The Unreal Development Kit: Want to Make Games?

In these days of graphically high-end video games, more and more players being inspired by their favorite titles to make their own 3D universe. But it takes teams of many educated, dedicated, and passionate people to make a blockbuster game. Also, the tools that are required for making a game are very expensive these days. Fortunately, there is one mega tool that is totally free for such players to use - The Unreal Development Kit, or UDK.

The UDK is specifically an award-winning toolset for easily creating a video game, film, or simulation. If you don't have any experience with the game development process, it will still be a piece of cake with the UDK. The interface is basically like a drag-and-drop sort of deal. You just drag a mesh or object from the Content Browser (a pre-made one or one of your own) into the world editor and well-ah! If you want a high-resolution texture on that object, all you have to do is drag a texture from the Content Browser onto the desired object. Oh, and did I mention that there are hundreds of these pre-made meshes, textures, audio files for the aspiring game developer to use?

Epic Games, the company who made this wonderful engine, have an exceptional resume when it comes to video games. They boast both the Gears of War series and the Unreal Tournament series. In fact, both of these game series were created with the Unreal Engine. These were arguably some of the greatest games of all time. Knowing this, you can be sure that you can trust the UDK.

Also, there are many other huge licensees that use the Unreal Engine, including Atari, Activision, Capcom, 2K Games, EA, Sony, Ubisoft, and more.¹

The UDK has many built in features, like a fantastic world editor, terrain editor, texture editor, spectacular lighting, AI, NVIDIA's PhysX physics system, cinematics support, UI editing, a particle effects system, SpeedTree, destructible environments, and much more.

Epic Games releases a new beta for the UDK roughly ever month or so. The May 2010 Beta features a brand-new system called ScaleForm GFX, which is similar to a 3D menu or UI. Shafts of light and dozens of engine fixes are included as well.

There are many tutorials such as videos all over the web, and especially on YouTube. It is recommended that you take a look at them if you are new to the UDK.

This AAA engine is the only one of its kind. There are truly no other engines or development kits as complex as this and are free. If making games is your dream, get a head start with the UDK. You can look into the UDK even more and download it here:

www.udk.com/

1. "Unreal Engine 3". Wikipedia. June 5, 2010