qolelis on 12/11/2019 at 22:31
This reminds me of a story from my home town I once heard about two competing petshops. One of them was owned by someone who already had all the money they needed, while the other depended on their shop to stay afloat. The former kept their prices so low that they lost more than they gained, and eventually the other shop went out of business, leaving the already rich to do as they pleased. Now, I don't remember if they then increased prices, with customers having no choice but to comply and pay up, but let's hope that's not what Epic is planning once enough people have switched to Unreal. It seems like what Epic is doing right now benefits all devs, not only themselves, so I'm hopeful.
I have had my doubts about choosing Unreal, but this is clearly not one of them.
Renzatic on 12/11/2019 at 22:58
It's a pretty solid strategy. Epic is dumping money around left and right to open development up to anyone who wants to jump in. With all these high powered, cutting edge tools and assets that usually require a hefty investment to access now available for free, anyone with even a passing interest in working in 3D will be immediately drawn to UE4. They'll play around with it, come to learn it, then likely use it for any big projects they have in mind going forward.
So what about those people who end up screwing around with it all for a little bit, then drop it once their interest wanes? Well, Epic was never going to make any money off those people to begin with, so there's really no harm in allowing them access to all these expensive, cutting edge tools and assets.
End result? Epic garners a big userbase weaned on their tools, ends up netting tons of cash, and everyone has some fun.
Renzatic on 13/11/2019 at 01:11
Okay, so they're going entirely on the trust system here. I was expecting Epic to lock all the free assets to UE4 specifically, without any option to export them out to an editor to screw around with. The way it's actually set up, once you link your Epic Store/Unreal Engine account to Quixel's, you can just download whatever you see on the Megascan Marketplace, and export it to wherever, with the only caveat being that you TOTALLY SWEAR TO GOD you won't use them in any public projects outside of UE4.
Once I figured out how to use Bridge to export stuff into Unreal, I whipped this up in just three minutes. It's so simple to do. You click a button, and the model shows up in your scene. Cool as all hell naw.
(
https://i.imgur.com/yOtnCUr.jpg) FOGGY FOGGY TREE 'N FERN!
Renzatic on 13/11/2019 at 17:00
Here's a video showing how to use Megascan assets to build a grungy Silent Hill 2 bathroom environment. It's neat seeing just how easy it all is.
[video=youtube_share;xuu0tfLl94Q]https://youtu.be/xuu0tfLl94Q[/video]
Sulphur on 14/11/2019 at 07:31
That's pretty cool. At the same time, it also means we're going to get more low-effort single-apartment horror games with all of these ready assets available for people to remix and put out onto the market. But hey, if it brings more creative power to people, good on Epic for it.
Renzatic on 14/11/2019 at 08:34
Quote Posted by icemann
It's just not the same without the music.
Then mix and match. Mute the tutorial, play this video, and get lost in the ambience.
[video=youtube_share;xS6HX2m-HNY]https://youtu.be/xS6HX2m-HNY?list=PL3701130022801F23[/video]
demagogue on 14/11/2019 at 09:06
It's not the assets, it's how you use them. I think the relevant metaphor is, if you want more jewels, you want to open the sluice gates as much as possible. I'm talking about free/low cost, powerful, and easy-to-understand-and-use assets and tools and tutorials, etc.
Yes you'll also get a lot more sludge in the process, but you'll get more jewels buried in the sludge. Or so the theory goes. But I would buy it. Itch, to take one example, is a fascinating study in how games get made and released from the grassroots level, a ton of sludge, but a lot of hidden emeralds and diamonds too if you're willing to dig into it.
Judith on 14/11/2019 at 10:30
IMO this will bring more spotlight on level designers again. In the old days, when making content was relatively easy, an LD was this kind of jack of all trades, as it was feasible to make almost all the content yourself. Nowadays, if you want to show off your LD skills or lighting skills, you need all that content, since its fidelity skyrocketed over the years and noone is really making that stuff on their own (unless they have tons of time on their hands).
Sulphur on 14/11/2019 at 13:47
Quote Posted by demagogue
It's not the assets, it's how you use them.
That's the entire point. I look forward to seeing creative use of them, but not to trudging through hundreds of asset flip showcases to get to said jewels. I think we're going to need more powerful filter tools now more than ever in an open market like Steam.