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Now its time for the best of the best Engines to go free !!

The Unreal 3 Engine was announced to be free couple of days back ( though not free to use for commercial use ) . The engine can be used for personal and non-commercial usage. The engine like a month back costed thousands of dollars for a per seat license is now absolutely free for use . The Engine might not be an exact replica containing all the features ( yet to find out ) , but seems to be a pretty deep combination of all the goodies that are needed to create your own version of Gears of War

Note that the UDK can be over whelming for the first time and would need a slow and study learning curve. Also might need a bunch of people to explore the UDK in parts and have a collaborative brainstorming to write something that makes sense. For indie game developers , this would be a strict no no ! You might have to mortgage your house or sell your soul for the commercial release of your game. Read this for more info.

Nvidia has constantly tried to push its technology among the game developer community , first the Ageia PhysX Engine and now the Unreal Development Kit.( UDK )

Fallowing are the features that are supported in the UDK :

• The Unreal Editor toolset, complete with fully integrated game editing environment.
• Unreal Gemini multithreaded rendering system, including a powerful material system for creating complex real-time shaders on the fly.
• Unreal Lightmass global illumination solver for high-quality static lighting.
• State-of-the-art physics system, Unreal PhAT, powered by NVIDIA PhysX.
• Unreal Kismet, an advanced visual scripting solution that facilitates rapid prototyping of ideas and gameplay mechanics.
• AnimSet Viewer and AnimTree Editor, which give animators precise control over every muscle and bone movement.
• Unreal Matinee, which includes movie director-class tools for creating in-game cut scenes and gorgeous cinematics.
• UnrealScript, a fully integrated, high-level object-oriented programming language.
• Built-in Internet and LAN networking support for up to 64 players.
• Audio control through UnrealEd’s Visual Sound Cue Editor, plus support for major audio compression schemes; 3D sound positioning, spatialization and attenuation; multi-channel playback, and much more.
• Unreal Cascade particle effects system for implementing explosions, fog, fire and smoke. Module-based system gives real-time previews of visual effects.
• Terrain building tool for placing and customizing vegetation, structures and countless in-game points of interest.
• Integrations with leading game development middleware including PhysX, SpeedTree, FaceFX and Bink Video.

Source: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/udk.html