this video talks about unreal engine 4 and its past, present and future. this segment answers a question related to blender and fbx support in UE4 which i thought the community might be interested in hearing:
Kinda amazed what this engine can do
20 euros per month, and open source. And on top of that potential integration with blender. Wow, Wow and Wow 
well… not really open source. Paid closed source more like 
nope its open source for anyone paying for it
the code is in a private GITHUB repository, that you can gain access as soon as you pay for the subscription. You can fork it and contribute source back to it.
I am not sure what happens if you stop paying for it, if you can keep your fork, etc. So I am not aware of the specific of the open source lincense.
I am very suprised that they decided to release an engine as open source for so little as 20 euros per month. Not bad for an engine that you needed 250k dollars for accesing the source. The feature set alone is mind blowing.
It kinda blows my mind how the visuals are better than BI, but are on playable framerates.
Things are faked really well. If only blender could fake these things as fast as that and the result could be mixed with cycles, rendering would be really high quality and really fast…
It’s not really open-source in the way most people think about the term kilon. You cannot share the code with anyone, you just have access to it. It’s no different really to their previous closed-source licenses… except much cheaper and easier to access.
Don’t get me wrong - I think it’s frakkin’ brilliant, I’m finding the code very easy to get into, it’s very capable, and getting a tech-demo with assets up & running is a breeze (even compiled from source!)… but it’s not open-source.
You cannot give the code to anyone. There is an EULA you agree to. Then you have to pay 5% of any gross sales you make from the final product. By most people’s definition of open vs closed source - it’s on the closed side.
From the discussion in the earlier thread, the only thing that happens when you cancel your subscription is that you won’t be getting updates from the official repository. So if that long awaited pink elephants feature comes into Unreal engine 4, you won’t be able to have it in your game unless you pay.
But still, the message is basically ‘Before there were little requests for Blender fbx handling, but now there are requests for it. And actually we really want to have Blender produced models to work well in U4, but we’re still trying to see what the best solution is.’ Which is frankly a really good message!
Could you please summarize it, for those who can’t watch YouTube vids (at work) ? 
You didn’t get source code with UDK. You could get source code for UE3 with $800k payment upfront.
And now you get source code with a $20/mth subscription fee. Doesn’t change it’s open or closed source status.
Open source, as it is generally understood & defined in the dictionary even, is where you are allowed to share the code with other people. You are contractually not allowed to do that with the UDK4 code unless they too have paid the subscription fee.
open-source
adjective
1. denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified.
I think what Epic are doing is fantastic and it opens the indie market right up… but we shouldn’t mistake a great closed source deal with Unreal being open-source because they haven’t gone that far.
You are mixing up UDK and UE. If UDK4 was out there, you would only get binaries and no source code, at all. Not for $20, not for $100, not for a penny. UE4 is the whole deal, with source code available to anyone with $20
Sure, if you are being a purist, then yes, it’s not open-source as we know it. But it’s not closed source either. 3DS MAX has closed source, Unity has closed source. UE4 doesn’t have source code locked up, even if you have to pay $20 for it. millions of people now have access to it.
well, they start out by addressing the fact that it’s unfortunate FBX isn’t open source so blender has to reverse engineer it and do weird things to have that functionality.
therefore, some things work when you export to unreal, but not everything. also, historically there haven’t been many requests about supporting blender as most people are using max or maya. But some unreal developers are really passionate about blender so excellent support is not here but it will be in the future.
You’re right that I’m labelling them incorrectly (it is indeed UE4).
You’re wrong about this:
Closed source (or proprietary) is a type of computer program source code development. With closed source software, the source code is not shared with the public for anyone to look at or make changes to. Closed source is the opposite of open source.
[SUB](Please note closed source software is defined as “usually” not making source code available. It is not defined as “never” making the source available)[/SUB]
I’ve been a developer for quite a long time now. For the entirety of my career when only people under contract with you can look and make changes to your code, it’s been considered closed source. The differentiator between closed source & open source is not whether someone can see & modify the code, but whether everyone can see & modify the code.
Put it this way, there are people with access to & the ability to modify the older Unreal Engines. They paid handsomely for that right. That didn’t stop the old Unreal Engines being closed source. Just because you are paying less doesn’t change the fact you are contractually forbidden from sharing the code with people who are not also subscribers to Epic’s licensing. When you agree to a contract that prevents you from sharing with anyone the code you have access to, it’s closed source. Perhaps not as closed as you are used to… but still closed anyone & everyone who doesn’t agree with Epic’s license & paying them for the right to that code.
I get that, but basically you are seeing it as black and white, no shades of gray between. That’s why I said “if you are being a purist, then yes”.
By the book, it is a closed source. But, if you look at it at a different angle, before only a handful of mighty could get the code. Now however, anyone can.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing.
Well, that’s because the definitions are pretty black & white. More importantly, when you tell someone code they can get is open-source, they can get themselves in big trouble if they share it and it is actually closed.
Something I’ve already acknowledged is an awesome thing to have happen for the gaming industry. I’m one of those people that previously didn’t have a chance in hell of getting access to the code, now I’ve got it for lunch money. By the time it’s painful to pay the 5% gross they demand for it, I’m already well ahead of where I would be with pretty much all the comparable alternatives.
I think it’s a great thing Epic has done, I’m just a stickler for what is closed vs open source. Code licenses are an important part of my job
Well, that’s why there is EULA to read before sharing the code (I bet one has to accept terms and conditions before even getting access to github repo)
Note that Epic said learning from their code and implementing your own stuff if fine, as long as it’s not copy/paste.
Well lets call it “accessible source” so to make everyone happy. The verdict is the same “awesome”. I am not a game developer , but I feel its very hard to resist what they are offering. And at 20 euros per month its really a steal. Offering access to source at that price in unthinkable for such kind of project.
They really give Unity a run for its money.
As a live coder myself , I appreciated the fact that you can compile your code while you play the game and the game updates automagically. My only concern is the kind of specs this engine demands. Wonder if my new iMac with its 3 ghz quad core , 8 gb ram and GT 775m nvidia card can handle it.
I would not be surprised if someone made a blender addon for Unreal 4.
This video is outdated. Because some of the features shown there, were scrapped like the sparse voxel octree global illumination and the emissive materials.
Another issue UE4 has, is the rendering of translucent materials. Because they use a completely deferred rendering pipeline, it is hard to render proper glass and water materials.
I’ve been playing with UE4 since a couple of weeks. And it’s really a capable engine. But it also has still a fair share of issues.
I’m eager to see where it stands in 6 months or so.
BTolputt is right, please don’t call UE4 for open source. The code is much closer to the Microsoft Shared Source Licence (look and minimal touching, but under NDA and no redistribution), rather than MSPL. One of the basic points of open source software is that it can be freely redistributed. I also think that it is really great what Epic is doing, and it’s a great step for a traditionally very closed industry to “open up”.
Problem is, it is done for purely business reasons rather than any ideology from Epics part, and that is what irritates me a bit when the term “open source” is used to describe UE4. Many in the general public have learned of open source by now, via Mozilla, Open/Libre Office, VLC, and now even Linux (nytimes.com) especially now with Steam OS/Box, so often the term gets abused by companies to sell you their product, and get code contribution on top of that, while in reality it is still as closed as before. Like BTolputt said, it doesn’t matter if it is $800k or $20. Another example is Lightworks using “open source” as a way to generate interest. I get how people can misunderstand what is OSS or not, since literally you can open and read/write the source code of UE4, but there’s no reason to create more misconceptions of what open source really means. And $20/month might be cheap for us, but there are many parts of the world where that’s not affordable, or even impossible if you are a small studio living in Cuba or Iran.
In any case it is exciting to see Epic Games doing this, along with more recognition of Linux and Blender. As with the movie industry and the enterprise business world a decade ago, learning what open source means takes some time to get right, but eventually it usually benefits all.
Back on topic, I wonder if UE4 can get support for .blend files directly, skipping FBX? It is very unlikely that Autodesk will change their EULA for the FBX format, for Blender or even Epic’s sake. It is pretty unfair how some people judge the quality of Blender by its support for a closed format, but that’s how it is when going up against the de facto. Just keep staying with FBX might make sense for getting results now, but in the long term it’s being handcuffed to an Autodesk controlled format (think MS .doc).