Sinsoft thinking of switching to UDK, questions

[Sinan]

Hello,

Sinsoft Entertainment Inc. (sinsoft.com (http://www.sinsoft.com)). has been evaluating UDK since its release and is considering switching to Unreal Engine. Sinsoft is an indie game developer.

But there are some issues that we want to take care of before making a final decision.

1)
If an indie dev makes a successful game and sells a lot of copies. Can they always buy a professional license and avoid the 25% Royalty. (i.e. if it proves cheaper). Or does the UDK use bind the current project to the UDK license terms?

2)
http://udk.com/licensing.html talks about UDK related revenue including advertising.

Sinsoft hosts ads on sinsoft.com (and maybe sinsoft.net), but the ads have nothing to do with the UDK. In other words, they are ads on our main website. Does ad revenue share refer to ads being displayed inside the game engine (i.e related to UDK)? or any ad revenue?. Does Ads on websites relate to UDK? What is UDK related ad revenue mean?

In short, Sinsoft plans to host game downloads (DLC) on its website, and plans to generate ad revenue from incoming visitors (download and purchase methods cannot be disclosed yet). Do we have to share this ad revenue because the DLC games were made with UDK?

3)
Does Unreal support GLSL? It seems, like OGRE, it uses its own high level shader(material) language which seems to be using HLSL or Cg underneath. But does Unreal use GLSL on Linux or MacOSX?

Note that I am not asking for a Linux or MacOSX UDKs (other posts have addressed this question). But simply trying to see what technology it uses underneath. This is used to evaluate the viability of the Engine (i.e. does it invest in technologies such as GLSL).


4)
Is there a path for indie devs to publish on consoles? Is it still 25% Royalty?

Note: 4) is not a major issue, just a curiosity

5)
We use Blender for DCC development, any chance Blender export can be supported by Epic in the future?

I am aware of this plug-in and even some other 3rd party plug-ins:

http://code.google.com/p/unrealtacticalmod/downloads/list

However would Epic consider creating official Plug-ins? Especially since UDK seems to be aimed at Indie game devs. Blender is popular with indies.

Note: 5) is not a major issue, as 3rd party plug-ins exist and can be developed further if needed.


Sinan

[ambershee]

1)If an indie dev makes a successful game and sells a lot of copies. Can they always buy a professional license and avoid the 25% Royalty. (i.e. if it proves cheaper). Or does the UDK use bind the current project to the UDK license terms?

There's nothing stopping you acquiring an engine license later and porting your work across.


2)Sinsoft hosts ads on sinsoft.com (and maybe sinsoft.net), but the ads have nothing to do with the UDK. In other words, they are ads on our main website. Does ad revenue share refer to ads being displayed inside the game engine (i.e related to UDK)? or any ad revenue?. Does Ads on websites relate to UDK? What is UDK related ad revenue mean?

That would be advert related revenue - you're making money via your advertisments on your website. It is not related to adverts within the game engine (although that would also count as ad related revenue).


In short, Sinsoft plans to host game downloads (DLC) on its website, and plans to generate ad revenue from incoming visitors (download and purchase methods cannot be disclosed yet). Do we have to share this ad revenue because the DLC games were made with UDK?

Yes.


3)Does Unreal support GLSL? It seems, like OGRE, it uses its own high level shader(material) language which seems to be using HLSL or Cg underneath. But does Unreal use GLSL on Linux or MacOSX?

Using UDK, you are limited to creating materials using the material editor. The actual engine is different, generally HLSL shaders are employed. Unreal 3 does not run on Linux or MacOS - the renderer isn't OpenGL based.


4) Is there a path for indie devs to publish on consoles? Is it still 25% Royalty?

a) There's no route for developing on consoles at present, UDK is for PC games only.


5) We use Blender for DCC development, any chance Blender export can be supported by Epic in the future?

It's very unlikely, seeing as Blender is by far and large not an industry standard.

[elmuerte]

The route to publishing on consoles in through a full UE3 license.

UE3 fully supports the industry standard COLLADA, so you can use Blender for (some) 3D modeling.

[Sinan]

This was very helpful. You have answered all my questions. Thank you very much for the reply.

[Sinan]

UE3 fully supports the industry standard COLLADA, so you can use Blender for (some) 3D modeling.

Yes I have exported a few models with Blender 2.5 COLLADA support and it works very well.

At the moment Blender 2.5 COLLADA doesn't support animation (coming soon). So I'm evaluating other methods for animation export from Blender to UDK

[ffejnosliw]

UE3 fully supports the industry standard COLLADA, so you can use Blender for (some) 3D modeling.
Are you sure about that? I thought they abandoned support for it in favor of the .psk/.psa formats (for skeletal meshes at least) because there wasn't any real unified standard. I'm pretty sure the collada skeletal mesh import doesn't even work in UDK..at least that's what I heard.

[neai]

You can get PSK/PSA from Blender too. Anyway, I believe the full specs of PSK/A file format are published, so you can write exporters/converters for anything you want.

[Sinan]

You can get PSK/PSA from Blender too.


Yes a few scripts exist. Please see:

http://code.google.com/p/unrealtacticalmod/downloads/list

http://www.katsbits.com/htm/tutorials/blender_ut3_smooth_groups.htm

http://www.katsbits.com/htm/tools_utilities.htm#ase


I have not had the chance to try them out yet however.