Ability to use purchased items outside of Unreal Engine

Distribution UE Marketplace
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I haven’t posted here before, and I’m new to Unreal Engine. I bought some resource packs from humble bundles and I like the resources. I have not been able to find clarification in searching, but I may be searching the wrong terms.

I have read the licensing, but some of it is vague (not in can or can’t do, but in meanings)

There are three things I am unsure of being allowed to do (commercially or non-commercially):

  • I would like to modify some assets in Blender for my use specific to my game
  • I would like to possibly use some assets in a different game engine that’s lighter on resources
  • The ability to use assets in Blender for animations.

I have no questions on the “resale” of assets or distribution of assets being disallowed, and I have no question of the profit tiers for the licensing.

There’s a line about “reverse engineering” or something like that not being allowed, but I’m not trying to reverse and resell or remake and claim as my own entirely. I just need to make some changes for specific needs of my projects.

I would like some clarification for the license abilities, if any, for use and modification outside of Unreal Engine specifically.

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Hey there @Horserous! Welcome to the community! To preface everything I’m about to say, this is not legal advice and I’m not a lawyer affiliated with Epic Games, just someone who’s released games under both the Fab and Marketplace EULAs. With that out of the way.

  • As I understand it, you can modify any of the assets that you purchase under any of the licenses that are allowed and even encouraged. This was always the case with marketplace assets as well for the old license.

  • Most licenses on Fab allow for use outside of Unreal. This however excludes anything with (including but not limited to) a legacy marketplace license or the Reference Only license (you will see this on the right side when selecting a license or under licensing info). For standard and professional Fab licenses, the assets are able to be used across any engine.

  • As long as the animation ends up in a game as a final product, your final product will be under the games licensing umbrella when it comes to revenue reporting and royalties.

It’s still recommended however to go over your business plan and the EULA with your lawyer to verify your use case falls within the terms of service.

Since you already read the EULAs, some more documentation outside of them can be found here:

If you have any direct inquiries, you may be able to ask support here:

https://support.fab.com/s/?ProductOrigin=FabSupport

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Thank you! Even without it being specifically legal advice, it helps having the experience of someone else in this ecosystem. Are there any articles or pages on Unreal or FAB related to allowances or encouragement for the modifications?

I saw that there are options to release animations and videos as well but not the “asset” itself, obviously. I’m also fine with buying the higher licenses IF I actually make money with anything, but for now I live in fear of DMCA because my free game might break the “reverse engineering” because I changed a mesh.

I have this, along with many others in the “personal tier” I believe, as opposed to the higher tier:

https://www.fab.com/listings/15f9685d-89e8-411d-99e2-fc22e0567147

From a humble Bundle. I try to read through the EULA and licensing and had to forgo some bundles from other asset providers for some weird parts, but Unreal’s was so close to what I needed that it was still usable even if everything above was a “no.”

I wish I could afford a lawyer that also had technical knowledge in this field :slight_smile:

My field is computers and IT, and I have had to help and know usually lawyers need a lot of (billable) help to understand nuances like the “reverse engineering.” I also asked a visual effects expert that works in Unreal that does have a lawyer and he still didn’t quite know the exact parts in those lines:

i. attempt to reverse engineer, decompile, translate, disassemble, or derive source code or data from the Content;

That was the main issue, considering the move to Blender is likely a “translation” between formats. I’m unfamiliar with visual files like this, though. New industry

I am glad there’s specifically a line that allows animations to be made and rendered for film etc… projects. I am more familiar with Blender than Unreal for that though.

i. rendered video files (e.g., broadcast or streamed video files, cartoons, movies, or images) and

ii. images created using Content.

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The license itself isn’t super explicit on it, but most assets are unable to be used without modification for game development at large. Some entire commercial games are made with modified assets from the store. Dark and Darker is one example that has popularized the assets they used on the marketplace license, as well as being featured by Epic themselves on the front page of the store.

This line is usually interpreted again trying to decompile (since it’s not hard) and reverse engineer plugins to sell for yourself. This seems to be there to make sure you can’t just use the source from something you buy to sell elsewhere as that’d be less covered clearly by other means.

I do wish I had a more concrete reference for all of this though.

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That’s fine, Legal writings are supposed to be just vague enough to make sure the writer is at an advantage anyways.

Hearing the “general consensus” of the industry, or someone more connected is helpful for me.

If this was IT or corporate app development I’d be all good to go on definitions, but this is like learning cars after I spent years learning planes lol.

Of course… someone would have to find my 0 follower Itch.io and be mad enough at my color change to their asset to care :rofl: I just like to be “above board” on my projects, but finding the rules is hard. There’s another asset pack I’ve found from a site that has an article along the lines of “We know licenses are tough to read through. We have one license: You have unlimited use commercial or otherwise in projects featuring our assets. Just don’t resell the assets on their own or without a value added … [something or other]” or something like that. Haven’t read it in two months.

Thank you again for the examples and your time.
I think I’m good to go and start making my stuff across platforms/engines/media now, and I’m excited to get working on all of them with more confidence!

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I understand! For the most part just keep an eye out for the rare Reference Only and old Marketplace licenses. Both of these wouldn’t be viable in another engine and have different rules attached. The standard personal and professional Fab licenses are the ones you want to look for.