looks like UDK has self shadowing, dof and more on their mobile engine...

Unity has been around for many years now and I had pretty much exactly the same discussion back then. Unity has improved
but so has other engines Unreal will always have many years headstart, that won't ever change, so I ask when is it alright to compare the engines? People here at the forum said back then that the professional game industry are turning to Unity to develop games, the releases will soon come, just wait and see. People say the same thing now. It wasn't true then as history has shown and from my inquieries that simply isn't true now. So basically I have to wait until i'm proven wrong if that day shall ever come cause I can obviously never be proven right.

So I can just say the people I have talked to in the industry says no we don't use Unity to develop our games and leave it at that. If you sit on any other information great, can't wait to see the games.

 

Thats a good way to put it, even those who use UDK should appretiate Unity to exist as company

 

Competition's always good, i'm hoping UDK pushes unity to really step up their game,
Like the power of UDK + the ease of Unity

 

Define industry, many companies are turning to phone games since the cost of dev for Xbox360 and PS3 is so high now .
Assuming your just making smaller scale games, Unity actually makes alot of sense

 

Yes Unity is very nice for smaller scale projects. When I am talking about industry in this case I talk about companies with the budget for projects that allows for professional artists and coders to deliver at the top of their abilities. Hard to say an exact number. Companies with a staff above 20 perhaps but most likely close to 100 or more.

 

What is the future of Unity?
I personally do not care if Unity is on a par with UDK's visuals or if it is the best tool to achieve AAA quality. I'm perfectly fine if Unity is perfect for small scale productions. I want a robust and intuitive tool to create "high end casual" games with a consistent workflow and all important features.
In my opinion UT should try to get the core and basic features rock solid before trying to kick UDK's ass with half-baked wannabe AAA features.
Why is there for example no sprite engine? Of course there are third party solutions but in my opinion it should be in the core as it is an important part of the GUI as well as the particle engine.
If UT keeps adding features and stuff to Unity which are not properly integrated, they may lose their main advantages over UDK like workflow and usability.

 

The bone of contention for me is that UDK comes with several shaders and abilities for mobile right out of the box. There's no begging for advanced shaders because you've pretty much got all you need.

Mobile is the one area which continues to grow, and this is one area where unity can stand a chance of eclipsing UDK. All it needs are proper shaders available to the public that unity optimise (this is required because you want nearly every unity title to look great) and of course shadows / fast dof / etc.

To me it seems like features are being held back for 4.0. I understand the business model, but it will lose badly against a freemium model that constantly gets updated.

I love where unity is going, I wish I could say "well done unity, have a rest" but there can be no rest when you're in unity's position. You've got shiva and any number of cheaper options right behind, and it only takes them to get their act together to make the landscape confusing. And this when a business can get in trouble.

When you are in a situation where you are a market leader, you need to strike hard and keep striking. UDK know this.

And mobile is still small enough to keep ahead of.

 

Ok, well then specifically say large companies .

Publishers are taking notice of where the monies going , so even EA might run a few dev houses to target mobile gaming .
I see the line being blurred in the future though

 

Precisely. Why would I worry that UDK is becoming awesome? If it ever becomes a production environment that I'd prefer to use, I'll use it. The competition between the packages is awesome as it drives quality on both fronts.

Strange that there's no mobile shader package on the asset store specifically emulating UDK's shaders. Mmmm, that gives me an idea...

 

My money is ready.

 

I just had a quick chat to Bruno Rime - the man responsible for the excellent hard surface shader package on the asset store. He's a semi-retired tech artist living in Tasmania, Australia. I've explained our issues and he's pretty keen to start work on a mobile UDK-emulating shader pack. This guy is good. If he gets it done it will be everything that UDK is plus a ton of extra adjustability.

 

Nice.

 

That is really great news. Hopefully optimised for pure speed

 

I competely agree Hippo, and its what I have been saying in another thread!!!

"UT Please bring Realtime Shadow on iOS Platform or Risk Becoming Irrelevent !"
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/12...-on-iOS-Platform-or-Risk-Becoming-Irrelevent-!

Unity is definitely slipping and soon going to become irrelevent in the eyes of developers as UDK continue to improve on both FEATURES and USABILITY. Those people at EPIC aren't fools, they know what's hindering them from grabbing more marketshare is the usability issue, so sooner rather than later they emulate Unity and become even more user friendly and Unity-like, while maintaining their strength of visual features. Also with a very affordable pricing scheme - NOTHING UP FRONT AND YOU GET ALL THE FEATURES RIGHT OFF THE BAT - Unity's days are truely numbered.

 

Unity is still the best 3d engine for IOS and android, by far in my opinion.

 

Yeah glad to see there's different opinions. You're entitled to that much. Although you will find that shadows are a bit too slow for us to deal with unless it is native to the engine. And unity disables shaders which could otherwise work (dof etc) for reasons I'm not sure. So it becomes a bit more difficult to match the visual fidelity epic is throwing around on mobile.

More difficult, that could easily be fixed though, at least to my understanding.

 

I think graphical kickassness is going to come with 4.X, unitys visuals were realy not that visibly bad compared to udk on phones(shadow gun) but i think that sence the ipad(3) is here its going to become clear that unity is lagging behind, but also UT you cant forget about, 3GS, IPad 1, Iphone 4s and ipad 2, those also need to be supported.

 

They are supported, they're the same stuff.

Regarding shadowgun, there's still things we can't do unless unity updates the engine a little (those guys have a specific version of unity) and that BDRF shader sure would be nice

 

But if they give us everything now, then Unity 4.X will not be so amazing

None of this realy efects me my game isent realy graphics heavy.

 

ShadowGun uses vanilla Unity 3.5. We're showing a slice of ShadowGun in 3.5 on the GDC floor this week.

 

So is it going to be as public relese? or only or the shadow gun folk?

 

It already was released... it's called Unity 3.5 ;-)

 

Then why did you say "vanilla Unity 3.5"? what dose the "vanilla" stand for?

 

Vanilla in this context just means plain or ordinary. We don't codename our releases with silly names like "Ice Cream Sandwich" or "Honeycomb" ;-)

 

Oh i get it now

 

my 2 cents, i think graphical quality of a product (game or non-game) isnt so much the engine, but the content thats put in.
Engine does something ofc but not everything,
Furthermore when unity updates to the next version they properly will add some graphical features.

 

@pixelstudio: Well... not really... the graphic quality depends on so much... and much of it depends on the way it is handled by the graphics engine.

Modern engines usually support DX11 which enables us to use i.e. tesselation. As long as Unity doesn't enable us to use this, the graphic quality (and speed) will not be on par with other engines.

 

I think unity 4 is going to have DX11

 

You guys need to chill out
The only differences that have been talked about here are technical (shadows, shaders, and even for me, the Poly reducer).
They can be inserted in no time, as they're just a math formula to know and to integrate. I thought the recent survey Unity sent us by mail was asking 3 things we would want to see in Unity in the future, that feedback analysis should be enough to let them know what to focus on ;-)

Imho, actually, there's only one thing where Unity falls outrageously far behind everything else and everybody knows it : the GUI.
After that, if it's only a matter of technical effects, I guess there is already plenty of stuff to make a good game (may we be an indie or a large studio). The more advanced options will come fast, I'm pretty sure, Unity has proven that in term of graphics up-to-date, they always do feel concerned.

On a sidenote, I really wish gamers (and by consequence, devs) were less worried by a game's graphics, and more by its Art and Gamedesign. People are really becoming too much obsessed by technical specs in games (gamers and devs).

Take those screenshots (of a game I don't even know, just googled "ingame visual difference", edit : ah yes, it's Age of Conan, perfect example for the debate !) :



When a gamer find so much difference between those screenshots that he says "OMG game doesn't support DX10 I don't buy it !", then as a dev I wouldn't even try to search to read his opinion anyway, because that'd mean he didn't even try to look at gameplay, gamedesign, replayibility, music, lore, franchise longevity, and all those things that are the core of addiction. Never game addiction came from beautiful graphics, I don't understand why so few people understand that when they talk only about visuals.

Having god rays and more detailed shadows is one thing, but it doesn't hold your attention for monthes.

 

I agree with n0mad -- yes not having as cool shaders as UDK is definitely not a good thing, a much bigger problem for a much larger chunk of the userbase is their awful GUI functions. The sooner these guy replaced, the better. I'll wait a bit for fancy shaders for better GUI control and polish.

 

But still, if a game has the same gameplay etc but one has better graphics i'd take the one that has better graphics......

Also of course unity needs a new GUI system, there are loads of threads for that and i think unity said there making one, but this has not been talked about so much.

 

Yes indeed, but there it's the fault of the devs, not the engine. Having the exact same gameplay (or slightly better) than another game is the start of the problem.

 

Last statement was they tried to make it stable enough for 3.5 release. But they found that it was not good enough to be in the 3.5 release then, that it still needs some polishing. But it`s on its way.

 

Graphical quallity has specific impact on game, this can be proved by many different games. First impact is, if gameplay quallity is great, graphic quallity could be low and game would still be very playable. Then there are games that have poor gameplay, but are still highly playable becouse of good graphic and all that comes with, usually there are singleplayer titles. This all leads that graphic quallity is important but major impact on player base of certain game depends on game structure and quallity of gameplay.

The way you described how player looks on actual game screenshots is mostly correct. While you were refering to it with irony or sarcasm it is actually correct. Most of the players, especially younger ones do look screenshot and if it doesnt appeal to them or if graphic looks bad, they will just go away. They wont even consider looking gameplay! There is the trick...good graphic is some kind of marketing that could attract possible player to check out gameplay video, or bad screenshot could turn your player away from game. Games that have poor or simplistic graphic like Minecraft are huge sucesses becouse of the word that is spreading and popularity, but then you have a lot games that players just randomly check on pages, and if your game doesnt stand out graphically it is huge chance that player will close down screenshot section or stop video after first few played seconds.

 

Bollocks.

If you can nail a good art style and you have competent artists, then stuff like god rays is just fluff. God rays will not suddenly change a mediocre game to be a good game or make someone download a crap game with fancy image effects.

Shadows, it's a little different, but there are packages out there that will give you shadows on mobile devices. There are ways to make your own shadows on mobile platform.

Good base artwork and solid gameplay will always trump graphical fidelity in the end.

 

+1... btw, I am having some issues with your Triplanar shader with the normal maps not showing up

 

I have the feeling some people use the lack of certain graphical features as an excuse to make not a game with Unity.

 

Try not to ignore the fact that unity is behind, graphically. You don't need to defend unity to a unity evangelist like me. But as I've always said, if I can see clear areas of suggestion or improvement in unity I will make my voice heard. I can see clear areas of suggestion and improvement.

Some of these improvements will have people saying "oh you can do them yourself"

OK lets see:

I can take the longer development times of UDK and get those things I'd have to "do myself" right out of the box on day 1

Or I can do the necessary R&D and do them in unity but take the R&D development times instead.

The only thing really missing in unity (and I've brought this up before) is a lack of parity between platforms and a lack of decent out of the box effects for unity mobile.

Can I do them if I spend weeks on them? yes.
Does UDK have them out of the box? yes.

So where am I saving time using unity? It is a very valid criticism especially for a company which is appraising unity for possible development on. These are holes that should be filled when unity gets time.

Remember, I am weighing my words carefully, I adore unity, for us it's the best environment. But that doesn't mean everyone feels like I do, especially in light of the above.

 

Graphics are important for immersion, to set mood, convey information etc. It is also a quality indicator. I can't know how good gameplay is by looking at screenshots but if I see crap graphics why should I think that any other part of the game is of higher standard? So choose a visual style where the engines capabilities doesn't hinder you to create something appealing.

 

Don't judge a book by it's cover?

 

Hey Hippo it's totally ok to ask for Unity to improve where it is needed, it's just the way it's been said by people all over the thread ;-)

That's precisely where I can't grasp the actual debate : Unity is not perfect in graphic department for sure, but it's not "hindering" anyone imho, unless this said person would only count on procedural effects to make appealing graphics, which would be a huge mistake in the first place.
Without good arts, you could put all the DX11 FSAA aniso 16x godrays soft shadows you want, the game would feel bland. On the other hand, with superb art, only having AntiAliasing would not prevent the game from being appealing.

Also, we were not talking about "crap" graphics, but "correct" to "good" graphics ;-)

 

Amen Nomad... i can attest to this... I've been using Unity and my work has been high quality

 

I confirm that ;-)

 

Just make the game look good and I might consider buying it thats all i'm saying

 

Exactly... I could give TWO S***S about graphics... if I can get you with the gameplay, I've done my job

 

I keep saying this and i really dont understand why people dont see it that way. 90% users here are indie developers, and even more, the majority of this 90% are hobbyst developers who have limited time to spend on game. You need to develop game, not develop features that should or could be in engine. End point.

 

I am not yet a paying customer of unity. So, some people might consider my opinion worth zero but the reason I stuck with unity was because it is just incredibly easy to create games with unity.

I was doing stuff in flash before I came to unity. Heard about it on a game dev blog and kongregate. I checked it out and was hooked and have remained so ever since. I've never come across a software that makes it this easy to create a game. I hope whatever Unity does they don't abandon that

 

Game development is moving away from desktop big time. People say "oh it'll be great in 2014" but those won't actually be desktops. They will be set top boxes and media centers. Desktops are on the way out and now occupy the smallest possible shelf space in larger computer stores like best buy, or pc world. These places are dominated by media center devices, laptops, tablets, consoles and mobiles.

Basically focussing on making unity a speed demon, and very strong in mobile only makes desktop faster and more efficient. That means people like the hobbyist is able to do pretty great effects even on the laptops everyone has these days.

 

Well yea, but desktops are being replaced with laptops, which is basically the same in terms of development for them.

 

Actually that is not quite true... after years of evaluating the game market and platforms, PC gaming is growing lately more than last few years, and more and more developers are returning to that platform as primary OS to support. Especially bigger titles. (why? because Nothing beats a pc in power (yet), and gaming on a mobile device is just not good enough for numerous reasons. For small titles, yes it's good, but serious titles the touch does simply not cut it.
PS3/Xbox is also not so much of interrest anymore, since there is no evolution/growth in technology going on in that area for years. Also more and more gamers don't like the controllers, and prefer keyboard and mouse for precision and speed.
PC grows with the culture (in tech, hardware etc), so developers can more easily grow their software better, so they actually can create what they want, instead of needing to hold back in features because the target hardware cannot run it.