What software do you guys prefer and why? Unity or UE4
Hello there,
I`m starting to learn by myself UE4 and Unity for VFX in games, I saw that both software's are pretty good and the tools of it are quite the same, but what is the ``plus`` in each of these 2 programs targeting this Particle system.
I`m starting to learn by myself UE4 and Unity for VFX in games, I saw that both software's are pretty good and the tools of it are quite the same, but what is the ``plus`` in each of these 2 programs targeting this Particle system.
Replies
UE4 has a fully integrated node based shader editor. Unity doesn't. This makes a huge difference when you're making FX as modern FX relies on custom shaders working together with the particle system.
This, and Cascade (the UE4 particle effect editor) is way, way more capable than Shuriken (the Unity particle editor.)
Unity just adds three layers of friction to almost everything, not to mention out of the box there isn't much there, so you're left cobbling together a functional toolbox from their store or building a lot of what comes standard in Unreal. But a lot of people use unity because it runs on two rocks and a paper clip, so it has that going for it.
Depending on how much epic actually focuses on stealing the mobile market-share, Unity could see that advantage start to erode.
I can't underestimate the power of Unreal's material system, thing's amazing.
Shruriken isn't as good
Game particle systems and fx are all very similar. 95% of the features are virtually identical. You can learn Unity, Unreal, Cryengine, whatever.
But when it comes to rapid prototyping, I've had a very good experience with Unity. Just last week I cranked out a basic demo of gameplay meant to simulate the room movement from the original Legend of Zelda. Took me less than 8 hours. I was mainly just doing it on a lark, using it to test out a Tile tool I had cooked up earlier. But I was both surprised and pleased at how quick and easy it was to get the whole thing running.
I haven't done much with the particle system in Unity. Much more focused on gameplay basics as opposed to visuals.
Unreal feels very clunky in comparison, even though it shouldn't have to.
at simian squared we know unity about as well as it's possible to know unity and we've been considering unreal.
In short unity is a bit faster in the testing we've done, better for mobile. but when it comes to doing current generation stuff, it requires you to roll your own for mostly everything, or rely on middleware and therefore have to get them dancing together nice. Either way, there's a hidden cost and that's dev time.
Epic however are solving problems left right and center, they provide great editor tools, support and further development -- and you can get pretty far without having to do a great deal of the more arduous custom stuff. Unreal isn't without cost tho ofc, there's a continual payment to Epic in the form of a %.
Unreal's got more sorted out of the box, Unity is lighter but requires work.
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/infiltrator-released-for-free
Unity is also doing such cool things, for example this:
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/06/24/releasing-the-blacksmith/?utm_source=marketo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=unity_news_july_2015&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRouuKTMZKXonjHpfsX86OktWKC1g4kz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMRMthMq%2BTFAwTG5toziV8R7TFLs15ycYQWhTk
UE4 has a powerful and stable material editor, particle editor, and visual scripting language that plays nicely with it's inherent programming language, which is C++. The engine is powerful, robust, scalable, and easy to iterate on.
Unity has nothing of the sort, unless you want to purchase additional plugins, which guarantees no stability. But it does have the easier twin of C++ which is C#. The engine is lightweight, simple, and fast to prototype with.
UE4 has a perfectly synced tangent base, and a standard one at that. Every model you bake with that standardized base will always shade correctly as a result. UE4 has an actual, real PBR system with a metallic workflow, a superior lighting solution (rather, 3-4 to chose from based on your project needs), and a scaleable graphics/rendering set-up for publishing to multiple platforms. They're breaking new ground with their depthmap based lighting, and it's clearly the future. Baking lights always takes forever, though.
Unity uses a magical fairy tangent base made of rainbow dust that never syncs, and no matter what additional steps you take to make it work your models will always shade wrong in some way. They don't have a real PBR system, they have a compromise for the old system so people's old projects wouldn't break. This comes at the cost of nearly all benefits have having a real PBR set up, so it's kind of a waste. There's nothing spectacular about their lighting solutions, but the real-time light baking is awesome for fast iteration. It's not a particularly robust solution otherwise, and they are not breaking new ground in that area.
UE4 is constantly making new features at a break-neck pace because they have an army of actual game-devs working to make the engine better for themselves AND everyone else, because they use it themselves. They are breaking new ground, making new software technology that the rest of the industry follows, and are staying on the cutting edge. Updating projects can be arduous, but it's mostly automated so that's nice. Their marketplace is curated, so you only find quality stuff in there, but the selection is relatively small on account of being pretty new. Importing new content can be a bit arduous, however.
Unity devs don't really make games. They made one years ago, and it was terrible. Lately they have been involved in the direct development of a few titles, though. Otherwise, it's a little tough for them to always gauge first hand the needs of devs. Their updates are moderately frequent, but rarely come with big new features. Their store has a lot of content, and is well established. Not all the content in their store is quality, however. Importing new content into Unity is about the easiest thing you can do in it.
UE4 sucks at 2d currently. Lots of missing features here.
Unity is ideal if you're making a 2d game. There's very little reason why you'd chose a different engine over Unity for a 2d game, unless Ubisoft were to release the UbiArt Framework. But that'll never happen.
To sum up, I think UE4 is a better engine for current gen games that are 3d, as you'll have many advantages that Unity can't offer you out of the box. People who by default say "UE4 is made for shooters, it's hard to make anything else" 100% has no idea what they're talking about, and hasn't used the engine for more than 15 mins. I'd kindly refer their attention to this list.
Unity can run on a fried potato, it's programming language is easier, and it's got superior tools for 2d games.
While I think UE4 is better in most ways, it ultimately depends on your project needs.
To synch the tangent space for unity I've used the xnormal plugin that's mentioned here:
http://www.farfarer.com/blog/2012/06/12/unity3d-tangent-basis-plugin-xnormal/
And it seemed to work well for me.
Honestly, Unity is a fine engine and I appreciate its general approach to rendering, even though I do wish that the engine looked a bit better out of the box.
http://www.imbuefx.com/
Couldnt agree more. Up to the point. Since the thread was about asking which software you preffer for art display use, this sum up makes good points.
[ame]
PS: Be careful about CryEngine
A friend...
It's too bad that even if you make a simple 2d game in UE4. Your shipped/deployed game will be around 300 megabytes. Even cooked for mobile games you're talking about around 90 megabytes minimum no matter how simple.
Here, let me show you my example:
[ame]
I managed to get less than half that on my very first UE4 game.
If I remember right, the Tappy Chicken project is only like 23mb.
I didn't claim anything let alone being "better". I just wanted to show that there are options if he/she wishes to try out, even just for the sake of learning/camparison. Gee...