once again I don't think that that is that the same category or competition. Can't believe I'm agreeing with Gargaj ;), but yes, if you want to judge the artistic merits of something made with one of these things, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, though in that case the question arises - why don't they just get Max or Maya or something and switch to Rendered? Surely the gfx look far better THERE?
I heard what you said about OGL and DX btw, I fully share your opinion, which is why I never learnt them (which is probably why I haven't made some "good looking stuff" as quickly as the other people here), it's nice to know someone out there is likeminded :)
I hear what you're saying, and though I've never made a demo (which will no doubt be the 1st thing that all of Pouet will jump to point out), it's hard to believe that someone who is talking about and trying to protect what is in fact the very essence of the demoscene has to actually resort to *pleading* - that's what your last post sounded like - "can you guys at least do that?" :) No, I think you're EXACTLY right in the spirit of what you said, please continue to do what you feel like regardless of what people here say.
As far as the actual situation is concerned, well, I've never *used* Unity or Unreal Engine or any of their ilk, mainly because I never had any clue what they are (not to mention I probably don't have the hardware required to run them *anyway*), but also because the very word "engine" made me afraid of exactly the sort of thing that you are suggesting - I simply never had the urge to download these things and try them to see what they were, the way I've always used a computer (a simple text editor) is enough to keep me busy. And now of course, someone like you who says you actually use them for work confirms my opinion! What I suspect they do is to, as other people pointed out, is to allow "good looking stuff" to be made ASAP, which is the attraction for the young people of today. Now obviously, since I've not done the former, I cannot say whether Unity or Unreal programming is more complicated than even modern 3D card programming, but at the very least they're separate compos.
However, that being said, I understand the attraction of these things for artists - those who have no attraction towards code at all, but those who have maybe seen demos or games and want to simply "make stuff", like the ones they've seen - I think that spirit should be encouraged, yes, as much as possible, but once again I don't think that that is that the same category or competition. Can't believe I'm agreeing with Gargaj ;), but yes, if you want to judge the artistic merits of something made with one of these things, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, though in that case the question arises - why don't they just get Max or Maya or something and switch to Rendered? Surely the gfx look far better THERE?
I heard what you said about OGL and DX btw, I fully share your opinion, which is why I never learnt them (which is probably why I haven't made some "good looking stuff" as quickly as the other people here), it's nice to know someone out there is likeminded :)
I see a lot of reactions, but I don't see anyone making an actual demo with this engine. I heard it was almost trival with awesome tools like this, so go go go! Revision is only a couple of weeks from now. Enter it into the compo and we'll see the results I'd say.
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That isn't realtime now is it?in that case the question arises - why don't they just get Max or Maya or something and switch to Rendered? Surely the gfx look far better THERE?
but but but, i'm too busy making an inhouse-engine-demo to give these gametools a go, numtek!
*barges into thread holding stack of paper*
I have no idea what you people are talking about but I have opinions I want you guys to..
*trips, dropping stack of hundreds of useless questions*
I have no idea what you people are talking about but I have opinions I want you guys to..
*trips, dropping stack of hundreds of useless questions*
Unity is fun for prototyping and it's a platform I can easily load some random scenes and have fun navigating through them with Oculus. But it starts being annoying when at my job there is finally an opportunity to code something more interesting and then someone says "But there is a plugin in the asset store doing exactly this and way more for 5$. Don't ask, I already bought that!". I end up coding more interesting stuff at home.
That's working life for you. No need to spend a lot of highly paid employee time working on something that can be bought for the price of a coffee break.
https://clyp.it/o2ldrmkm i took the liberty at quickly drafting a possible soundtrack for a unity demo!
Anyway, the demos are to be judged by amount of work involved (they are demos and they demonstrate skills, don't they?), not by its picture that can be ripped from a lot of sources today. So, Unreal engine demos will be judged by what's there except Unreal engine.
give commercial engine made stuff their own category, or strip 1/3 of the votes they get.
I'm sure you got that 1/3 from a perfectly scientific calculation. Right?
right! code + gfx + sound = demo, 1/3 looks good, but as we all know, without code there is no demo, i would dq them, or give them their own category, but then plz allow ripped gfx & commercial music too...
i see no problem with demos based on commercial engines as long as nobody lies about it (which is probably very hard to do because the file structure gives it away easily).
seeing how those engines are 10th of megabytes alone theres an easy solution if you wanna stick to the "hardcore" way: size restricted prods.
i doubt we'll see any unity or UE4 64k soonish (if ever).
seeing how those engines are 10th of megabytes alone theres an easy solution if you wanna stick to the "hardcore" way: size restricted prods.
i doubt we'll see any unity or UE4 64k soonish (if ever).
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code + gfx + sound = demo, 1/3 looks good
Right. Because it's always exactly the same ratio.
yes gargaj, constants are wonderful things and it seems like you understand them...
I understand them enough to see they're not applicable here.
But I'll spell it out then: not every demo adheres to having 1/3 of each. Plenty of demos have no tangible graphics in them, or sometimes very little code and a lot of graphics. Sometimes there's code and graphics, but barely any music. Artificially quantifying effort is a terrible idea and should not be even considered when it comes to votes.
But I'll spell it out then: not every demo adheres to having 1/3 of each. Plenty of demos have no tangible graphics in them, or sometimes very little code and a lot of graphics. Sometimes there's code and graphics, but barely any music. Artificially quantifying effort is a terrible idea and should not be even considered when it comes to votes.
yeah, we should allow mp3s from metal bands again! :D
Like Gargaj said, those constants don't apply at all. It's merely a result of 1/disciplines_reduced_to_3, and it means nothing else.
As for code, the competition rules are very damn clear now aren't they? You supply an executable that runs within certain constraints and you are not allowed to use copyrighted material without express permission.
This gives one the freedom to use Unity or UE4 as it's non-commercial, use a browser as platform, use open-source libraries, the list goes on. The same freedom of choice applies to free images, old German marching music of which the copyrights have long expired or a video of a panda being born.
As we've seen through the years it isn't exactly the using of a commercial engine or anything that wins a compo: the whole package does. The choice of what to focus on or what technology to use or *make* is free within copyright & compo rule restrictions and if you so decide to code your own engine (because I sort of have a hunch it's about that, Igor :)) than that is your own choice and you probably have a solid rationale as why to do so. If not: rethink your strategy.
To each his or her own.
As for code, the competition rules are very damn clear now aren't they? You supply an executable that runs within certain constraints and you are not allowed to use copyrighted material without express permission.
This gives one the freedom to use Unity or UE4 as it's non-commercial, use a browser as platform, use open-source libraries, the list goes on. The same freedom of choice applies to free images, old German marching music of which the copyrights have long expired or a video of a panda being born.
As we've seen through the years it isn't exactly the using of a commercial engine or anything that wins a compo: the whole package does. The choice of what to focus on or what technology to use or *make* is free within copyright & compo rule restrictions and if you so decide to code your own engine (because I sort of have a hunch it's about that, Igor :)) than that is your own choice and you probably have a solid rationale as why to do so. If not: rethink your strategy.
To each his or her own.
While we're at it, disqualify any exemusic that is made with trackers or 4klang replay routines or whatever, because that's clearly lacking any code, riiiight?!
I think we should penalise people who code their own engines, because they're wasting time reinventing the wheel when they could be making actual creative content for their demo instead.
...or maybe we should trust the audience to judge the quality of the work that has gone into the production, in whatever discipline that may be, and vote accordingly? Nah, that's crazy talk.
...or maybe we should trust the audience to judge the quality of the work that has gone into the production, in whatever discipline that may be, and vote accordingly? Nah, that's crazy talk.
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we should trust the audience to judge the quality of the work that has gone into the production
In all fairness while I do agree, as some people have pointed out, without any manual note it's hard to tell during a compo if a demo is a commercial engine or not.
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without any manual note it's hard to tell during a compo if a demo is a commercial engine or not.
Is that a problem that comes up in practice, though, or just a theoretical one? I can appreciate that if someone created a rendering-tech-showoff demo like the timeless in Unreal, then - leaving aside the fact that it wouldn't be 64K - that would be a lesser achievement than coding it from scratch, and if you looked at the two side-by-side with no further context, then it wouldn't be a fair comparison.
I don't think people are making those sorts of demo in commercial engines, though: it's simply not interesting to make a rendering-tech-code-porn demo if it's not your own rendering tech. (Or maybe they are doing, and I'm just unaware of it, which would kind of prove your point...) I think the people using commercial engines are more inclined to focus on storytelling, or art, or humour, and so those are the criteria they'll be judged on.
There is always a possibility that demo creators will - intentionally or not - mislead viewers about the nature and amount of work they've done, but if they do, they're being lame and will eventually get called out on it, and that's just the latest iteration of the Boris Vallejo / Suicide Barbie / effect vs animation debate that has managed not to kill the scene so far :-)
This discussion makes me want to download Unity and give it a spin.