The 3D Handbook
Part 2 — Tools The software landscapePage 36 of 269 on the reading route
Reference

Game engines

A neutral directory of game engines and creation platforms used for environment work, with editor platforms, licence terms and recent licensing history.

toolsengineslicensing

A game engine is the program that runs your game and the editor where you assemble levels, light them and test them. For environment artists it is where modular kits, real-time lighting, terrain and set dressing and art passes come together.

This page compares engines by renderer, editor platform, licence and price. For choosing tools in general, see choosing tools: an overview; for what the licence types mean, see software licensing explained. For in-engine blockout tools, see level editors and blockout tools.

#General-purpose 3D engines

Engine Typical use Strengths for environment art Editor platforms Licence / royalty Price (as of October 2026) Free / student option
Unreal Engine 5 High-end 3D games and real-time visualisation Lumen, "fully dynamic global illumination and reflections" (Epic Developer Community); Nanite virtualised geometry (Epic Developer Community); production-ready PCG since 5.7 (GameFromScratch) Windows (Epic Developer Community); Linux (Epic Developer Community); macOS requirements published Games: free until US$1 million lifetime gross, then 5% royalty; Epic Games Store sales royalty-free (unrealengine.com) Free for games; non-game seats US$1,850 per seat per year above US$1 million revenue Free; educators and schools have no revenue limit
Unity 6 2D, 3D, mobile and XR games Two scriptable pipelines: URP for "scalable graphics across a wide range of platforms" and HDRP for "high-fidelity graphics on high-end platforms" (Unity Manual) Windows, macOS, Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04) (Unity Manual) Seat subscription; no runtime fee (Unity Blog) Personal: free; Pro is required above US$200,000 in annual revenue or funding. Pro: $210.00 per month, or from $2,310.00 per year. Enterprise and Industry: custom pricing (unity.com) Personal and the free Student plan (unity.com)
Godot 4 2D and 3D indie games Built-in tools in a small download (appstream.debian.org); Forward+ is "the most advanced renderer", for desktop platforms (Godot Docs) Multiple platforms MIT licence; engine terms do not apply to your games (godotengine.org) Free Free
CRYENGINE First-person and open-world 3D "Fully realtime dynamic global illumination with a fully PBR workflow" (cryengine.com); full source code (cryengine.com) — 5% royalty on gross receipts; first US$5,000 per project per year royalty-free Free to use until the royalty applies Students may not sell games without Crytek's approval
O3DE (Open 3D Engine) Open-source 3D, successor to Lumberyard "High Fidelity" rendering and cross-platform tools (o3de.org); latest release 26.05 — Apache 2.0 (Wikipedia; AWS Documentation) Free Free
Stride C# 2D and 3D games, desktop and VR "Photorealistic rendering" and a customisable rendering pipeline (stride3d.net) — MIT; editor and runtime open source Free Free
Flax Engine C# and C++ 3D games Full source on GitHub (flaxengine.com) — 4% royalty on earnings above $250,000 per calendar quarter; custom seat or flat-fee licences No upfront fee Free for non-commercial and educational use
Amazon Lumberyard Discontinued. "Amazon Lumberyard is no longer offered" (AWS Documentation) — Binaries no longer offered Amazon points users to O3DE, "the official successor" — —

#Smaller and specialist engines

These are less common for environment portfolios but worth knowing.

Engine Typical use Notes for artists Platforms Licence / royalty Price (as of October 2026)
Defold Lightweight 2D (and some 3D) games Small, code-driven engine (defold.com) — The Defold License, derived from Apache 2.0; no royalties Free; "will always remain, completely free to use"
Bevy Code-first games in Rust "A refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust"; the site does not advertise a scene editor, so expect to work in code (bevy.org) Windows, macOS, Linux, Web, iOS, Android MIT or Apache 2.0 Free
GameMaker 2D games Mainly relevant if you also make 2D art (gamemaker.io) Desktop, web and mobile export; console with Enterprise Free under a non-commercial licence; one-time Professional licence for commercial use; Enterprise subscription (monthly or yearly) adds console exports Professional: US$99.99 one-time, regional pricing applies (gamemaker.io); the Get page itself shows no prices. Enterprise: see vendor

#Modding and creation platforms

These tools let you build levels for an existing game or platform, which is a fast route to playable environments.

Platform Typical use Editor Editor platforms Licence / payouts Price (as of October 2026)
UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite) Building and publishing games inside Fortnite (Epic Developer Community) Unreal-based editor PC Island Creator Program with engagement-based payouts (unrealengine.com) See vendor
Roblox Studio Building experiences for the Roblox platform (Roblox Creator Hub) Roblox Studio Windows and Mac Platform terms Free
Source 2 Workshop Tools Maps for Half-Life: Alyx, Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 (Valve Developer Community) Hammer (Source 2) — Game's Workshop terms Included with the supported games' Workshop Tools
Source 1 SDK Maps for older Source games Hammer 4, brush-based (Valve Developer Community) — Game's terms Ships with the game or its Authoring Tools
s&box Facepunch's "game creation platform" on a heavily modified Source 2 (Steam; Valve Developer Community) s&box Game Editor, with a modified Hammer that may be removed later Windows (Steam requirements) Publishing to s&box or Steam described as royalty-free $9.99 on Steam

Source 2 Hammer includes a Block Tool for quick blockout shapes, vertex/edge/face mesh editing, and a Displacement Tool for sculpting terrain (Valve Developer Community: Hammer Overview). See level editors and blockout tools for more on brush-based editing.

#Licence details

  • Unreal Engine for non-game work. Companies over US$1 million revenue in the past 12 months that do not ship engine code at runtime pay per seat instead: US$1,850 per seat per year, with a 30-day trial (unrealengine.com: Unreal Engine licensing options).
  • Unity thresholds. Pro is required above US$200,000 in revenue or funding, and Enterprise above US$25 million (unity.com: Plans & Pricing). Unity Personal is for gaming and entertainment applications only; Unity Industry, at custom pricing, is the plan for other uses (unity.com: Plans & Pricing). Unity raised Pro and Enterprise prices by 5% from 12 January 2026 (unity.com: Changes to Unity subscription plans and…).
  • Unity Student plan. Free for one year and renewable. It covers students at accredited degree-granting institutions, and students aged 16 or over at other accredited schools who consent to Unity processing their data (unity.com: Unity Student plan).
  • CRYENGINE restrictions. Students may develop games but cannot sell them without Crytek's written approval, and every game must be registered with Crytek (cryengine.com: CRYENGINE Licensing).
  • Flax royalty calculation. Flax's royalty applies only to earnings above $250,000 in a calendar quarter (flaxengine.com: Flax Engine licensing). A game earning $300,000 in one quarter pays 4% of $50,000, which is $2,000.

#Engine choice by goal

If you want to… Consider Why
Build a high-fidelity portfolio scene Unreal Engine Free for this use (unrealengine.com); Lumen and Nanite (Epic Developer Community; Epic Developer Community); production-ready PCG and the new Nanite Foliage rendering path in 5.7 (GameFromScratch)
Target mobile and high-end PC from one project Unity URP scales across platforms; HDRP targets high-end hardware (Unity Manual)
Work on Linux or macOS with an official editor build Unity or Godot Unity lists Ubuntu and macOS editor support (Unity Manual); Godot is multi-platform (appstream.debian.org)
Avoid any royalty or revenue threshold Godot, O3DE, Stride, Defold or Bevy MIT, Apache 2.0 or similar licences (godotengine.org; Wikipedia; stride3d.net; defold.com; bevy.org)
Practise level design inside a finished game Hammer, UEFN, Roblox Studio or s&box You build inside an existing game or platform (Valve Developer Community; Epic Developer Community; Roblox Creator Hub; Steam)
Use Houdini tools in-engine Unreal or Unity The free Houdini Engine licence covers the Unity and UE5 plug-ins (SideFX)

#Further reading and watching

References

  1. Epic Games · Lumen Global Illumination and Reflections in Unreal Engine · Epic Developer Community, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-21
  2. Epic Games · Nanite Virtualized Geometry in Unreal Engine · Epic Developer Community, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-21
  3. GameFromScratch · Unreal Engine 5.7 Released · GameFromScratch, 2025 · article · accessed 2026-10-20
  4. Epic Games · Hardware and Software Specifications for Unreal Engine · Epic Developer Community, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-20
  5. Epic Games · Linux Development Requirements for Unreal Engine · Epic Developer Community, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-20
  6. Epic Games · Unreal Engine licensing options · unrealengine.com, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-22
  7. Unity Technologies · Introduction to render pipelines · Unity Manual (Unity 6), 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-21
  8. Unity Technologies · System requirements for Unity 6 · Unity Manual, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-20
  9. Unity Technologies · A message to our community: Unity is canceling the Runtime Fee · Unity Blog, 2024 · web · accessed 2026-10-20
  10. Unity Technologies · Plans & Pricing · unity.com, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-22
  11. Unity Technologies · Unity Student plan · unity.com, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-22
  12. Debian · Godot (Debian AppStream metadata) · appstream.debian.org, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-20
  13. Godot Engine contributors · Overview of renderers · Godot Docs, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-21
  14. Godot Engine contributors · License · godotengine.org, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-20
  15. Crytek · CRYENGINE · cryengine.com, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-21
  16. Crytek · CRYENGINE Licensing · cryengine.com, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-22
  17. Open 3D Foundation · Open 3D Engine · o3de.org, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-21
  18. Wikipedia contributors · Open 3D Engine · Wikipedia, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-20
  19. Amazon Web Services · Amazon Lumberyard (No longer offered) · AWS Documentation, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-21
  20. Stride contributors · Stride Game Engine · stride3d.net, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-21
  21. Flax · Flax Engine licensing · flaxengine.com, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-22
  22. The Defold Foundation · The Defold License · defold.com, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-21
  23. Bevy contributors · Bevy Engine · bevy.org, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-21
  24. GameMaker · Get GameMaker · gamemaker.io, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-22
  25. GameMaker · November 2023 pricing & terms change FAQ · gamemaker.io, 2023 · web · accessed 2026-10-22
  26. Epic Games · Unreal Editor for Fortnite · Epic Developer Community, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-20
  27. Roblox · Install Roblox Studio · Roblox Creator Hub, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-20
  28. Valve Developer Community · Hammer (Source 2) · Valve Developer Community, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-20
  29. Valve Developer Community · Hammer · Valve Developer Community, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-21
  30. Facepunch Studios · s&box on Steam · Steam, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-21
  31. Valve Developer Community · S&box · Valve Developer Community, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-21
  32. Valve Developer Community · Hammer Overview (Source 2 Level Design) · Valve Developer Community, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-20
  33. Unity Technologies · Changes to Unity subscription plans and pricing · unity.com, 2026 · web · accessed 2026-10-20
  34. Video Games Chronicle · Unity has cancelled its controversial Runtime Fee · Video Games Chronicle, 2024 · article · accessed 2026-10-20
  35. SideFX · Indie FAQs · SideFX, 2026 · docs · accessed 2026-10-22
  36. arthur tasquin · How to be productive in Unreal Engine · YouTube · video · accessed 2026-10-21

Also consulted

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Last updated 2026-10-22