Demo project: choose Unity3D or UDK?

I know that there are lots of threads about the neverending challange between Unity3D and UDK...well, my questions are related to the real productivity and time consuming beside absurd features, graphical perfection and something like that...let's start...

Main goal: Developing a demo to show what the gameplay will look like
Main features: Very good graphics, gameplay features, test for future development

Main Graphics features: Environmental fx ( snow storm ), interior lighting ( caves )

Main gameplay features: Fully animated character ( walk, run, pickup something from the floor, grab on edge, climb ), Melee+third person shooter combat style ( Gears of War like ), Item manager ( where you have ammunition, health medipack and other stuff )

First stage of the project:

Prepare the 3D environment, texturing, create and prepare animations for the main character

Second stage:

Import the 3D environment inside Unity3D/UDK, setup collisions, setup shaders, setup lighting. Import the main character, prepare the animations ( scripting? )

Final stage:

Setup item manager, lightmapping, setup third person camera, test.

So, in the end as you see, there will be just a walking character into a stage with some specific features, and I don't know which engine will suit my needs perfectly, because I really like UDK graphical features, but I don't know how hard it will ne to setup all the animations ( it will involves scripting? ), while in Unity3D there are literally tons of already-made scripts that allows you to do almost everything, but since my scripting knowledge is very little it will be just copy&paste of something and then just test...
I just notice that 3DBuzz developed a very interesting tutorial about a Tomba raider game-setup like that seems very interesting...

So, in the end, my question is:

For a project like that ( not that complicated I think ) what wil be the most efficient and quick engine choice?

Thanks in advance

 

Well my advice would be 100% UDK choice.

First of all you are looking for good graphic where it is obivious that UDK can deliver better than Unity. You are actually looking for gameplay similar to Gears of War, which has been done with Unreal engine and you have already exactly the same camera view feel if you pick UDK.
Cave environment is looking 10 times better in UDK than in Unity. Why? Take a look at Mass Effect 2 for example , you will notice very strong normal maps and nice parallaxed surfaces in game and it all looks very nice. I cant give any Unity game example there, but as you can see with UDK you can get there good result for sure. Snow FX effect has been also seen in few UE3 games and it looks good, in Unity in my opinion look much worse and it can be more or less done only with particles (without some heavy work).
If you use UDK specific rigging method you can set up animations easily and share them along other characters. Also i think that all of animation procedures can be set in UDKs Matinee.

 

Thanks for the answer....that is interesting, so basically I do not need to script animation blendings or something like that, bu everything is done with Matinee ( and Kismet I suppose )...
What you can tell me about specific actions ( pickup objects, inventory system, custom character )?

 

pff personally i think this is a useless choice. both platform have pros and cons.
about quality, i think quality is given by the people who create the 3D models, texture and shader not so much the engine....

So go with unity

 

I totally agree, my main concerce is about workflow optimization rather than perfect shaders, so I'm very worried about animations and gameplay issue and, since I didn't experimented that much ( both in UDK and Unity3D ) in animation, I don't know which one could be a good choice ( since, as I said, my knowledge about programming is very little ), so basically this is the most important thing for me.

So yeah, pros and cons, Unity3D has thousands of available ready-to-use scripts and other useful things which make things faster, UDK has more graphical power and animation ( I suppose ) do not need scripting ( at least basic animations )

 

Well... Since you just want a small demo for start (as I understood) Then simply make it with both and choose which you like most.

 

I'd do it in UDK. But I'm an Unreal Tech whore. Everything is well documented, but if you want to give it a shot, and run into issues, just message me on MSN or Google.

 

It seems you are only comparing Unity to UDK on the basis of published games. This is not an accurate comparison. The quality of art you can make in Unity is just like every other engine, its up to you or your artist/art team to make good looking assets.

If you really want to see some of the best work with Unity check this out:
www.interstellarmarines.com

From my understanding Unity is not as efficient as UDK is(with multicore support/physx -Now including Apex) but its not incapable of producing a good looking game. If you can't make a good looking game in Unity, you will not be able to make a good looking game in any game engine.

 

^ This

 

Go with UDK for this. You'll need to learn complex aspects of shaders and their coding to make something look good on Unity. And then you'll run into another huge Unity problem... it's not multi-threaded. This is a problem because the moment you start focusing on making things look good in Unity it slows down DRAMATICALLY.

UDK has a steeper initial learning curve. But it's important to remember that either way you go you'll be faced with MOUNTAINS of obstacles. There's no easy option with Unity either.

Things like snow and it's effect on the interior lighting of caves, UDK is MUCH better. That's particles and post processing.

UDK's material editor is a "best in class" product. And, once you get your head around it, more fun than I want to admit. It's like a baby version of 3ds Max materials in a realtime product. Frigging amazing.

What you then go onto describe as gameplay and your processes is near PERFECTLY suited to everything UDK. It's built specifically to do the things you've described. And as such, infinitely easier to build to, once you've got your head around the processes, than Unity... and you'll get better looking results. And learn the most amazing game engine on the planet.

Be warned. There will be pain and frustration. Either way. Large doses of pain and frustration. You are going to NEED to LEARN a lot of things.

Next to figuring the ways of women, game engines are the most difficult things you'll ever play with. More so than 3d, 2d or audio based content creation software. More difficult than learning to play the piano and more difficult than cooking like a chef. Be prepared for the pain. Then, and only then, will it be tolerable. Ignore everyone telling you it's easy, they came to this at an early stage in life, or with time and intelligence and previous experiences on their side.

Go through the Jazz Jack Rabbit tutorial 3 times. Then do a couple dozen youtube tutorials on UDK, even the stuff you're not interested in. It will save you MUCH time later.

One more thing... UDK tutorials are of a higher standard than Unity tutorials. Generally speaking. There are exceptions to this rule... those will be pointed out by the folks that follow.

Lastly, what's Unity good for? Lot's of other little things, prototyping odd ideas mostly. Testing them to see if the gameplay's actually fun or not, before going off somewhere serious to actually build it for the world.

 

That's a pretty bold statement. You have to pick your engine for your project or tailor your project for the engine. Unity is very capable of producing games. If anyone is having trouble with Unity and their project they need to either choose another engine or start to tailor their project to the engine.

Also, just because Unity is newer and not as popular as UDK/Unreal does not mean that its not worth anything more than prototyping ideas. New technology has to go through a process before it becomes widespread and used by multiple 'AAA' studios. And if you plan on selling a game, Unity is the best deal allowing you to pay once and never have to worry about paying royalties on every copy sold like the UDK requires.

 

i agree to go with unity you can more assets here, help with tutorials and is more active community, I started on september 2010 and almost finish my game project with the help of this forum, and this Engine is lot more friendly user that UDK ever by i try UDK and do not like the experience i am more a 3D artist then a coder but with this engine I was able to pull off my game in less the 6 months.

 

Bollocks. The correct phrasing of this is...

"if you can make a great looking game in Unity, you can make a great looking game in ANY other engine. However, there are many other engines that provide you with infinitely easier paths to good shaders, particles, effects, rendering techniques and post processing. Being good at them will not make you great at Unity. Unity is hard to make look good, yet relatively easy to sculpt gameplay."

Extending that logic, if you struggle to get things looking good in Unity, it's not true that you will struggle in all other engines to get your desired appearance. Other engines are easier to work with visually. By and large, and have VASTLY better top end appearance abilities. Multi-threading being just one of the reasons for this. Shader functionality being a huge other part.

Compare coding a shader to learning the node editing of it in UDK. To start with.

Glows. DOF. Fog. ALL better in UDK by an order of magnitude.

 

He just drawn you a great picture. From that comment you can sum up what you need.
If you agree with his comment i suggest you to stop reading this topic right away, otherwise you will just get distracted with other opinions.
Maybe only one thing i would like to add there: UDK editor isnt amazing as he said, its hard and very complex in interface. It has lots of actions and it takes a while to memorize where all things are. But this is something you will have to deal with if you pick UDK.

 

You keep talking shaders, and they are only a fraction of making a good looking game. If you can't make good models or make good textures you are still out of luck making a good looking game in any other game engine, regardless of how easy it is to make shaders.

Besides, about coding a shader, there is this nice little free plug-in you can find for Unity here:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/56180-Strumpy-Shader-Editor-4.0a-Massive-Improvements

It allows you to create a neat shader graph, no coding required.

Also, I would like to note that graphics aren't everything. I wouldn't care if a game was a literal virtual reality. If it isn't fun to play you wont get people to play it. So perhaps their is a good upside to Unity allowing you to focus and develop gameplay rather quickly.

 

Ok let me explain what is my opinion about Unity3D and UDK after ( more or less, I do work 10-12 hours a day ) a year.

Unity3D:
+ Quick to setup scene
+ Good amount of already-done shaders to use ( just add textures )
+ Good quality shader editor ( the plugin SSE made by a user )
+ Excellent lightmapping and overall quite nice visual quality
+ Importing scene with textures already applied on ( great plus I must say )
- Lots of coding to get specific features ( gameplay mostly, animation, and so on... )
- Not so great looking as UDK

UDK:
+ Great looking engine ( at least the maps shipped with it are very nice )
+ Interface good organized and ( for me ) not so complicated, is quite easy for me to find something or to import content, access classes, and so on...
+ Shader editor just great ( and coming from Softimage where the shaders are node based is definitively great! )
+ Lots of content ready to use for free
+ Very nice post process effects easy to setup
- Importing is a pain in the ass ( one mesh at the time, very painfull )
- Scripting involved for specific features

Ok, more or less for me both engines are very good to work with, Unity3D will give me a quick preview of what the stage will be, UDK on the other side allows me to get mor graphical power and ( I suppose ) smoother way to get animations without going mad with coding...

Now I want to ask you one simple question from the first post:

How complicated is to organize animation? I mean blending animations? in Unity3D I need to code this and in UDK I can simply use Matinee or Kismet?
How complicated is to organize the gameplay? pick up objects from the floor, use a weapon, melee attack, and so on?
How complicated is to bring your own character inside the engine?

Now that is the crucial point, since I didn't experiment with animation in both engines, so I don't know which one is better...so, in the end, I would like to use an engine that allows me to use the content already shipped ( or usefull plugins ) that allows me to do what I want without going to deep into scripting...thats it...I know that I can't pretend to write a game without programming, but at least I would like to know what can I do by myself

Thanks for the answer anyway

 

You don't want to get into scripting? I fear, you wont have much control, you're bound to make something quite basic. You sound like you'd be better off with UDK and kismet.

If you actually want to make a game, you're going to have to lose your fear for scripting, and if you ever plan to do that, I recommend you coming back here.

One more thing about the graphics! Unless you plan to "borrow" existing 3d models and environments, the graphics will depend almost completely on your artistic skills. You should know UDK won't save you from ugly 3d model skills! And Unity will not water down any of your art either. Think about that!

 

Consider this:

Models, their textures and their animations come from outside Unity and UDK... when starting from scratch.

So... all things being equal in the content creation side of things... since it's our OP doing it... which engine is then going to be able to make those models and textures and animations look best?

The answer is UDK. EVERY single time.

The arguments running around here that it "all depends on the artist" are irrelevant to the discussion of which engine looks best.

The artists, all things being equal, are the same entity, it's the engine and it's shaders, particles, effects, animation handling, rendering techniques and post processing that are coming into question when discussing which engine looks best.

CryEngine 3 (if you could get it) probably had a head on UDK until last month's release. UDK with DirectX 11 is something else entirely.

 

The artist still needs to know how to use all the tools in the engine. So the artist does still matter. UDK does have a performance gain over Unity so it can handle more special effects which would allow it to 'look better' if you are after having a lot of special effects. There are also some other factors such as what art style you wish to have and which engine/tools allow you to better produce your art style. Looking better can be relative.

So yes, UDK is more 'powerful' graphics wise(it is more optimized is the key term). However, I will repeat that looks are not everything to a game. I am pretty sure that when you know how to use Unity you can make just as pretty as a game as UDK. I would say, if you are a top notch artist and want top notch special effects and have it all optimized to have more running on the same system then yes, UDK is the choice. But if you are not going to make a game that rivals realism as other AAA games try, then Unity wins in my book as it is powerful and it has a much lower learning curve.

 

I got Crysis 2 and I played a bit with Sandbox...well, Crysis 2 looks absolutely amazing, but I prefer stick with UDK/Unity 3D since I can create standalones and ( for UDK ) fees are not that much.
Anyway I was talking about shipped content because I would like to use some of them, but not create a level entirely with the content, otherwise I will do a Unreal MOD!!!
So I'm creating an entire scene from scratch, what I will use is the skybox, some rocks, lots of textures, and some other stuff, so I sure know that I must make very good ( and optimized ) meshes and textures in order to make it look great...

Anyway I'm more concerned about animation and get all the things working properly, as I said I want a good looking game, but that is second if I don't know if everything will going to work or not, so thats why I don't know exactly which one to choose...

I'm taking a look at some tutorials available on the UDK website and on youtube, there is really a lot of interesting stuff in there, so I'll check if with those tutorial I'm able to do everything...
At the end I know that I will need to pay someone for the coding stuff, but, as I said, I want to see what I'm capable of doing by myself before start asking around for help

 

It's funny when UDK people come over here dictating that we must to use it.

 

Gives them something to do while they're waiting for their three video cards required to run UDK properly, to arrive in the mail.

 

while I'd disagree with your notion of 3 being required to make it run properly... you're oddly correct on waiting for gear. Multiple vid cards are in the bunch. But purely for research. I'm sure you understand. And water cooled this time around. I've decided to prepare for summer.

Well... maybe it's necessity. That DirectX 11 update has given me a helluva excuse for going all out on some new gear. But mostly, I'm waiting for an iPhone to come back from repairs. Can't do much more testing without it. Love that testing. Testing. Testing. Repeat.

 

So are you a Unity user or UDK? Unlike other apps like modeling, painting etc. You can't really jump back and forth with with the actual engine or you end up getting nothing done.

 

I'd say I'm a former 3ds max user, now attempting things in UDK from prototypes off odd things I've created in Unity whilst beginning what looks like it'll be a lifelong struggle learning Objective-C.

Unity is uniquely easy for me to prod out little odd ideas of gameplay... to see if they work at all and then keep tweaking and tweaking and fiddling until they work. Or see if they're just a crap idea that looks good inside my mind and fails in reality (most of them).

There's a few things I wish I better understood about Unity, I don't know it's coding properly, very open about that. I really suffer the syntax and techniques of object and component communication. Apparently I'm not the only one. The moment I get a flash of bright light on the subject I'm going to write it up for all the others that suffer through the same thing. Which seems to be just about everyone.

I'm always doing it trial and error every single time to communicate with anything on any other object. So mostly I repeat everything out onto objects as needed abusing the update function and prefab instantiating instead of getting frustrated again and again. But that's all I need from it from prototyping for now.

I really LOVE the physics implementation with joints being something to simply throw on willy nilly and then mess with forces and constraints in both the updates for gameplay and animations. That's fun. And a little infuriating sometimes. I'm with Big Kahuna with his physics across threads drive. It's annoying that it doesn't perform better.

Current mindscape: mentally figuring out how to prototype a physical puzzle game... and think I've come across something that can't be done in Unity due to it's dislike of working with meshes in close detail... so might actually trouble myself to learn Shiva3D now. Since it seems to have a much more friendly approach to altering vertices and edges and knowing where they are.

If I could get as familiar with UDK's joints and forces I'd never use Unity. But UDK's about production more than prototyping, I figure. There you go.

Dull when I'm frank. Right. Now... about those S***ful Unity additive mobile shaders...

 

I tend to think that generally occurs when people come to Unity with a background in other programming fields, like object-oriented programming.

They are so concerned with things in their code like inheritance, encapsulation, modularity and whatnot, and get really nervous or confused when they discover that in Unity, you tend to not handle a lot of these things in code, but you handle them visually, in the editor, in your project, and in scenes. It is visually object-oriented, in my opinion.

 

@legend411: yes, I've noticed I can't make an object... but I can make something better, a GameObject! n____n ... with, you know, scripts, etc

 

I never said objects didn't exist in Unity. I was only saying that many of the standard programming techniques and features of other programming paradigms (like OOP) dont' always directly translate well to Unity because you handle the relationships between objects differently.

 

legend411 I'm not coming from a programming background. But been slowly learning about C in Objective-C. Which looks like being a mistake. Should probably be getting my fingers more dirty.

I come from a content creation background with a vague recollection of Basic and Assembler from pre-puberty. Never learned C or C++ back then. Really wish I had.

I think Unity is OO in the same sort of way that Flash is, minus the timeline but plus 3D.

For what I'm about to say, consider that mine is a VERY ignorant mind on programming.

In a sense, I think Unity and Flash are a more pure form of OO than Java, Objective-C or C++ because of the physical objects the dev gets to "touch"... and likely the two best platforms to teach OOP concepts available today because of symbols and prefabs. I think OO as a concept has outgrown C++ and Java because of Flash and OO scripting in game engines.

Maybe there's another word for OO the way it's implemented in game engines and Flash, but to me, it's OO personified.

Keep in mind, I'm entirely prepared to be wrong about all that I'm saying. These are simply my observations at this point in time, with minimal "correct" or formally educated understandings of OOP.

some lists on the pros and cons of learning OO and then doing things with Flash, Unity and UDK. again, MPOV.

Flash Cons.
1. The timeline, it mostly gets in the way of immediate comprehension of OO because scripts can be time placed and initiated.
2. The Flex/Builder IDE blended with Flash IDE crossover is abstraction twisted and tortured.
3. The drawing tools and Symbol creation/use/ideology is not entirely intuitive and unique to Flash

Flash Pros:
1. Massive amounts of very good documentation, books, videos, tutorials and other resources for learning how it all works.
2. Enormous volume of examples of the power of Flash, from Farmville to banner ads. (yes, they're good examples of use, badly used)
3. Easy to try out everything you do instantly from within the one environment.

Unity Cons
1. S***ful lack of relevant documentation towards understanding its implementation of OO concepts and Unity principle methodologies.
2. An imposing interface for those coming new to content software
3. Schizophrenic with regards language choice and text editor environments, code completion etc.
4. You must learn programming somewhere else then come back.

Unity Pros
1. Boo. The ignored child in the Unity script family might be the best thing in the world for learning programming today.
2. Update, Fixed Update, Late Update, Start are wonderful things.
3. Physics of joints and forces is relatively easy to get at and play with.

UDK is on a slightly different level. It's multi-tiered abstraction to begin with, because you know there's a way to do things deep in the engine via an Unreal license and C/C++ but are initially confronted by UE and UnrealScript. Two mammoth creatures in their own right before getting to the nuts and bolts.

UDK Cons
1. Massively dense UE to come to terms with, like starting with Max and After Effects concurrently.
2. Clunky incorporation of scripting that takes some setting up and comprehension of what's going on before you know what's going on.
3. The documentations sometimes assumes knowledge in directions not obvious
4. There's not quite enough material to get you underway with UnrealScript without learning programming somewhere else first.

UDK Pros
1. UnrealScript has good names and naming conventions for its Functions and Classes.
2. The features and purpose of UnrealScript has been tightly integrated with UE and well thought out.
3. The documentation is enlightening and and occasionally even inspiring.
4. Having come to terms with UE, the modular nature of its approach to features is ideal for task and time division.

One common downside to both UDK and Unity in comparison to Flash, you've gotta bring artwork/content into both of them, where you create it in Flash for Flash.

And lastly, Scaleform is the link between Flash and UDK. Meaning that from a purely educational point of view, learning Flash and OO programming via AS3, then moving to UDK is the most direct route to creating engaging dynamic and data driven 2D and 3D content.

 

This is still a bit of a shortsighted viewpoint, it seems. Unity's solutions to lighting does mean doing bump mapping, especially with specular, is much less attractive (lightmaps lose lighting direction, so no big surprise there). This limits what you can do when making content, depending on what you're comparing to, of course. I love how easy it is to make the lightmaps in Unity, that's great stuff, but doesn't change the fact that it's still a pretty limited system. As with anything, it can of course be improved, but for now, in my experience, you stray much from the very basic lighting things can get very frustrating.

In general, Unity does slow down more when you're trying to make cool looking, polished products. It's great for getting stuff together quickly, and I do really like the general philosophies behind the engine design, but it's not without it's flaws. Biggest hurdles, IMO, are shader system and GUI. Over time the GUI system has sucked more of my time, I'd wager, absolutely love the layout system in the GUI, but you basically have to wrap every single GUI method just to do basic stuff like audio, decent coloring, tooltips, and having a separate, super stripped down rendering capability on the GUI is just awful, awful design. It's kinda crazy, IMO, to have something as cool as Unity's animation system available, but it'd be really, really hard to take advantage of that with the GUI system.

There are areas in Unity where you will bump your head on limitations when trying to do cool things, the GUI is the most stark example of the 'dark side' of Unity, which is it's easy and fast to get something together, but much harder to make it look really spiffy. It doesn't have to be this way, of course, but the GUI, and to a lesser degree the shader/lighting are this way. Still love the engine, and have no plans to switch to another, but not sticking my head in the sand either (definitely have a love/hate relationship with the GUI/rendering/lighting systems).

 

Actually, when you're coming from OO-programming and using C# in Unity, it's just wonderful. I don't really see what the problem with object and/or component communication is supposed to be. I find it super-simple in Unity, and have a couple of options available, depending on the use case at hand. Feel free to PM me with specific questions or point me to a thread with specific questions.

Admittedly, though, Unity does have a few quirks one has to get used to when coming from a "pure oo"-background. Like: Don't ever try to directly construct MonoBehaviours. Ah, looking back at the one time when I was really frustrated with Unity: Huh? varName != null is false, when varName is not null?


It's documented, so no big deal ... but it requires to get used to it a little bit. But with a programming background (and ... um ... using the right language ;-) ), you'll fall in love with Unity in no time.

 

OP, the main question is which platforms you intend to target?

And how large your team is/will be?

 

I don't want to comment on anything else on this thread, but I want to say to the original poster :

"Engine doesn't matter all that much, pick one and get started already!"

 

@RElam: I realize Unity has limitations, and so I stick by my previous statement: pick the engine for your project or tailor your project to the engine you can afford to use. Can Unity make a game that's as graphically advanced as say BulletStorm? No, but a good artist can make a good looking game in the engine that fits the projects needs. Because you should have picked the engine that suits your needs the best. If you pick an engine based on ease of use or fast prototyping, then sorry, you can't have your cake and eat it too and have super optimized fantastic graphics. At least not yet. I never said that Unity does not have limitations or can compete with a fully optimized game engine such as UDK. However, if your artist is good, they know some tricks to get results that surpass your wildest expectation and still make a great looking game. But I guess people think a great looking game is the quality of UDK only?

I am sure Unity will become as powerful as the other larger engines someday. I bet Unity 5 is where differences will start to blur between it and other engines. I mean, look at how much we gained in Unity 3. Did you see those NinjaCamp videos? Unity looks like it is advancing FAST.

 

To update yall I'm developing the 3D asset and character animations in Softimage right now.
What I will do is ( since I found a very good rig to export my character inside UDK perfectly ) to use UDK, even if the import is a pain in the ass, but first I will import my entire level into Unity3D, so I can check all the proportions and sizes of the level, in order to get everything ready in UDK...so, shorten version, Unity3D will be the prototype stage, while I will develop the project in UDK, and I'll see how far I can go with it...
If I get stuck and I don't know what to do I'll ask some help, or ( if I have time ) I'll try to see if Unity3D will solve easily some of the problems that I will ( probably ) have in UDK

Thanks everyone for the advices

 

Hm ok its your call. I wouldnt use 2 engines for project and develop it separately. This will consume you twice as much time for development and learning of engine and it will also make you more confused. If you use this for lets say week or two its ok but anyting more is a waste of time.

 

Actually, I think if you really want to evaluate two engines this isn't the worst idea. Personally, I'd also be way too lazy to do this - but if one has the time, why not?

 

Hm i dont know. He could still do stuff two times faster and i doubt he will change his mind after 2 months of evalation. He would pick the same engine as he would pick from start on if he pointed pros and cons for his project. This would work only if you could extend day into 26 hours so you wouldnt lose time lol.

 

iPhone has an app for that.

 

lmao!

 

You can import as many assets as you want. It will determine if it's a texture or a model, or an animated character.. sound. etc. Just pick the correct "factory"(settings).

As for scripting, it's REALLY simple. You make a script for something, it's there. You want to mod that script, just make a child of it and add features.

I like to use the character format for Maya (FBX works, but I like the older workflow better). You animate your character import the file with all the clips. Create sockets for mounting points of weapons, ragdoll and other stuff. Blend animations works like a node based editor. Really simple. Matinee (within Kismet) and Kismet can call parts of your animation and control your character(but not how you're thinking). Pickups, weapons, inventory, ammo and so on is already in there. You can choose what parts of the system you want to use, modify them, or write your own.

Bring a character into UDK, it's not hard, but it's not simple either. But I like it because of the control and the systems I have access to.

 

About the import question probably I didn't make myself clear...let me explain:
- export .dae ( static meshes ) from Softimage
- Import the .dae in the content browser
- UDK recognize that is a single file but contains multiple files, so I can impot all the files ( a stage fir example ) at once
- Once I have all the meshes inside, for example, the mesh folder, the "pain in the ass" problem is that you can import ( literally drag&drop inside the viewport ) one mesh at the time, so this is really time consuming, especially if you have a large scene...

I know that combining meshes solve some problems, but I'm still not able to import my entire level in UDK ( in the viewport I mean ) with a single click, as Unity3D does...and, from what I read, seems that I'm not the only one that have this problem...
Someone says that you can use socket or something like that to create something like an automatism, but I have no idea how to do that...

Well, do you know an efficient way to place my entire level into the viewport without placing one mesh at the time but all at once?

About the character I already found a good rig that works perfectly when imported into UDK, I tested with my own animation and with already-made animations available within the editor and it works great!

Thanks

 

Is there a point to this thread anymore? It seems like you've decided to use UDK, but sticking around here cause.. I dunno.

Use whichever one you like the most and can use the best for what you're trying to do. By the sounds of it UDK fits you better so, have fun!

 

From my point of view seems fair to ask a very simple question about something related to UDK, even if we are on Unity3D forum, since compare two software is something that is not forbidden.
I will go for UDK, but I'm planning to use Unity3D for prototyping and ( who knows ) maybe even for the game itself if I'm comfortable with it.

I was asking questions, I didn't want to turn this thread into a UDK vs Unity3D features war, but since I got an informative reply I would like to know more about that.

If you're not interested just don't read, or if it bothers you that much ask someone to close this discussion.

 

I was gonna be nice and reply with some helpful suggestions (I happen to enjoy these threads), but then you had to spoil this reply by getting rude on the last line *sighs*.

 

C'mon, I wasn't that rude

Anyway I'm trying to see what could be the best solution for me, non only from the "import the whole scene" option, I'm more concerned about animations and scripting, which is something that I'm not very good at, so if UDK is simplier that Unity3D...well, I don't believe it, since both engines require time to learn and lots of testing, but if an engine comes with something already usable ( meshes, scripts, animations ) is a plus for me since I can re-use those elements to siut my needs...and I'mk talking of course about animations and scripts...
Unity3D got lots of free plugins/scripts/whatever that allows you to do basically everything you need, but right now I can't be sure which one could be better for me, since I'm not stucked at the point where I don't know how to procede, thats why I was thinking to develop the project in UDK, but of course if I see that Unity3D is better to solve a big problem that I might have of course I'll switch to Unity3D and keep developing with it

 

That is Unity forums specific. You wont actually find anything like this on any other engine forums. Most of people on UDK forums are satisfied by engines gaphical capatibilities and do not search alternatives.

 

Not sure if this is a concern to you, but you could build a fully featured demo scene/game in UDK with NO COST because it is not commercial at that point.

If you want a lot of the more advanced graphics and optimization features with Unity, you would be shelling out $1500.

Just a thought...

 

If I may add to this:

I think many come to Unity after an initial trial of UDK, seduced by the "ease of use" mantra around Unity. During a short time with Unity, it becomes apparent somethings are VERY easy in Unity. But the whole time we're banging Unity, we're trying to find reasons to stay with her after the fun is done.

By fun, I mean the prototyping and gameplay development stages of design. They're the fun parts.

That's followed by production stuff. The work. Making things look great, making things run great on different devices, adding all the layers of communication with the player etc etc...

It's at this point that Unity's "ease of use" mantra reveals a couple of it's darker sides.

And at this point folks start looking back wistfully at that other chick. And many, I think, go back. Me, I've become a serial polygamist of game engines. I refuse to make the same mistake twice. I wanna do it much more.

 

Yep thats true. But luckly there is new chick rasing on indie scene. Her name is Cryengine and i personally think it will be serious competition to UDK. Not so much to Unity, since biggest part of Unity community is developing casual games or at least not graphically too advanced. Cryengine would cover almost everything that UDK has on other hand it would give you all realtime rendered with better optimisised scenes. The only difference now with UDK and Cry will be in rendering especially lighting. All Cryengine 3 demos have very realistic lighting even fantasy games and in my opinion that doesnt look good. UDK has more artsy light and more depth so fantasy games are still better to use in UDK for sure.