polymnia

hriw-annon@xs4all.nl said:

polymnia said:

InspiredCode said:

macplusplus said:

KITA said:

Interesting. This may impact iOS/macOS gaming even further, potentially making third party developers choose to drop support of iOS/macOS or find a new game engine.

It told Epic that by August 28, Apple will cut off Epic’s access to all development tools necessary to create software for Apple’s platforms—including for the Unreal Engine Epic offers to third-party developers, which Apple has never claimed violated any Apple policy. Not content simply to remove Fortnite from the App Store, Apple is attacking Epic’s entire business in unrelated areas. 

If the Unreal Engine can no longer support Apple platforms, the software developers that use it will be forced to use alternatives.

Apple would lose out on Unreal Engine 5 as well it sounds like.

...

Although they are the owner of Unreal Engine, there are less than fifteen iOS games developed with it, according to Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games

A recent mainstream game for the Mac is Borderlands 3, but it requires a graphics card of 8 GB on the Mac ! What a game engine is that !

So not many people will miss them once they are gone, and the whole affair will be forgotten in a couple of months even in the blogosphere that feeds it and life will continue as usual...

The Wikipedia article is just showing a few examples.  There are 1000s of games using the engine.  It is very popular for both Indies and big studios.

I wonder what Epic charges for an Unreal license? Is it (mostly) free if the licensee doesn’t charge for the software using Unreal? Is it a % of sales if the resulting software is purchased?

If I remember correctly Unreal is free below 1 million revenue and 5% of revenue above that.
And if you want to sell your stuff in their store they want 12%, which might be what it costs to host.

That is interesting. So Epic isn't against the idea of a "Tax" form of revenue? They just wish they didn't have to be a payer of the "Tax"? Who can blame them, it's better to get paid passively than pay out passively. Maybe I'm just a crazy capitalist, but it seems to me that if the business model itself isn't in question, what leg does Epic have to stand on?

There are other ways to charge for business services. I charge by the project. A client comes to me with a bunch of work. I figure out how much it should cost to pay me what I'm worth, cover expenses and leave some profit margin so I can reinvest in the business and build some wealth myself. My client can then take that work and do whatever they want with no further obligation to me. That's a classic business transaction model. No "Tax".

If Epic is so against the idea of the "Tax", perhaps they should lead the way by offering Unreal for a flat fee (let's be real, though, probably tiered with more support for higher fees). Membership in their store could be by flat fee, again, probably tiered. But remove the "tax" % payments.

I would have SIGNIFICANT concerns about entering into a % revenue "Tax" arrangement with a vendor. Count me as skeptical of the % revenue split concept. But if I charge my clients via the same method, what standing do I have to go around grandstanding about the unfairness of the practice?

SpamSandwich said:

That’s fine for finding edges against a solid color background, but clipping an image with fine details out of a complex background is a more realistic problem. It requires extensive work no matter which platform is being used.

What is missing for your workflow?

Refine Edge is an indispensable tool. Its a  Must Have for my work to be viable on an iPad. Rotatable canvas is a close second. 

The civil right museum in Memphis is a special place, a most deserving recipient of Apple’s support. I’d never cried at a museum until the day I visited the civil rights museum.

MacPro said:

polymnia said:

Resampling improvements are great! I use On1 Perfect Resize for this purpose, it’s the best tool I’m aware of. But the core resampling engine hasn’t been upgraded in years.

Of course higher capture resolution is the ideal solve. But every capture must occur at a particular size. After that, good resampling allows for further enlargement and is essential to modern display graphic applications. 

It’s great to see someone actively working to improve this functionality. 

I have to say Photoshop 2020's new resampling using Preserve Details 2.0 is amazing
.

I have found Perfect Resize to do a better job than Preserve Details 2.0. Maybe Adobe is continuously improving that tool and I should try it out again? I’ve operated on the assumption that titling Preserve Details with “2.0” means it will get a new number if/when it is improved.