Comments on Unity3d difficulty and VS Unreal Engine

I think for indie studio / individual trying to get a game out Unity offers lot of value over Unreal.

One has to consider Unity Indie costs $0 up front and 0% royalty up to $100K which most indie games do not make.

And then there is al Unity Asset Store where one can find just about everything one needs to create an indie game dirt cheap.

And also because Unity simplicity over Unreal's complexity.

And lastly, but not least, because Unity uses C# over Unreal's use of C/C++ and Unreal script.

So Unity brings a lot of value to Indie studio / individual game developers that Unreal just does not match at any price, even when UDK cost $0.

 

Why are you here then?

 

Misinformation. Just want to clarify somethings.

Unreal Script was gotten rid of because it is slow and cumbersome to use. It was never in Unreal engine 4. It was in Unreal Engine 3 and previous versions which are now unsupported.

Also Read my post it is one page back.

I look at it like this - Do you want to deploy to every platform under the sun without any graphical or feature limitations at a very low price point?

Further more - The royalties go towards Epic's developers and business to help Improve the Engine and overall quality of service.

But at the end of the day it you choose the right tool for the job.

 

Difficulty is subjective. What you may find difficult may not be difficult for someone else. I think the word you really mean is "tedious". Blueprint is not difficult, it is time consuming.

Most programmers will find it faster to type out the script they need than to lay down and connect the required nodes.

 

Paying 5% a year, in perpetuity, for every product I make, on every platform, in addition to steam/google/apple fees, is out of the question.

 

Depending on how much someone makes it may not be as big an expense as buying Unity. In order to break even with the cost of Unity (and add-on platforms), you need to make $30,000 per platform. Upgrading to a new version is an additional $15,000 per platform.

 

I hope Unity will add support for oculus rift development in Unity Free. I think many hobbyists are forced to choose UE4 simply because $75 / month is too much for a non-commercial hobby project.

 

You only pay if you make over $3000 per quarter from the product, and then only for profit in excess of that $3000.

Keep in mind that a better looking product (versus spending even more in the Asset Store, which doesn't always work as well) with the UE4 logo attached will likely sell more copies anyway - possibly even 5%+ more - so it's all relative. Just use what you're comfortable with, and what fits your project best.

Per the difficulty (the point of this thread?), another fair point is that when a project (especially a larger project) hits a roadblock in Unity, finding an acceptable workaround without the source code can add an enormous delay to your timetable. I've seen this complaint echoed repeatedly in these threads. With source access (per UE4), your team would have much more flexibility; the community itself might have already created a plausible workaround. This advantage will remain when U5 launches unless UT has a change of heart on the subject (which would probably require a special version stripped of third party software, and thus isn't likely to happen).

 

I find UE4 far easier to use than Unity, especially the more advanced features. I think the people that find it more difficult are simply accustomed to working in the old way and are resistant to change - if both were presented side by side to a newbie I think UE4 would be easier.

 

I'm pretty sure 3000 a quarter isn't even minimum wage in the US (for most states). So if you actually have any ambition to make games for a living, i.e. being able to stay alive is important, then you have given yourself another taxman to pay.

Just what kind of roadblocks are we talking about?

 

Unless you are a actual programmer for a living and doing game design as a hobbie, most people wouldn't know what the hell to do with the source code. They would be asking on the forum about what to do or search for an answer to correct it.
Having/not having is a thing that goes back and forth and you can talk about it to your blue in the face. Still won't help an artist that doesn't know anything about programming.

 

It doesn't help programmers either, not only do you have to reverse engineer what Epic have done, you need enough understanding of how graphics API's work GL / D3D and low level function and that takes years!.

Engine development is a specialism within a specialism, on the other hand there are people who know enough to fix annoyances and re-commit to the source code. There needs to be a lot of handholding from Epic as they did with UE3 and the UDN, but source always works. Whether people care about source is another matter and Epic is still responsible for their own API.

Just the every little helps mentality can be a cool thing, plus it allows third party integrators to do seamless additions to the engine.

 

Have you tried to use Blender for Unreal Engine in a non-trivial case?

 

people are spending money, its just that many people feel that $1500 + is too much to spend. If they didnt feel this way, there probably wouldnt be a unity free. Now that UE4 is out, that $1500+ looks even more ridiculous.

I dont see the difference between paying for pro to get the profiler now, and paying for pro to get the profiler in the future. You still gotta pay for a very important feature.

I would guess you are alone in this mindset, but I could be wrong. The way I see it, game devs cant just stop what they are doing just because a new piece of tech comes out. Like you seen with the kinect, ps move and even the wii u system, devs wont make anything for these "non-traditional" experiences unless there is a lot of interest (people owning them for example) for the tech AND they can develop something that takes advantage of said tech. Without us hobbyist to show that there is interest in VR (mind you, this isnt even the consumer version, this is beta hardware) devs wont dedicate time (money) and effort to make something on their own.

Also, how do you know that a hobbyist like myself isn't getting paid to make games at my 9-5? Just because I dont plan to make money with my FIRST VR project, doesn't mean the skills I learned wont help me in my profession, or that i will only make free content forever. That's where unity is losing out; an emerging new tech with lots of promise cant be developed in unity free. The old engine of choice for VR was unity, since you got a 4 month free trial with your oculus DK1. Since that's not the case with DK2, guess what the engine of choice is going to be? I mean, if Im gonna take a risk on a new piece of tech that may never take off, I would rather spend $20 than $1500.

 

Please - enough pointless bickering over the price. Unity costs this. UE4 costs that. And neither have anything to do with difficulty, which is the topic title. I believe there is another UE4 thread somewhere if you wish to go and knock yourselves out, but at this point it's noise.

I confess, I don't understand people's need to keep coming back and treating the Unity forums like some sort of ongoing turf war.

 

It varies from state to state, but the federal government set a minimum of $7.25 and most seem to follow that according to Wikipedia's list. Working full-time is 40 hours a week and there are approximately four weeks in each month. So 480 hours per quarter. Thus $3,480 at $7.25 an hour.

Once again though this is per product per quarter. So long as none of your products go beyond $3,000 per quarter you would never need to pay royalties.

 

I'm glad we live in an age where the engine choice available to indies is so good that it inspires debates as big as this. I remember when getting a game engine anywhere near studio quality required a 6 figure budget for a license.

 

I'm definitely glad we're past the days when development tools like Visual Studio cost more than Unity Pro.

 

Price is important, even with the subject of difficulty, since nothing is in a vacuum. Using an already stated example, blender is free, however, its more difficult to use compared to more expensive offerings out there. But you know what? People will over look past that difficulty because the price is right. Also, some things are IMPOSSIBLE in unity free (as i said, VR stuff, interfacing with 3rd party tools easily), so it doesn't get more difficult than that.

its not about a turf or some holy war. We are here because we like unity (at times ) and we want to see progress being made. We may also may be here because we use unity at work, so if we "have" to use it, we want it to be the best, most productive tool out there. Also, it would be nice to be able to use the same software at home as well as on the job. Price, stability, and the feature set of the competition can be brought over to unity land, and if we dont remind unity of this, nothing will change. (the half implemented features in unity remind me of this fact all the time)

 

Well I don't believe it's any secret Epic took a long hard look at Unity and took what they thought was best out of it, then turned it to their advantage. Now as just someone sat here in front of a laptop, it appears to me that method works and Unity should consider it.

As soon as UE4 gets mono compatibility and you can bet your bottom dollar that's happening, what's left? Some touch ups on mobile? What particularly is that much more difficult about UE4?

 

So do you like coke or pepsi?

 

In response to this -

Expect it in November according to Christian Lönnholm's comment on the video

 

I'll be buying a subscription once they get that working. I've been looking at other people's BluePrints and , visual scripting is not for me. Neither is C++.
I forgot I had commented on that video.

 

As a person who dropped the 20 on Unreal, it's difficult and hard to learn. Unity was much easier to learn and was much quicker too. Heck, I haven't even learnt Unreal at all rather than placing an object in the bloody thing.

Us Unity users are spoilt. We have an easy to learn easy to make engine that has powered many highly played games such as Hearthstone and Unturned. I haven't payed the pro fee yet I've produced much better things in quicker time than I have with Unreal. Free and easy vs. cheap and hard.

Also if you plan to release your game professionally there are much more fees you'd have to worry about than a license. Quit whining!

 

There was also work being done for a JavaScript V8 binding. I don't know if it is active anymore or not, but the source is available on GitHub.

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?254-Flathead-UE4-Javascript
https://github.com/BobGneu/Flathead/releases

As someone who continues to stay subscribed to Unreal, I have to once again point out that difficulty is subjective.

While UE4 was downloading, I watched some of Zak's tutorial videos on Epic's YouTube page. As a result I was able to get immediate results once UE4 was running. Not simply placing objects, but scripting them as well.

Additionally I was able to transfer a character I purchased from Unity's asset store for prototyping into UE4 and wire up the animations in minutes after skimming through some additional videos.

 

Again it falls to price comparison. Talking about the price, paying $19 per month will result in almost $700 per 3 years (I've played with Unity for a 3 years for example). Not that bad for Epic, they definitely will make some bonus amount of money from people who never would pay such price at once. Not that bad for users either, as they will always have latest version of tools which will not be limited comparing to 'pro' users. All that talking about 'oh 5% revenue is so high, what if you'll make $100 000 000, you'll have to pay whole $5 000 000!!!'... Earn that $100 000 000 first, then talk.

Back to the topic. I don't think there is much overall difficulty difference between the two. Programming is much simpler with C# in Unity (and C++ sucks, yeah, let the battle begin). But things like Blueprints and visual shader editor in UE4 is a huge compensation for that. What really matters is that I don't have to think 'oh that cool thing is available only in Pro, I have to figure out how to implement it myself with my miserable Free'. Like, you know, real time shadow simulation with projectors and scripting instead of turning on some checkbox.

I feel UE4 is allowing more concentration to art, and less to design, constriction, implementation...

 

For me whenever I try to do something in Unreal that I have not done before, I find I have to constantly refer to the manual and posts. In Unity, things are so intuitive that I have to refer alot less to the manual because its so intuitive. For example, try to make ur own macro function in Unreal and have it accessible in another blueprint. You'll need the manual, which is still lacking. Making a function in Unity is as simple as making a simple script in javascript or c# or whatever. Just one example.

 

I've found the total opposite. I think UE4 is more logical, and simple. Consider you are coming from a background where you are used to things being done a certain way - and bare in mind this only for what you do, maybe you are not artist or level designer or programmer, etc I don't know what but for what I do its so much more simple.

It reminds me of the 3DS vs Blender argument a bit.

 

Given your statements, and those made by the only other person to complain about difficulty, I'm going to surmise that those claiming UE4 is difficult are intentionally making it more difficult by refusing to use the available tools for learning. Namely official documentation and videos.

Yes, I did glance over the official documentation to create a Blueprint macro that is accessible from other Blueprints. Nothing wrong with using documentation and I would much rather spend a minute or two of reading than half an hour of randomly clicking until I got the task done.

As a programmer I am used to reading reference material for APIs. Both well- and poorly-written. The manual is pretty decent compared to some material I have had to put up with and the below documentation was sufficient for the task.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Blueprints/UserGuide/Types/MacroLibrary/index.html

 

what a coincidence! When I need to do something new in unity (or openGL, openCV, Allegro, visual studio, working on my car, using cement in the backyard etc etc etc) I too must refer to the manual and posts. Its horrible that all the information is only a quick google search away

 

Except that its not.......and you seem to have completely missed the point. Its a difficulty comparison versus two pieces of software, not on a general life guide to figuring things out.

 

Malosai is correct IMHO. Unity methods, tutorials and docs, blogs, the size of the forum and logged posts and answers and Unity Answers provide a huge swath of material cross-referencing every style of game, institutional install, presentation apps like arch fly-thrus and how to get it communicating with danged near every device or protocol that can be communicated with, within reason of course. One can quickly find out what you need to know and conversely if you are bug hunting something and it shows very little of the same activity thru google searches then you can mostly assume to check your own code as it us probably user error or there would be forum posts or Unity Answers detailing the issue.

 

i would have to see more. while i like c# and not having to do c++ and even their pricing i dont think they have a competing asset store yet... but unity will have to figure out how they are going to compete with them 6-12 months down the road when some of the barriers are gone... cause when they have c# in place and a rich asset store im happy to take a look at unreal. ive used unreal for number of year before i event got involved in unity. mostly switched cause of the asset store and c#. never really like unreal script or having to rework their c/c++ source code and their lack of asset store. but if those issues are resolved for me im happy to take a look at them again.

 

Except you're not comparing the difficulty of the two engines. You are comparing your ability, or lack thereof, in finding UE4 reference material to finding Unity reference material. While neglecting to give good examples.

Take your earlier statement about using macros across different blueprints. I went to Google and typed in "using blueprint macros between blueprints" and the first result was the answer.

It took me a matter of seconds to find that answer, one minute of glancing over the page to understand it, and another minute to replicate the functionality to verify I understood.

 

My point again, if it was not clear in my original post, is that Unity is so intuitive that you don't need to do as much research for a given feature because of how user friendly Unity is. In other words, you spend alot more time in Unreal researching how to do something in Unreal than you do in Unity, not that you couldn't look up how to do something in Unreal.

 

I have tried UE4, Cryengine EaaS, and I will be using Unity free. I'm hoping to purchase Unity Pro soon. Also the Unity Asset Store is so awesome, and such a great community. I find Unity so much easier, and faster.

But, that's just my opinion.

 

As with everything, Laser printer used to cost $20,000 dollars 20 years ago back in 1994, now you can get a laser printer for $30 dollars! That doesn't mean we can't talk about the price now even though they are cheaper than before...

As for the difficulty of learning for each engine - there is no denying that Unity is more intuitive due to its simplicity. There is also far more materials online than Unreal Engine simply because Unity has been around longer than UE4 (which is a practically a new engine).

 

Intuitive is just a sloppy synonym for "familiar". Obviously most people on the Unity forums will think Unity is more intuitive, but don't fall into the trap of comparing the frustration you feel while learning UE4 with your current level of comfort with Unity.

 

Truer words never spoken and I think that's what's "got me" a few times. Amount of times I was cursing at the screen after swapping from max to modo. Now I'm more "familiar" with it, the amount of foul language has reduced to a once every 10 minutes as opposed to 5 times per ten seconds.

 

Just try : https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-goes-free-for-academic-use

'Unreal Engine 4 is now free for academic use, including personal copies for students enrolled in accredited video game development, computer science, art, architecture, simulation, and visualization programs!'

 

I started using Unreal and Unity at about the same time. I still find it easier to accomplish things in Unity though. Maybe its just me, but when I browse forums on the internet, the general consensus of the people who post say Unreal has a much steeper learning curve.

 

That's a big strenght indeed.
But UE4 is going in the same way, with all their video tutorial covering all game aspects, and their demos tutorials.They have also flying game, third person, fps, car game templates without you to need to spend money on asset store. C# could be the next big change in UE4 if it happens.

Not mandatory, i put 20$ then unsubscribed as i had enought to learn and work on a project. You need to pay 20$ only when you find something on update that worth it, if not just not pay.

I agree UE4 is a bunch of tools and many premade stuff you will need to learn first, not as easy to take as Unity, but once you learned it, you can make anything. The big advantage is with all the tools and components already in the package you won't have to buy many extensions on the asset store like you can do on Unity.
For example Streaming, LOD, advanced particles , profiler etc ... etc are already in.

Unity asset store is the bigger and best complete today.
But for materials and models; you could also buy on general sites and import them in UE4, also UE4 store is growing quickly and getting as good assets as you can find in Unity, it's a matter of time.
Game systems are also coming made by people , and many Unity extensions are not needed in UE4 already has them incorporated like shader editor, visual scripting etc ...


UE4 is more geared towards AAA games size and quality for teams, because it has the right features and tools in the package for that ; where Unity is lacking big games projects. For example Blizzard game winner seems a joke and not representative of what Unity could do in terms of graphics or bigger games (seems more a marketing winner). In the other side Unity remains the best on mobile, and the easiest to learn and pick up at start for small indie games.

For pricing , for companies like Blizzard or indies ones 1500$ is nothing, while for hobbyst some will prefer UE4 non limited features with cheap price (20$) and free upgrades when you want (pay 20$ when you need it only).
All depends on you and your bugget and needs.

None is perfect, each engine has it's problems even UE4 FBX import from Blender is still not complete for complete custom characters for example. For a small game i would pick up Unity actually until UE4 finishes and resolves all FBX issues, but i must consider Unity free have severe limitations and UE5 still not here.

They are both two really good engines , each with their own strenght , and their own prices.
Each are better suited for different audience people, having their own budget, and depending on their game projects needs.

What really matters is your talent and hard work.
So i just show up two games , one on Unity other on UE4 , both made by one man only

No need to make a long war between two engines, take the tool that you prefer personnaly , that suits the best your game needs and your budget.

 

Stop scaring children with the "Unity free have severe limitations" bedtime stories. No, Unity free doesn't have severe limitations. The free version of the engine is perfectly usable for the widest range of games, both desktop and mobile. The features that were cut are so specific, that you can make pretty much anything without them. Even more so if we're talking about indies and hobbyist.

 

Acceptable for mobile, but very dated for desktop. While you can somewhat get around the lack of RenderTextures using ReadPixels, the performance penalty is going to be steep.

Also though effects don't make up for lack of good assets, something as simple as adding realtime reflections to a body of water can make a very visible difference while taking practically no skill to do so.

 

For mobile it's great indeed. for desktop free is well limited indeed if you want bloom and many other full screen effects graphics that will real change the look of your game and make it more appealing. Also no profiler on Free version , and some good plugins needing Pro only.

@Devil_Inside :
Unity free is very limited if you target desktop PC game :
- shadows limited to one directionna light
- no deffered renderer
- no HDR tone mapping
- no LOD
- no occlusion culling
- no mechanim ik rigs
- no GPU skinning
- no profiler
Many reasons Free version, is not good for desktop medium PC games. GPU skinning, LOD, occlusion are really needed if you need good frame rate, and Pro rendering features just make your game lot more appealing to sell it in the market.

But let's stay in the subject , there is already threads about Unity Free Vs UE4, no need to re discuss this again. Once again just pick up the engine that you find the best for your project and that suits your budget.

 

Yes. You'd need all these "loud" features if you're making the next "high profile MMORPG with realistic graphics and physics™". If we're talking hobbyists and indies here, then hobbyist and indies shouldn't be making this type of games in the first place as that's hardly something they'll be able to pull off.
What I'm trying to say is that a looot of indie games won't ever need any of these features, so saying that Unity has severe limitations is just misleading.

 

Let's say you want to make some Uncharted game style, full 3D View with dense levels and assets , you will need GPU skinning, occlusion, LOD, profiling tool etc ... to have best speed possible, otherwise it will be a slow game.
If you plan desktop small or simple levels only perhaps you don't need Pro , but still you will be missing all render to texture effects and shaders that make your game look lot better on desktop and make it more attractive to players.

Even on simpler game i doubt you'll get such lightening and graphics effects using Unity free

No need to discuss or try to argue more, Unity free is limited that's it.
If your needs are okay with Unity Free, than great that's good for you, otherwise just buy Unity Pro and if you don't have the money just take UE4.

Stay on the subject that was difficulty between using UE4 or Unity in general.
(Not if Unity Free is best than UE4, discussed many many times in other threads)

 

It's relative, shaders are easier in UE4. Animation I'd say swings in favour of Unity, world building is easier in UE4, scripting is simpler in Unity (in some cases), graphical upgrades are easier in UE4, graphics performance options easier in Unity, lighting simpler to understand in Unity.. It just goes on and on.

All engines have always been the same, they have pro's and cons. The decision is going to be based on a limiting factor, if there is something holding you back than you might have to make the switch.

All of this is circumstantial and it applies to what you're doing, there isn't a catch all.

 

I said it before, and I'll say it again. I cant make a use of my ocuclus rift. Its also MUCH more difficult, if not impossible, to work with other 3rd party libs and hardware (unless they make a unity3d version for you) This include fancy joysticks, VR controllers, other VR systems (google box, samsungs new VR tech, etc) augmented reality (i think) and any type of other "special" hardware. In some cases, there are things on the asset store (like for my Arduino projects) however, I shouldn't have to buy code that I can easily write! IMO, it doesn't get more hobbyist than these niche areas, and as for difficulty, UE4 makes it easy to do all of those things.

 

Except there are enough examples of hobbyists and indies, even as one-man teams, doing exactly that. Creating games that are, according to you, beyond their capabilities. Yes, it may take some of them years. Nothing wrong with that.

Eastshade is my current favorite example. Check out his initial blog post. Six months of development put him at already impressive screenshots.

Dwarf Fortress is an example I love to link as a way to show what happens when a developer completely neglects most aspects of his game to focus solely on one. It is the most in-depth simulation game you will ever see.