Unity Engine vs Unreal Engine for Low-Poly Game + Solo Dev??

Oblivion2500

I'm a solo dev who likes to work on games during my free time. It's more of a hobby that I hope to start making money on someday. I'm an independent game designer and artist. I have a job that works usual 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Thursday. I like to have Friday and maybe weekend be my game development work. I went to school for Game Art & Design with a BA degree. I specialize in 3D game art using Maya and Blender. I also have used Unreal Engine 4 since it first came out. I have tried Unity before. I have been working with Unreal Engine 4.18 and newer. I'm in the process of making a game which got a low-poly theme with some cool effects that are more modern. I've been using UE4 for a long time and really like it. However, I suck at programming, so I try to use blueprint but even that is so confusing for me. I know that C# is much easier to learn than C++. I have done Java and C++ programming before. I know there's an add-on for Unity that lets you do scripting that converts to C# for you, I don't know what it's called, I forgot. 

However, which game engine should I use for my game? Here are the requirements for my games which is important before deciding on the game engine:

• The game will be single player and also support local multiplayer (split-screen up to 4 players). NO online or LAN support.
• Low-Poly Graphics like PS1 or PC games in the late 90s
• Game engine needs to easily support realistic blood & gore such as decapitation, bleeding, decay, and dynamic body damage based on health. Unfortunately, both game engines don't have built-in gore system like RE Engine for Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019)...
• I want the game to be available for Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.

Also, I use the following software for my workflow:

• Maya LT & Blender
• Adobe Photoshop CC & GIMP
• xNormal
• Audacity
• Visual Studio

So what do you guys think I should use for my game? Unity or Unreal Engine and why?

sprunghunt

If you suck at programming you're going to have a bad time in unity. Both engines support all the features in your first list. I'd try with UE4.

sacboi

Generally if you've problems handling the logic element too games dev then perhaps take a look at GameMaker, learning how to program as you go on something slightly less complex without the added bottleneck issues of increasingly debugging your efforts throughout.

EDIT:

These might help as well:

CodeInGame

Code Combat

Oblivion2500

sacboi said:

Generally if you've problems handling the logic element too games dev then perhaps take a look at GameMaker, learning how to program as you go on something slightly less complex without the added bottleneck issues of increasingly debugging your efforts throughout.

EDIT:

These might help as well:

CodeInGame

Code Combat

Yeah, CodeinGame is great. I also did a lot of Udemy tutorials on C++. I know the basic of it. It's just I'm more of a designer/artist myself. I wish I had a programmer to help me make my game but I don't.

Oblivion2500

sprunghunt said:

If you suck at programming you're going to have a bad time in unity. Both engines support all the features in your first list. I'd try with UE4.

Yeah, UE4 blueprint is great for people like me, even then, it can get confusing once in a while.

poopipe

You generally get results quicker and cheaper in ue4 but if you plan to do something like add a major feature it will be more complex than with unity.

In your shoes I'd choose unreal 

Bletzkarn

I'm an artist who moved into coding. Coding in unity is not that hard, it's pretty easy actually. You guys would be surprised to hear that I find rigging and skinning more complicated than most coding. The hard thing about coding is learning the syntax.

using systems.collection<br>using unity.engine
<br>public class example : mono behaviour{

   [SerializedField]
    private float moveSpeed;

    void Update(){
         if(Input.GetKey(KeyCode.Space)){
              this.transform.position += transform.forward*Time.deltatime*moveSpeed;
          }
     }
}

Translation. When holding space bar, every frame add the movespeed times the frame time to the forward direction of the game object. However once you understand the above code it could be for anything, movement, shooting a projectile, changing an objects colour. Learning how to code makes you a better games artist and its empowering to write your own tools. E.g. at our studio we had a long process of creating shaders in substance painter, baking it all down to a 4K diffuse and importing it to unity. The shader itself was fairly simple so I recreated it in Unity. The texture size has gone from 4K to 64x64 so the engineers are happy, and dev time has been reduced because its all in engine. Also it open opportunities to be a technical artist. It has a steeper learning curve then blueprints, but the pay off is huge.

Oblivion2500

poopipe said:

You generally get results quicker and cheaper in ue4 but if you plan to do something like add a major feature it will be more complex than with unity.

In your shoes I'd choose unreal 

What about adding major features like different game types and rules in the game? Would that be too big?

Oblivion2500

Bletzkarn said:

I'm an artist who moved into coding. Coding in unity is not that hard, it's pretty easy actually. You guys would be surprised to hear that I find rigging and skinning more complicated than most coding. The hard thing about coding is learning the syntax.

using systems.collection<br>using unity.engine
<br>public class example : mono behaviour{

   [SerializedField]
    private float moveSpeed;

    void Update(){
         if(Input.GetKey(KeyCode.Space)){
              this.transform.position += transform.forward*Time.deltatime*moveSpeed;
          }
     }
}

Translation. When holding space bar, every frame add the movespeed times the frame time to the forward direction of the game object. However once you understand the above code it could be for anything, movement, shooting a projectile, changing an objects colour. Learning how to code makes you a better games artist and its empowering to write your own tools. E.g. at our studio we had a long process of creating shaders in substance painter, baking it all down to a 4K diffuse and importing it to unity. The shader itself was fairly simple so I recreated it in Unity. The texture size has gone from 4K to 64x64 so the engineers are happy, and dev time has been reduced because its all in engine. Also it open opportunities to be a technical artist. It has a steeper learning curve then blueprints, but the pay off is huge.

That's good to know. I know that C# is much easier to learn than C++. I have programmed Java and I know C# is like both Java and C++ combined with the bad parts out. I don't plan on using substance software which I have used before, but since I'm creating a game with old style graphics like a old 90s game on the PC or PS1 (with more special effects and better lighting, of course). I'm also on a tight budget.

Alex_J

One thing about Unity is that it seems to have a lot more beginner oriented tutorial content available for it. 

Dealman

I'd definitely go with UE4 for starters. UE4 has a great and really supportive community.

Blueprints can become a bit of a headache when you end up with a lot of spaghetti - but it's easily cleaned up with smart use of functions and macros.

Dismemberment is entirely supported by UE4, you can break off limbs via blueprint. I forget ita name - but it exists.

On top of that, blueprints can be automagically converted to C++. Performance gain for math-heavy blueprints is HUGE. 

Biggest drawback with UE4 as others have mentioned is adding features that may need C++ knowledge.

I'm very confident in C# and C++ makes me wanna jump from a bridge more often than not - but I'd still choose UE4 simply due to how powerful and versatile it is with blueprints alone.

Oblivion2500

Dealman said:

I'd definitely go with UE4 for starters. UE4 has a great and really supportive community.

Blueprints can become a bit of a headache when you end up with a lot of spaghetti - but it's easily cleaned up with smart use of functions and macros.

Dismemberment is entirely supported by UE4, you can break off limbs via blueprint. I forget ita name - but it exists.

On top of that, blueprints can be automagically converted to C++. Performance gain for math-heavy blueprints is HUGE. 

Biggest drawback with UE4 as others have mentioned is adding features that may need C++ knowledge.

I'm very confident in C# and C++ makes me wanna jump from a bridge more often than not - but I'd still choose UE4 simply due to how powerful and versatile it is with blueprints alone.

I have to agree with you. What do you mean by the comment on the biggest drawback which is adding features that may need C++ knowledge? Do you mean adding features to the engine itself like an add-on or do you mean something like a feature for your game?

jRocket

Oblivion2500 said:
I have to agree with you. What do you mean by the comment on the biggest drawback which is adding features that may need C++ knowledge? Do you mean adding features to the engine itself like an add-on or do you mean something like a feature for your game?

Some parts of the Unreal C++ API are not exposed to blueprint. Off the top of my head, I can only think of FSkeletalMeshMerge, custom serialization, and some Asset Management stuff. Likely things you will never use.

Oblivion2500

jRocket said:

Oblivion2500 said:
I have to agree with you. What do you mean by the comment on the biggest drawback which is adding features that may need C++ knowledge? Do you mean adding features to the engine itself like an add-on or do you mean something like a feature for your game?

Some parts of the Unreal C++ API are not exposed to blueprint. Off the top of my head, I can only think of FSkeletalMeshMerge, custom serialization, and some Asset Management stuff. Likely things you will never use.

Ah I see, I will probably never use those C++ API mentioned here.