Will lisence evolve towards other software?

Hey there,

Unity developper who loves MetaHuman here. Is there any chance that you policy about rendering a MetaHuman outside of Unreal will evelove ? I wouldn’t mind pay a high price for it. I think I would not be the only one.

Thanks for you time :slight_smile:

Unlikely. Its clear epic wants to be the dominant force in the 3d landscape, last thing they want to do is support their main opponent.

You can use all the megascans assets in any software you want if you pay. I use megascans assets in Unity, even though megascans belongs to epic. I think it’s a way smarter approach than making user retention with some unecessary exclusivity content.
And I was not only talking about Unity. MetaHuman should be usable in any 3D rendering software. (It already is, it’s just that you’re not allowed to…)

Megascans was a Quixel product which weren’t designed for any particular game engine. Metahumans is very very specifically designed for Unreal Engine and they’d have to completely redo it for Unity. So there’s no reason they would do that.

“very very specifically” Not really, you can open them in maya and most of them (the metahuman) will still work.

Edit : I think you are right about it not happening though. And for the reasons you invoke: epic clearly want some killer tools for UE4/5 with Nanite, Lumen and now MetaHuman. But in that last case, I think they could have been more open about licensing since MetaHuman generates a functional 3D skinned mesh with blenshapes, working in any major 3D software. You just won’t have the hairs and some other details from LOD0 and 1, but all the others lods are still extremly good.
I just wish every software would work like Blender in a more open source way.

Epic is very much catching up to unity and is not willing to let go of any edge they have, despite the bad press and unity being constantly assumed to be easier than ue4 (Its not, blueprint is a thing, not to mention putting everything on the ui instead of in a folder.)

To be really honest, I’m actually considering making the switch to Unreal : Unity is a barely evolving mess right now. 2 things that keeps me from swtiching are :
-No real custom lightning shader in the node shading tool from unreal. I really need a “shadow” node in my shaders in order to make my signature look in my games. I know stylized graphics can easely be done via post process in Unreal, but you don’t have the same precision and freedom as making it inside the surface shader.
-I really don’t like the interace design, everything feels old and too big, crowded, when Unity feels light and clear.

But with Nanite + Lumen + Metahuman + UE5 probably bringing a more modern interface… Yes, even if I don’t like it right now because switching engine is extremly time consuming, I think it will probably be for the best.

For #1: Valid concern, this MAY work. https://www.tomlooman.com/disneyfaciliershadow/

For #2: Old and big, yes, but quite convenient when you get the hang of it… When you get the hang of it.

Theres no real “correct” time to switch, as ue5 early access will, well, be early access, its not gonna be a fallout 76 but it sure as hell wont be polished as ue4, but switching later will be a bit harder.