Unity 4 license compare with UDK, CRytek, Gamebryo, Unigine, Marmelade,Shiva3D etc...

Who says this isnt his hobby?


You know what i would like to see for once, what if there would be someone who would make really explained, detailed and with references filled topic on engine comparing thread. For example:

Unity:
-released titles (2 for each platform, most polished)
-flagship features explained with brief explanation
-all main features supported with reference material
-licensing cost information

And doing the same for any other indie suitable engine. Now that would eliminate any trolling or any empty conversations that follow those usual topics. It would be straight to the point, no speculations. One thread like that could cure forums from those topics for a while, until new major updates are released.

 

The other companies arent going to a piece of a pie if your game is a failure (less than 50k) but if it is a success they want a large piece of it. If you are working with unity all that want is a lump sum, what kind of person goes in with the intention of only making 50k (no one). So if its a failure whatever but if its a success at least you wont have to give 25%.

 

Comparison websites already exist en masse. People only create threads like this for ego gain. It's normally prompted by insecurity about using something (in this case unity3d). I.e joe blogs feels insecure about using python for game development, so he goes to a python forum and asks If python is better than c++ for his project. Because its a python forum he knows they will be bias to python and they will tell him exactly what he wants to hear. Did he have any intention of using c++? No. He was just ego fishing. This is why comparison threads don't belong in this forum. They don't belong.

 

What I find the motivation for trolling is basically "Unity pro cost too much , wah wah wah " Every few days theirs a new thread with someone who ether doesn't want to pay any money for Unity , thinks Unity pro needs to be cheaper , etc .

Unity has ease of use on its side . I could NEVER learn to do anything in UDK , Unity is set up where even if you know nothing about game dev, you can have something basic in a few weeks/months . AND the asset store where you can buy a great template .

I look at it like this , if you have the resources to actually pull off a decent UDK game , then your going to invest well over 50k into it .
The most valuable thing is going to be time , I'd rather make a small Unity game with an artist over 3 months , be done with it and learn from it , then take on some ultra ambitious UDK game and never finish it !

 

there are some major faulties in the list, in term of license restrictions/pricing plans. Fix that first!
(e.g. to name just one: the 2500 Dollar license cost of UDK, in combination with: when you are required to use this license and when you can do with the 99 Dollar, royalty bearing one, but there are more faulties in the list)

Secondly: Just use the tech you need (in your workflow or finance flow, or both). If you don't need mobile support, but high end graphics, Unity is not a logical choice (UDK or CE are better for graphics, fact). But both UDK and CE suck at mobile support (in terms of supported platforms), here is where Unity is the more logical choice. etc etc etc etc etc etc

Furthermore, the teammembers knowledge of tech is also an important factor. Features the tech has under it's belt also.

So i'm not voting, since it too dependend on the task at hand, which tech is better or more logical to choose to accomplish the goal.

 

@saymoo,
We've implemented soft-shadowmapping on Unity Mobile. And it's running fast! Try to do full scene soft-shadow mapping in UDK mobile. Err, isn't possible! Not even that, try to have dynamic lighting in UDK Mobile, err not possible! We have both and still runs fast!

 

i was looking at that in Unity...i was impressed. Now get Beast working on mobile, oooh man...

 

So you have implemented shadows running on mobile with playable framerate, while my computer struggles on terrible performance with shadows turned on, damn thats hard to hear

 

See for youself, running on an iPad2.

Bonus, static reflections everywhere:

 

if you did read my post carefully you would know you are repeating me:
look at my post again, shall we? " But both UDK and CE suck at mobile support (in terms of supported platforms), here is where Unity is the more logical choice"

 

I was agreeing with what you where saying. I've tried to complement your post with current proven facts, not to contradict it.

 

Beast doesn't need to work at runtime, unless you want to rebake stuff at runtime and let the user wait hours of baking.

 

tatoforever can you show a time where the softshadows are working? in those videos the shadows seem completely arbitrary, like theres a shadowed sink but no shadows for the main character in lightmapped shadowed scenes

id consider a soft shadow on the main character that contrasted against a lightmapped shadow as a good yardstick

 

I've attached some images (full scene soft-shadowmap):


In the previous video the only light producing shadows is the flashlight (watch carefully) but our system supports multiple lights with shadows. Though if you want a video with the character casting shadows, that shouldn't be a problem.
And no, this isn't Unity hard shadows, this is our soft-shadow mapping system. I have plans to release it for free to the community later in the year.

 

Ahh yep i think i see, that would be very generous! The corrected cubemap code would be great too haha, all stull i've been willing to pay for that i cant do myself

 

Yeah, I'm waiting for our game to be published to release all our custom effects shaders. You know lazy NDA stuff.
I've also promised the community a CryEngine3 like water system with the same graphical goodness to set your GPU on fire!

 

Haha i saw your post in that thread, that should be quite some investment, and hugely appreciated by many, i think it might be a bit of a timesink while you work on your game however, reminds me a lot of the original resident evil crossed with re4, it looks pretty cool!

I think i may do a similar thing, i have no ndas to worry about but i want to gather something together very solid so when im well along on my projects i can release a really nice pack of shaders free of charge and kinda pay my dues to a great system that really enabled me to achieve my dreams

This is the good stuff about unity you cant put on a features matrix

 

Good looking game Tato.

 

whoa i'm not that sadistic...

 

Don't worry I know!

 

I just wish UT could expose more of the parameters for Beast... after a while, I will get tired of tweaking xml files...

 

I've always asked myself why nobody invested the amount of time to create a GTK# application (or even an Air / LiveCode one) that allows them to easily tweak the xml in a UI instead.
I would be so fed up doing it within an hour that I would definitely not accept to do it for days or weeks, when it takes little time and effort to interact with an xml in C# and when GTK# / MonoCocoa / Win Forms work fine ...

 

You make a good point... my intention when I do my lighting in beast, is to NOT leave Unity when I tweak it... I do get fed up when I have to create xmls for every scene...

 

Hi, I'm new to this forum and I have a question. Which game engine should I choose? This is not like the other posts of this question as I am we'll aware of the features and capabilities of each engine and I am not here to start a flame war. I just want to know which one is better to use in terms of intuitiveness and if the graphics of unity can reach that of cryengine if enough effort is out into it. Also, in terms of licensing, which do you think is the more viable option considering cryengine does not have an indie licensing model available to the public yet.

Thanks.
-Talon

 

This has been discussed several times on the forums before. Please type into the search bar Unity Vs Cryengine and I am sure you will find a post like this before.

 

It sounds as if you don't have that much experience. That's why my indirect answer is, use one of them. You will learn a hell lot of concepts that you can use in both of them. Just pick one of them and try it out.

 

I was just wondering if it was really worth it to put in the time and effort into an engine that cannot achieve the results I am looking for as in an engine such as cryengine. I would be willing to put in the effort, but only if it is actually physically possible to achieve quality such as this.

 

Quality like that can be reached in Unity easy. Look at Oliver and Spike and many other games developed in Unity. Also, with CryEngine it's not as good as you think. Stick with Unity

 

I have delved to cryengine quite a bit but the lack of a proper licensing deal for an indie such as myself throws me off, which is why I am looking to unity as an option, though I do not have much experience with unity

 

Learn Unity. Due to ease of use, and a mountain of assets to buy make it a great tool to developing and releasing games. If you want to move to cryengine after, then the move will be easy since you already know basics of game design, and terminology: like mesh, texture, materials, etc.

 

Like I said, I am up to date with the terminology and process of making a game and assets such as the ones you mentioned. I am aiming to create a realistic futuristic shooter. If unity can mimic cryengine in terms of graphics and shaders and such, I will take on unity. Not to mention, unity's licensing deal is one that cannot be passed up.

 

Thank you all for all of your advice. I greatly appreciate it and I think I am going to go with unity. Again, thank you all very very much.

 

It can. It's not the engine, it's you. If you can do it, then Unity can develop it!

 

NOT REALLY TRUE

Yes, in UDK you can't change the shaders' code.

BUT.

You have CUSTOM NODE, who can be wherever YOU WANT.

Just check this:

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/MaterialsCompendium.html#Custom

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/PivotPainterTool.html

Can you do this in Unity? - NOT!

 

I'm pretty sure you can do all of that with Strumpy, actually.

 

To be honest, either is fine. However, to sway you to our persuasion, here are some advantages of Unity:

1. Unity is available is an editor for Mac; CryEngine is Windows only.
2. Unity can produce games for iOS, Android, Linux, OS X and Windows, as well as consoles. CryEngine (I believe) only does Windows and consoles.
3. CryEngine requires royalties on commercial games and defines "commercial" quite liberally, meaning headaches for you. With Unity, you pay upfront but keep all your profits.
4. Unity can create a larger variety of games than CryEngine. For instance, Unity has some great 2D toolkits on the asset store.
5. Speaking of the asset store, that's another Unity plus. CryEngine doesn't have that.

 

CryEngine can create games for iOS in fact there are already iOS games made with CryEngine.

But that doesn't help much since you can't deploy games as standalone with CE afaik.

 

Honestly, I don't think Cryengine (in its "indie" form, at least) is really mature enough for major use. I'm sure the full licensed version is good enough but at the indie level for that sort of thing I'd probably go with UDK instead.

 

You can do all that in Unity and even more! Unity have the most flexible rendering pipeline on the planet. Isn't because the stock shaders are basic that the engine sucks. Not at all, you can create from custom lighting models to complete lighting and shadow systems. Btw, that's what I've done in our current project, we aren't even using Unity lights at all. And no you can't do that with Unreal Engine sorry.
UnrealEngine default lighting model is different than Unity (if i remember well isn't lambert/phong) it's Oren-Nayar. With Unity there's no limitation (at least from a shader pipeline standpoint), if you know how to write shader programs you can do what ever you want. UnrealEngine material editor have lots of limitations btw. I don't use strumpy shader editor but i know it's the equivalent of UE material editor.

 

Ah, okay. Unity though still supports more platforms.

That's what I've heard as well.

 

Yeah, for all the flak it gets, it's really the only engine I'd say should even be mentioned in the same breath as Unity if you want to do anything 3D on the indie side right now. It's considerably more difficult to use but I've found that it offers a far greater degree of freedom in how I implement things. Not to mention that the built-in speedtree and simplygon stuff is to DIE for.

 

Definitely Unity. Unity's user-friendliness makes up for any shortcoming compared to Cryengine/Unreal because it allows you to spend more time working on your game, rather than working against the engine (in my opinion anyways).
And despite what some people might say, Unity is fully capable of delivering high-end graphics. Part of the reason some people say otherwise is because you still have to make your own 3d models/textures/etc. and Unreal/Cryengine come with industry grade assets included. Meaning Tommy 13 year-old can slap together a pretty scene quickly and have it look decent because he's using pre-made professional quality assets.

Unity's productivity is its biggest strength I think. As far as the graphics go, you'll definitely need Pro to get the most out of it but it's definitely worth it. I'm just a one-man team and here's what I've been working on (I submitted it to the DX11 contest but sadly did not win). So with Unity I think you should be just fine.

 

These bumps to this old thread made me read the all of it and got me wondering, any ETA on the stuff you said you'd likely release for free later on? Sounds really nice!

 

Something very important that you should bare in mind. Since Crytek does not have public indie license there is one more hidden and important thing to bare in mind. Cryengine does give you starting edge with having nicer looking scenes from start on but be aware that you have to produce decent quallity project, with fine tuned art to even be considered in releasing stage. With Unity license you are allowed to release rotating cube in empty space and place price 30$ for that. Crytek will not allow you that. Only with full 100k license maybe. If you are starter in 3d modeling or programming rather dont even consider having anything released unless you are very talented and quick learner.

 

As soon as our current project is published (Spring-Summer 2013).

 

I would be really wonder to see different result in Unity forum

Try ask same on Epics' forum, or CryTek. You will explore much more new for you

Unity is really great package. For start. For prototype.

But as soon as you'll need something serious - i shall take unreal (for example) or to spend HUGE mount of money for programmers to get something close to you wishes.

Its same as Artist way: usually you start with Max but then you go to Maya or even to Houdini.

Personally, I prefer node based structures. Just look at this AI network. Pure Beauty!:



And now think how much time you'll get to repeat same in code. Or to understand another programmer' code.

So, I will left this Holywar, I've seen too many times. Just try to grow up and to learn different package. And then to use different packages for different targets.

There is the stupid way to use just one brush to paint house wall and to paint Gioconda smile, isn't?

 

I don't frequent those forums so no clue if it's true, but what's often said in threads on unity is that other engine's forum don't allow such discussions (unity's pretty cool with it so far), so i'm not sure you'll find lenghty threads to compare there.

 

NOT TRUE again

Just search and found on first page of results:

"The main difference in my opinion between Unity and Unreal is that Unity is a modular or component based engine and Unreal is an Object Oriented engine, at least at the developer level for workflow. I haven't seen Unity under the hood. So, in Unreal, often the script is the object, and it is either placed in the level editor or spawned via script."

You see? - professional answer on professional forum. (And, by the way, very good example of difference). Once again, you, guys, trying to compare sweet with warm. Or what is better - microwave or electric cocker?

 

Open fire pit.

 

Actually, it's entirely true. If you go to the official UDK forums and actually read the rules, you'll see it right up there, at #3 on the list.

Here's a link: http://forums.epicgames.com/misc.php?do=vsarules

So as you can see, it's entirely true, they don't allow engine comparisons.