Epic Games today announced the release of a free tool kit for developing on the Unreal 3 Engine. The free kit is mainly intended for various noncommercial uses.

The Unreal Development Kit (UDK) is available now for anyone who has the interest and ability to create content with the Unreal 3 Engine. The free kit is advertised towards students, hobbyists, researchers, digital filmmakers, and others.

The UDK gives users access to a fully updated version of the Unreal 3 Engine that even includes features not yet seen in Unreal 3 Engine games. Epic will continually upgrade the UDK for free.

Game developers can also make deals with Epic for commercial uses of the UDK as well. Epic's commercial teams intend to use UDK to make it easier financially for developers both independent and professional to use the Unreal 3 engine.

Right now the UDK only supports the PC, but Epic is considering console support.