And it seems great. I've been working with XNA for a while now and slowly achieving my goal of creating a terrain LOD algo, and making it look good.
But now looking at the UDK, first licensing is nice and straight forward, also it's regularly updated!

Basically ive been working with XNA trying to realise certain goals, but now UDK looks like a great alternative.

Anyone here got any experience using it? And how would you describe it's strength's and weakness's ?

Is it formulaic, that is, will games using the UDK tend to look the same and feel the same, or can we create our own shaders for it, our own animations etc etc?

Bit rambling, but yeah, hope to hear some feedback on it.

Cheers.

P.S. Feel free to talk about the CryEngine 3 whats-it too.

UDK makes things simplier ofc. It's what game engines are for. XNA it's an evolution of DircetX.

I myself learned a lot by practicing with directX and learned how the graphic card works.

A game engine simplifies lots of things and lets you have freedom to customize some stuff by scripts and codes.

The choice of a game engine depends completely on your needs

UDK makes things simplier ofc. It's what game engines are for. XNA it's an evolution of DircetX.

I myself learned a lot by practicing with directX and learned how the graphic card works.

A game engine simplifies lots of things and lets you have freedom to customize some stuff by scripts and codes.

The choice of a game engine depends completely on your needs

Yeah it seemed enticing, now a few hours later im almost completely over the idea. I checked out CE sdk as well, they both deal with relatively small world spaces, and it feels cheap and second-hand using someone else's engine and having to accept the limitations that it would bring to my 'vision' of a game.

Is it formulaic, that is, will games using the UDK tend to look the same and feel the same, or can we create our own shaders for it, our own animations etc etc?

The visual content (textures/materials/meshes/animations) will all be completely made by you or your team. All of the game logic scripts can be written from scratch (fitting into the UDK framework).

Yeah it seemed enticing, now a few hours later im almost completely over the idea. I checked out CE sdk as well, they both deal with relatively small world spaces, and it feels cheap and second-hand using someone else's engine and having to accept the limitations that it would bring to my 'vision' of a game.

It is never "cheap and second-hand" to use an SDK to achieve your goal. You will always be using software written by someone else and it is an important skill to have. UDK might not be a good fit for your project but don't discount it just because you didn't write the engine.


Also, it can be very helpful to use a full-featured engine like Unreal Engine as a learning process of how an engine works at a higher level.

[quote name='EgoDeath']
[color="#1c2837"]Is it formulaic, that is, will games using the UDK tend to look the same and feel the same, or can we create our own shaders for it, our own animations etc etc?

The visual content (textures/materials/meshes/animations) will all be completely made by you or your team. All of the game logic scripts can be written from scratch (fitting into the UDK framework).

Yeah it seemed enticing, now a few hours later im almost completely over the idea. I checked out CE sdk as well, they both deal with relatively small world spaces, and it feels cheap and second-hand using someone else's engine and having to accept the limitations that it would bring to my 'vision' of a game.

It is never "cheap and second-hand" to use an SDK to achieve your goal. You will always be using software written by someone else and it is an important skill to have. UDK might not be a good fit for your project but don't discount it just because you didn't write the engine.


Also, it can be very helpful to use a full-featured engine like Unreal Engine as a learning process of how an engine works at a higher level.
[/quote]

Do you know much about the CryEngine SDK?

I was surprised to hear that Warband was written using the UDK, the only problem im having is terrain size/view distance, and network stuff. They are both done in 'levels' so a server could only host one level at a time?
Thanks, real helpful to talk to someone about it.

Do you know much about the CryEngine SDK?

I was surprised to hear that Warband was written using the UDK, the only problem im having is terrain size/view distance, and network stuff. They are both done in 'levels' so a server could only host one level at a time?
Thanks, real helpful to talk to someone about it.

I don't know much about CryEngine SDK so I am unable to comment on it.

The UDK does have hard limits on terrain size/view distance. However, these limits are fairly large. Also, the units are arbitrary; so in theory you could have a smaller scale for your game which would give you the advantage of a large in-game level size limit (at the cost of lower terrain polygon resolution wouldn't be a big deal).

I believe servers can run multiple levels at the same time. If you want players to be able to transfer between levels I'm not sure exactly how difficult it would be but I'm sure it is possible.

It sounds like your idea is rather technically ambitious (simultaneous large outdoor multi-player maps?). I have a feeling that regardless of what technology you use you will probably run into technical limitations which will affect how your game will play.

Give your different options a chance. You don't have to make a commitment to anything until you've spent some time using them. Try UDK for awhile and implement some simple aspects of your game. See if its limitations are really an issue for your ideas. Do the same with CryEngine, Unity, or XNA, etc. Compare the licenses of each of these to see if it will work for you.

Only you can know if a technology is the right choice for your ideas. Keep in mind that UDK, CryEngine, Unity, etc are all professional-grade software but they will all have some sort of limitations.