UDK Or CryEngine 3?
Although the CryEngine 3 has only recently become available I personally find it a lot more enjoyable to use than UDK; This might be because the sheer amount of art created with UDK might have made CryEngine 3 look more appealing to me simply because it's something different (although the art created from UDK is by no means un-appealing) I was just wondering what you guys prefer; UDK, Or CryEngine?
I personally prefer CryEngine 3 mainly because of how easy it is to set up outdoor lighting with TOD rather than having to manually place lights. I also think CryEngine 3 just simply looks a lot more realistic than UDK, Although that's not to say that a somewhat "stylized" renderer is a bad thing.
I personally prefer CryEngine 3 mainly because of how easy it is to set up outdoor lighting with TOD rather than having to manually place lights. I also think CryEngine 3 just simply looks a lot more realistic than UDK, Although that's not to say that a somewhat "stylized" renderer is a bad thing.
Replies
Lights are easy to setup in UDK, just pop in a dominance direct or skylight and you're done. All you need to do is play with the settings now.
Also, head note, (and I don't understand why people keep on saying this, it's the 7th time for me in a week I hear this) UDK Rendering and lights have nothing to do with looks, you can very easily fit your material to how it looks by creating your own materials (AKA shaders) to have ANY look you desire on your model. Even lights and PostProcess can be changed willy nilly if desired.
That argument of "it looks like Unreal" would be valid back in the UE3 days, but now, UDK has changed so much, that it's upto the user at this point to put the input, not the engine.
So yeah, UDK may not have the quickest setup (although the June version would like to say hi), but more then makes up in the flexibility department, while CE (which isn't as flexible) made up for loads of ready made and easy to use tools which cut down the setup time.
Personally, I don't have CE3, so I can't attest to it, but if it's like CE2, then material editor and lights system (as well water system) needed some real workout to allow flexibility.
However, from what I heard at this point, both are the same. What it comes to is your personal pipeline and how you want to work (but even that is changing to become more streamlined) so honestly, both are pretty much the same, no visible difference once you get your hands real dirty with both of them.
UDK all the way, until there is something substantially better, in terms of licence, community, documentation, feature list and toolset.
The Cry Engine I believe is the best option on the market for the serious guys starting a game. Those that are not afraid to dig into code.
The UDK is nice and easy, but as soon as you want to do something different, you're stuck with Unreal script and devs that say "no-no"..
Being able to work with both I have to say that I'm really leaning toward the Cry Engine now if I had to create my own game.
But since my opinion is of course 100% biased, feel free to discard.
@Ace-Angel: You have a point with UDK being a lot different than simply UE3 now, But it is quite strange how if something is done in UDK it is so easy to notice.
One thing i have noticed about the CryEngine 3 editor is probably more related to the engine being optimized, But nevertheless this results in the editor being a lot faster than the one in Cryengine 2, Which was my main problem when messing around in that one.
One game was published, but they tried to cel-shade the game, and it didn't look too hot.
I think Cryengine has (going to have) the best destruction functions, compared to UDK and is great for outdoor scenes.
Actually, can you use Cryengine for space scenes, like if you are at a spacestation? Does is always create a landscape/water?
http://xboxoz360.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/cryengine-3-image-oxcgn-10.jpg
I wish UDK ssao behaved this nice. It would be possible to rely on it lot more and save memory/rendertimes by using tiny lightmaps for approximating overall lighting and color bleeding only.
Asides from that, UDK is great
Tanked a project of mine as well with CE2. Now with CE3 obviously I'm biased as I work at Crytek but the Engine got so much better and more powerful!
Cellshading is obviously an issue with the Shader not the Engine (at least in my opinion). Unreal's Shader network is defo great (and I love working with it).
Long story short: Get the C2SDK - it's what our team uses at work most of the time for the projects. Evaluate and see the fun.
Like this?
Yeah, something like...
Yeah, the Material Editor is one thing I'm looking for in CE3, hope they revamped it, I suck at programming anything, so I have to make it up by being the graphics guy in both modeling, texturing, rigging and anything technical department.
Also, if you look closely you'll see that AO fades away near areas hit by direct light, so that theres no "muddy" look.
http://www.crymod.com/uploads/mediapool/adam/ce3/ssao2_on.jpg
Will it be tweakable like in UDK? I don't know since I don't have Crysis and am waiting for August, but if it is, it will be awesome sauce.
UDK you can make custom shaders, UDK license is cheap you can get for more done just with the indie license in UDk than in CE.
http://www.crydev.net/viewtopic.php?p=827473
To me CE feels just like a tech demo, feels like they just wanted to get something out there since people were pirating their engine for a while.
Their documentation, sucks ass. Crytek's whole view on this is ridiculousness much like their game. Whole target market is people who love eye candy over everything.
Just my opinion guys.