Epic Games have been exceptionally upfront about making Unreal Engine 4 a low-cost, free to use development platform for games, and they've taken it a step further in the past week by making a selection of high fidelity environmental assets freely available for future game developers.



Those who were tuned in at GDC2015 may remember 'A Boy And His Kite', a UE4 technology demo showcasing the power of their next-generation game engine. Eagle-eyed viewers immediately noticed the exceptional realism in the overall scene, despite the often ropey compression used in streaming video and Youtube, and the entire painstaking process is described in Epic's fascinating GDC "Creating Open Worlds In UE4" talk.

The assets in this demo were created using a process called photogrammetry, which converts real-world photographs into virtualised objects, after which the inherent lighting was normalised to make the object suitable for different lighting schema. In addition specular and roughness maps, as well as game optimised assets including collision meshes, are included. Given the work that went into creating these assets it's therefore surprising to seem them made available to anyone who uses UE4, allowing them to create new levels or paste into existing ones.

For more information on Unreal Engine 4, which is now free to use for all-comers, be sure to check out the Official Site