Oculus Rift Dev Kits Launching With Custom Unreal Dev Kit

By Catherine Cai
published

Oculus Rift really wants to make sure its devs are pampered.

Just a few days ago, we reported that Oculus Rift had partnered with Unity to offer a four month extended trial of Unity Pro to Oculus Rift developers for free. Being an Oculus Rift developer means to be pampered, apparently. Recently, Oculus Rift announced that a custom version of the Unreal Development Kit would be shipping with every Oculus Rift development kit. Those who are UE3 full source licensees will receive a free integration code for the Oculus Rift.

“Developers have used Unreal Engine technology to create some of the most memorable games in history,” said CEO of Epic Games Tim Sweeney. “We view virtual reality as a massive technological step forward, and are arming all developers with the tools to create game experiences that represent the future. Our partnership with Oculus will bring the highest quality experiences to virtual reality games.”

The custom Oculus UDK features the Epic Citadel tech demo. With it, Oculus Rift devs can explore a castle and village setting using the Oculus Rift's VR capabilities.

The Oculus Rift development kit will begin shipping out to Kickstarter backers starting at the end of this month. The custom version of UDK will be available at the Oculus Developer Center in the beginning of April.

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6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • shahrooz
    can't wait to get my eyes in it.
    Reply
  • myromance123
    No doubt that the Unreal guys are scared that Unity is taking too many bites out of their developer userbase. I'm not surprised, Unity makes it really easy to support many platforms. Unreal on the other hand, not so much. Albeit, Unreal do have a good arsenal of past games making them shine brighter at the moment.

    I wonder in the future, which engine will make use of the Occulus Rift the most?
    Reply
  • Gundam288
    myromance123No doubt that the Unreal guys are scared that Unity is taking too many bites out of their developer userbase.
    I don't think that is why this was done. I think it's more related to the other news a while back about Oculus Rift no longer shipping with Doom 3 BFG edition. (Toms had a story about it a short time ago, should be in the related stories if you want to read up on it.)

    This kinda comes off to me as id wanted an exclusive agreement with Oculus given how quickly it went from Doom 3 BFG ed. being the only game announced for the Rift to being canned and kinda Open sourcing it with just about any company that is willing to work with them.

    I'm starting to wonder if the sxwe pannel rubbed id the wrong way. (more than likely IMO)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoeSEmPMl3o&feature=player_embedded
    Reply
  • Alex Silkin
    myromance123No doubt that the Unreal guys are scared that Unity is taking too many bites out of their developer userbase. I'm not surprised, Unity makes it really easy to support many platforms. Unreal on the other hand, not so much. Albeit, Unreal do have a good arsenal of past games making them shine brighter at the moment.I wonder in the future, which engine will make use of the Occulus Rift the most?
    Actually I am pretty sure the reason why the are doing this is because you would not be able to use their SDK with ordinary UDK license, you would need to full (expensive) UE3 license. They have obviously made a deal with Epic.

    Similarly, you need Unity Pro to integrate Oculus SDK into your game, that is why they made a deal with Unity for that free 4 months trial.

    Finally, I do agree that Unity makes it really easy to quickly develop for multiple platforms, but you are forgetting that UE3 also runs on pretty much all the platforms Unity does. They even beat Unity to the flash party.
    Reply
  • youssef 2010
    Nice. The future looks very promising for Rift
    Reply
  • RobAC
    shahroozcan't wait to get my eyes in it.
    Okay I see what you did there ...
    Reply