| lenardo1 said: when you consider that the license to USE unreal 3 is over a million dollars... and that just gets you the engine and some artwork-which chances are you will not use the artwork.......... it is not the engine that costs the most, it is the artists making the art assets for the game that costs the most, in time and money. unreal3 is a great engine, but a Great engine does not make the game Great, that is the job of the designers, the engineers and the artists that translate their vision into a game. it is the engineer's that are responsible for how the game Runs, the artists on how it Looks and the Designers on how it plays, if one of the 3 fails, then the game will suck-especially if it is the engineers that screw up |
The problem is, that Unreal Engine 3 doesn't just 'get you the engine and some artwork'. Unreal Engine 3 utilizes the following sub-tools inside their package:
The third generation Unreal Engine was designed for DirectX 9/10 PCs, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.[1] Its renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows, and builds upon the tools available in previous versions of the engine. Unreal Engine 3 IPP (Integrated Partners Program) includes:
|
And I think that's a very important list. You have physics, facial expressions, video decoders, AI, UI (and UI logic), lip-synching, animation, motion capturing, graphics rendering, and animation solutions all inside one package.
That's very significant, because instead of having to custom-build said solutions, you have only need to learn the coding and use the interfaces in UE3 to get it working - So there's a much lower development time creating a solution for a specific in-game element. The director of The Last Remnant was pretty quick to talk about how great UE3 was to work with. I hope that the team gets to use it again to show how they've learned to create a second-gen UE3 game, and show how much better it can be used for RPGs. The same can be said of Feel Plus and Last Odyssey (could N3-2 use UE3? I hope so).
Kasz216 - I understand the argument your trying to make of UE3's major licensing costs...I wonder if we'll ever get a 'solid' figure on how much it costs to license - Could it be that multiple games using UE3 would cost a lot less? It's a good question to ask.
Furthermore, my next question would be 'how many games made in the past 5 years use the SAME engines for sequels?'
Because I honestly cannot name a ton that have. Yes, a few games like Rock Band I am sure did, but I really wonder how often studios use the same engine. Will Konami ever use MGS4's engine for a new game? What about the Halo 3 engine?
And please note: I'm trying to make the argument that developers DO need to stick to specific engine solutions for the budget crisis' they are facing....Regardless if it's UE3, Torque, Oblivion, or whatever. I can't imagine the logic behind making a $100 million dollar game like Grand Theft Auto IV, and then never using the GTAIV engine for any other games (yes, they're using it for TL&TD expansion...But could you imagine how much cash they'd save if GTAV used the same engine?).
Oh, and PS: I do work for a developer that makes an engine for typical gaming solutions: Torque. It's amazing how well they've utilized the engine, and made it quite versatile. It's one of the cheaper engines, as licenses start at $100 per workstation.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
