It’s the first Tuesday of the month and that means it time for Unreal Christmas in October. Every month Epic Games gives away several assets for Unreal Engine developer and this month we got more than double the normal amount of new assets!
This months “Free for October” assets include:
The “Permanently Free” collection grew a fair bit as well:
Just be sure to “buy” the free assets before the first Tuesday in November and they are yours forever. You can learn more about this months giveaway in the video below.
Epic Games have just announced the acquisition of Super Awesome, a company dedicated to the protection of children online. Super Awesome make a number of products for creators, game developers and advertisers to be able to collect information on children in a manner that is compliant with major laws such as COPPA and GDPR.
Details of the acquisition from the Super Awesome announcement:
That question was the start of a discussion which began many months ago at a (pre-lockdown) dinner in Cary, North Carolina. It concludes today as I’m delighted to announce that we have agreed to be acquired by Epic Games, joining their family while continuing our mission as SuperAwesome (see the announcement here).
Tim Sweeney and his team understand the importance of responsibly engaging with kids and parents. They’re also incredibly serious about privacy. It’s a set of values that instantly became apparent when Tim and I began discussing a partnership.
Joining Epic Games means many things. It means continued (and indeed greater) support for our customers: developers, content-owners and brands who want to do more for kids. It means continued investment in kidtech solutions to help the overall ecosystem. Ultimately (and crucially), it’s a step-change in making the internet safer for kids. We have always been proud of our mission. We’re even prouder to do it with a principles-driven company like Epic Games.
You can learn more about the acquisition and Super Awesome’s products in the video below.
Epic Games have just released the first Preview version of Unreal Engine 4.26. UE4 preview 1 releases are extremely important as they highlight the new features that you can expect in the final 4.26 release, as well as adding several new experimental features. Unreal 4.26 is no exception, with the biggest new feature being the fact the Chaos Physics and Destruction engine is now enabled out of the box replacing the existing PhysX physics, although the new experimental water system taken from Fortnite is a close second.
Experience the latest features coming to Unreal Engine with Unreal Engine 4.26 Preview 1—available now.
Test drive the production-ready Chaos Physics and Destruction System—the now default physics system—and take the new experimental Chaos Vehicle system for a spin. Virtual production pipelines also receive a boost with added movie render queue controls, Sequencer updates, and DMX improvements. If that’s not enough, check out the brand-new water system, the Chaos Ragdoll system (beta), production-ready hair and fur, and more!
You can learn more details about the release on the Unreal Engine forums. While Chaos is now enabled out of the box, it isn’t immediately obvious how to get started using Chaos Physics and Destruction. Therefore in the video below, in addition to covering what is new in the 4.26 release, we also have a getting started with Chaos tutorial to get you up and going quickly.
It was announced today that Epic Games was leading a $15M round of funding for Manticore Games, the creator of the Core game creation platform. Core is a member of a growing segment of “games for making games”, similar to other titles such as Dreams and Roblox. Core is built on top of the Unreal Engine and provides most of the tools required to make modern online games in an easy to use package.
Manticore Games has closed $15 million in funding, led by Epic Games and validating the vision and the progress of Core toward an endless gaming multiverse.
Manticore’s mission is to unleash a new wave of creativity in games by radically lowering the barriers to game making and publishing the same way that YouTube revolutionized video creation.
“Core is very impressive,” said Adam Sussman, President, Epic Games. “At Epic we believe the industry is ultimately headed to games becoming more like open platforms where creators can build their own worlds. Built in Unreal Engine, Core exemplifies this future and goes one step further by providing the environment for anybody to create great multiplayer games, and a metaverse playground where players discover endless entertainment.”
You can learn more about the acquisition and get a brief overview of Core in action in the video below (or watch on Odysee here). For more details on Core be sure to check out our previous coverage here when they announced alpha, and here when monetization for creators was announced.
