Recently, we launched Unreal Dev Grants, a $5,000,000 development fund designed to provide financial grants to innovative projects being built with Unreal Engine 4. Awards range from $5,000 to $50,000, with no strings attached: developers and artists own their IP and are free to publish however they wish, with no restrictions or obligations on the way the funds are used.

We view this program as a way to empower and foster creativity within a community of artists, programmers and designers from a variety of fields as diverse as games, animation, film and architecture. Unreal Dev Grants are designed to provide the boost needed to take a project beyond working prototype, allowing people to focus on creation and worry less about keeping the lights on.

Last week at GDC, we announced the recipients of the very first Unreal Dev Grants. Here are the three great projects:

Koola

Koola is a French artist who has been focused on amazing Architectural Visualization creations and outdoor scenes. He has pushed the bounds of hyper realism in UE4 and has also offered up information about his techniques which has in turn inspired other developers to pursue the same level of realism. He received a grant for $18,000.

Check out Koola’s visualization demos on YouTube.

Nuren: The New Renaissance

Nuren is a high-fidelity VR audio/visual experience designed and created by audio engineer Jake Kaufman and artist/voice actress Jessie Seely. Their project is no less than the world's first virtual reality rock opera, a unique and excellent use of both the UE4 engine and VR as a delivery platform. Jake and Jessie have received a grant for $18,000.

More info can be found on their Kickstarter page.

Dead Static Drive

Creator Mike Blackney describes the game as "a comic book-styled, 80's-themed driving horror game" or, more simply, "Grand Theft Cthulhu". The visuals are beautiful and the game looks very promising, while Mike is creating the game almost entirely on his own (along with some help from friends). Mike has received a grant for $15,000.

Watch Mike describe his project in this YouTube video.

We're proud to have such amazingly talented and dedicated teams and creators in our community and look forward to awarding the next batch of grants.

In case you missed any of our other other big news from GDC, here's a list of videos recapping this past week:

For more information regarding Unreal Dev Grants, head over to the Unreal Dev Grants webpage or check out the announcement forum post for F.A.Q.s.