I know Arch Viz projects used to be royalty free.
As far as I and the department I work for are aware this is still the case.
However I recently noticed that Epic have removed this information from Unreal Engine’s website.
We are considering using UE4 in the future for interactive arch viz/ engineering VR projects which we would potentially charge external clients for. Would the company then have to pay royalty?
It’s incorrect to say that Arch/Viz as a category of work is royalty free. The question is whether the work falls into one of the royalty exemptions listed in the EULA. Nearly all of the time with Arch/Viz, that’s the case.
If you are doing custom work for a single client, those work-for-hire fees are royalty free. If your client doesn’t commercialize the work you do for them, there’s no royalty there either. I know this is an unlikely scenario, but if you created a custom 3D building walkthrough for a client, there’s no royalty. But if your client went and sold that walkthrough on the iTunes store, there would be a royalty. I imagine this is never going to happen, but I use it to illustrate how the royalty terms work.
Thank you very much for your clearly outlined answer. It’s very helpful. As you said, I don’t think any clients would sell projects on to anyone but that’s good to know just in case.
All the best,
Take care.