Unreal Engine 4 FREE...

Look at Cryteck , they expended too much and finally it was not good.

 

Google.

I am saying THEY MUST HAVE SAME BASIC FEATURES. Both must have some modeling, editing, animation tools etc. ect. For example Maya doesn't have Biped, but has similar tools, that may be used to rig character. Unlike this, Unity doesn't have most basic features that are mandatory for moder engines.

 

Basic features like geometry editing? You do realize that BSP brushes are generally used for prototyping and then almost completely removed right? Their performance is flat out worse than static meshes and they're less flexible.

 

"But But But... i want them to be all the same!!!! NOOOOOO
How dare you tell ME what it means!!!!"
Ok i have real money to make and people are going way over and beyond rational thought here...

 

Ryiah

Why all Unity trols like you and Archania read about geometry editor in my post and never seen a word abouth morph animation support, for example? Or morph animations are used for prototyping too? And what about modular pawn? Does modern engine have built-in modular character support or should use buggy undocumented third-party add-on? And what about cutscene editor? Should modern engine have one, or user must buy one from marketplace for additional fee? Why it took them more than 1,5 year to develop GUI system, during which time users either had to use lame, slow and buggy built-in GUI or buy from marketplace? etc. etc. etc. The answer is simple - GREEEED!
This is my last answer in this topic. My arguments should be apparent for every person who wants to see. Even now, after so many years of development the engine doesn't have all basic features. AND IT NEVER WILL! Otherwise they will be unable to sells those features on marketplace, as separate products!

 

I did. I told you that there are other systems that ShadowK has stated before that should be integrated.
Don't jump on one thing and have blinders on.
Have you actually worked in any field? Ever read about companies?
We get it.. you don't like Unity.. fine .. there are plenty of other ones to use. Don't come in to Unity's forums (which they own cause they are GREEEDDDDYYY) and state things that are so far out there it is funny. And based on some idea/thought/DEMAND that unity does things YOU want. (I happen to want a hot sexy woman who is wild in bed and cooks like Emeril living with me.. we can't get everything we want ).

 

Unity does have morph animations. It calls them blend-shapes, but it's the same thing. Unless you mean something else.

That's quite easy to implement and from what I've seen, Unreal's implementation is also pretty basic. (there was also a unity example for this a while back I believe). And arguably, it's not a basic feature.

I'll 100% give you that. Making cutscenes in Unity is pain right now. We ended up making a pretty basic tool, but even making that has been a pain (making sure certain timings for cut are accurate is kinda hard and certain aspects of mecanim are not really helping). They're apparently been working on a tool though.

Nope. I don't think so. I don't have numbers, but I don't think Unity after paying for whatever staff and servers the asset store needs, makes a significant amount of money. I think all in all it's mostly a feature that makes Unity as a product more attractive, rather than a source of significant revenue by itself.

 

How often would you use those features you listed? There are so many people who show up on this forum and give complaints but never seem to actually do much of anything,

Most of them end up making Unreal versus Unity comparisons too.

 

Technically I understand the compliants, because there is reason behind them.
Also, I don't really get what people should do besides the compliants? Make the work of the Unity staff for free?
I offered formerly my help in the ancient times (like 10 years ago), related to the lack of a feature and they listened and implemented it in weeks. Great job!
I offered my help like 1 years ago and I was denied to get direct contact to the responsible person(s).
Things has been changed.

And things became different...
How much time should we wait for support replies? I'm waiting for one since a month...still no answer.
How many times did you experience that the stuff has no idea about Unity's own EULA/policy or the support is totally incompetent related to your questions?
Or how much time AS publishers have to wait for an asset to become alive?
Theoretically 3 days. Practically: weeks.

Everyone who ever had a sight how difficult to run a studio, a company, anything what requires collaboration, customer support, organizing, etc. knows that it is a heavy task where loosing the loyalty of the clients/customers is a NO GO.

But the problem - as I see - is that the staff of Unity is too small to handle its incredible amount of users in all level.
The reason behind this could be various (and we do not know this), but facts are facts.
It is not our (I mean 'our' as customers) responsibility to solve these problems.
Our task is to complain if we are not satisfied.

I remember when Unity started being widespread (but in that time it was Mac only).
In that time there was Unity vs GarageGames, Unity vs Quest3D and other comparisons.
I was part of this conversations/comparisons sometimes and I supported Unity (even wrote detailed comparisons).
Unity offered the features other engines didn't in that time.
Now the situation has been changed: Unity lacks things other engines have.
So it is pretty easy: these features have to be implemented, even if this costs more staff, money, etc.

 

You don't have to make it for free. I see plenty of highly successful paid assets in the store that are fulfilling a few roles that Unity simply has yet to get around to. Visual node-based shader and scripting tools being just one example.

 

Em de Nem... you have a point in that there are things that people think that Unity should include which will only help make Unity better. No problem. It is the people jumping in forums with UNITY SUCKS!!!! they don't have what xyz has and cause of that it SUCKS!
That is the WRONG way to go about getting things noticed and them thinking about it.
We have no idea given the several [official] threads from Unity about some of the things they are doing. I am sure there are many many other things that they are working on.. have on a list and want to see done.
If we as a community of users put together a nice, thought out, professional approach, I am sure with the help of several Unity people that visit the forums will gladly bring in front of the powers that be. Like Andy!
Do things the right way will make it a lot easier for them to listen instead of jumping up and down and holding your breath. We are not 2 and not getting what we want.
Time to grow up and act like suppose adults.
We all want to make games and have chosen Unity to do it. Now lets see about making it better! The right way.

 

I'm not a coder, futhermore it is not my task to create neverexisting features or fix ancient bugs in Unity what are already implemented in a perfect way in other engines. Any succesful company have to take an eye on the products of the competition and listen to the customers.

On the other hand Unity is not in an easy situation and I understand it from their point of view. But I'm primarily a user, who remembers how great was to start using Unity with implemented features I missed from their competition and have the same feeling now when I can play with things just work out of the box compared to Unity, without additional costs in the Asset Store.

 

You act as if Unity is the only engine which has 'neverending bugs'. Newsflash, all the major engines have them. It's the nature of a very unpredictable beast (your specific game needs with a generic engine).

Anyone care to show their games? I mean I suspect it would lend a bit of cred to some of the comments, since anyone can make stuff up then someone else parrots what that fantasy was, even if the source saying it was a clueless noob. So these mythical end of world showstoppers get spread around the rumour mill with no basis in reality.

Can Unity improve? yes. But so can every engine.

 

They very clearly have listened to their customers as Unity 5 is a fantastic release. It has brought massive changes including giving everyone access to the full capabilities of the engine allowing you to make the best game you can.

Yes, I think that was pretty obvious when you gave the suggestion to throw more engineers at the problem. Adding more engineers almost never improves the speed or quality of the project.

 

Look it in a different way. As I helped a lot commercial and non-commercial product in development with ideas, suggestions, etc., I know that there are 2 sides in a conversation what could make results.

1. Side I: who tells, what to improve and how.
2. Side II.: who has the skills, the wish to understand Side I. and has the skill/power to make the changes.

If any of this is missing or seems to be missing, then improvement and collaboration will be impossible.

So I completely agree with you on the professional approach for the suggestions/wishes,
but there should be ears with almost immediately responds.

So here is my experience, both Unity nad non-Unity related:
- If there is a filter (it could be the 'support', some not so talentful/less trained guys with not the appropriate skills for understanding concepts, etc.) between decision makers and the 'mob', then ideas will never get through.
If there is no filter, then wishes get lost in the 'noise' what the mob makes.

it is quite hard to find the balance; honestly the only way is to hire more guys from the extremely talentful type to cover this 'comparison R&D' area), then making the improvements.

Another thing: long time ago when I switched the Unity I did it for basic features what were 'neverexisting' in other engines. Neverexisting. It is a wonderful word what stands for talentful, dedicated developers who made something new, something better.

Implementing features with the same funcionality in the same way what are already existing in other engines long ago is different. That's catching up. Technical work. Just needs more regular employees (cost) to make it happen, not geniuses.

 

Which is completely interferes with my experience. What we are talking about here is not the field where things cannot be improved with more specialists (pure power) if thay are directed to the good direction.

 

Consider your statement in a different way too. You are stating that you've assisted with development of both commercial and non-commercial products by offering your advice and suggestions, but that's simply a fancy alternative to "idea guy".

 

Definitely not. Don't defend Unity when I'm not attacking it, please.

I cannot really get it.

Yep. So as I paid for Unity I complain about Unity here. And I complain about other engines/apps on their forums.

 

? Sorry, I can't get it. What is the problem with being an 'idea' guy? Most of the people are not 'idea' guys, don't have the skill to make something new. Everything born from ideas with the help of other skills and resources.

 

you have some good ones in the Asset Store.
Unity is as it is, will it bring very usefull today features for game development ? like Cutscene editor, visual programming, shader editor, better terrain , we don't know, we'll see.
These tools are for advanced users, many games won't use Cut Scenes and many people won't need to edit shaders , many won't use morph animations.

Today, you just have to buy the tool on the Asset Store, or seek another 3D engine because asking X engine to bring Y feature you need in your game project case is not the solution.

 

We frequently have people show up on these forums with only an idea or suggestion. Many of them seem to believe everyone should automatically jump on their idea and develop it for them. It is simply a bit difficult to take them seriously.

 

Well, I used to judge 'ideas', if they are good or bad.
Many of my former ideas became reality in apps (not just Unity) or products as they were good ideas. On the other hand, turning any idea into reality requires collaboration. I'm good in innovation and implementing how the 'ideas' should work in practice, but I'm not a coder, engineer, etc. to know everything and implement them in practice.

 

CryTek made huge mistakes.

 

Shrug. Ok. Epic. The engine was developed in house first to develop their games then offered to licensees.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games

Wasn't trying to argue with you, but being 50 I've seen a few things in my time.

Btw, crysis would be another. I mention those 2 because they have an obvious connection to the discussion. Shrug.

 

Both Crytek and Epic Games developed in-house games, in the form of Crysis and Unreal, for the express purpose of showcasing their engines to potential clients. The core product for those companies though was the actual engine.

The games becoming popular enough to warrant sequels is simply a testament to how well they were designed and the state of the competition at the time.

 

Not true. Read the wiki, history. They produced several games first *then* decided to license as a secondary revenue stream. Their initial intent was never to make games just to sell the engine.

 

Have you actually read the history? Most of those games were not developed with the Unreal Engine. I should know because I played them when I was younger. The Unreal Engine was released the exact same year as the Unreal game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games

The only game listed as being older is a game by Microprose. This is entirely understandable as they were the initial licensee of the engine. It was mentioned briefly in the Unreal Dev Grants by Tim Sweeney.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WDdesD_5Xm0#t=1264

Yes, they may not have initially thought of it as an engine but that's essentially what it became, about nine months into development, when Microprose contacted them asking to license it.

I don't view this as any different from how Unity turned from a game developer to an engine developer. They started by creating a game but it failed to gain momentum so they decided to sell their engine instead.

 

Why with so many programmers on staff its taken Unity so long to release the new gui?
For example:
shaderForge, Nodecanvas, Behavior Designer, etc.. Most of these tools are the work of a one man team with shoe string budgets. Granted it could of taken 1 year to realize. Unity have over 100 programmers with deep knowledge of the engine.
Yet we see. Many of these tools that could at the very least be integrated as part of the Engine. Unity should split the team up into small groups and assign each a major feature with a short schedule to complete. Epic does this with their small team of dedicated programmers. I think the only way to make this happen is to get a company manager that really cares and give him a whip.

 

Look, let me to be the devil's advocate.
Assigning resources to anything is a risk (in business terms).
The best way to check what community needs to test it: Asset Store developers risk their dedicated work (time, money, etc.) on creating stuff what could be necessary for the users. Unity gets 30% from their work without risk and minimal investement; if the developer was wrong, they loose nothing (no coders, no support, etc.). If the work of the developer is succesfull, then they have alternatives (to buy it out) or make their own implementation, while all the risky job has been done by the former developer.

Another thing: no employee will put half as much effort in the development than sole developers who make their own products for their own success.

 

Actually, everybody can play the roll of "idea guy". There is a massive surplus of ideas. The only thing important in this world is implementing ideas. That can be coding, artwork design, etc. But simply generating "ideas" is not valuable, because everybody is drowning in a huge surplus of ideas already.

 

Technically it is a wrong statement. The ultimate reason behind technology/science is pure thinking.
Although I have to agree that idea without result isn't valued, the same way that products/apps, etc. built on a wrong conception are wasting resources (big minus).

Any succes comes when the good idea meets the opportunity and it involves everything from skills to funding, timing, etc.

Another thing for this.

'Actually, everybody can play the roll of "idea guy" again:
Yes, but playing the role of the 'idea guy' is very different from being an 'idea guy'.
Also I shouldn't mention the differences in 'quality' between idea and idea.

I saw tons of failed projects. There was a lot 'Good ideas with not enough resources' type, but far more with 'enough resources on a bad idea' one.

 

For the new GUI if i remember well it's the guy behind NGUI that Unity hired to make the new one.
For shader editor and visual programming , cinematic camera, Unity could make a deal and integrate them in Unity.
It would be lot less exepensive than developping them from scratch.
I think it's Unity decision , and perhaps a financial decision as from the Asset Store it produces more money than making them part of Unity directly.

I agree it took so much time, that's strange. Perhaps they have really less ressource than what we think.

 

And some more thoughts:

As we live in a 'marketing-ruled' world instead of a 'fact-based' world, it is not required for software developers to implement anything in 100% quality, to match the highest technically available expectations.

With 2 up to date examples, the Bloom or the SSAO implementation in Unity 3.x, 4.x was very far from perfect (for enhancing the first one I asked 7-8 years ago, in the 2.x times).
Does it matter if we talk about 'marketing'?
No.
Marketing says: it supports Bloom, SSAO and all the fancy and _expected_ postprocess stuff.
Does it worth (from the viewpoint of a business) to put effort (eg. putting more money) into an already existing feature?
Definitely not.
There is AS for that and if the customer is not satisfied, then could spend money on better Bloom and SSAO.
And here comes the geniuos part: Unity gets money from leaving the weaker quality Bloom and SSAO untouched in the app as the better ones generate 30% of the sales without touching a key on the keyboard.

 

@HeadClot88 as someone living with tinnitus, I can assure you, there are things far worse than that tone.

A lot of people hate on blender. It's no surprise they want to avoid copying it.

That's an awful lot of assumptions about what's necessary in a modern game engine. A lot of products that try to have every tool possible in 1 executable have failed, are failing and will fail. Pick any moment in the history of software development and you will see an example of this. The number of unnecessary and overly similar duplicate tools in UE4 is probably why some students have trouble running it. Even the students who can find it clunky.

We've got 7 unity classes now, and 1 unreal class that might exist sometime in the next 5 years. Student feedback isn't helping UE4 in this process

 

Yep, this is why it is like it is today.

From where comes that idea ? hate ?
Lot of indies uses Blender and like it a lot. It has as much as Maya , and it is really simple and fast to work with once you know how to do.
I have something to open your eyes a little :

You forgot that Blender is constantly developping and improving and it is totally free.

 

And the dads pay till the day they die.
just doesn't seem fair... lol

 

'A lot of people hate on blender. It's no surprise they want to avoid copying it.'

One of the things in the development of Blender what failed is to recognize the potential in its pipeline, integrating all the tools in an affordable quality. In my experience the Blender community could be very close-minded when it comes to new things or when presenting different workflows from different (and not free) tools (of course and thanks to God not all of them).

 

Blender improves day by day, but I still cannot feel that they are heading to the proper way (in their roadmap).
On the other hand most of the 3d guys simple cannot imagine how practical little app it is.

 

But 9 women could improve the child after it's born by raising, caring and training the child until it becomes a grown up fat entitled child with every need taken care of.

I did have a point somewhere in there ie features but it got lost.

 

Why, do the coder team have only one computer to use as all the 9 women could use only one of their wombs for the baby-growing process? By the way, the baby-growing process is 24/24....

 

Can I have 9 women help raise me?

 

Yes but can you afford them?

 

)) That would be the road to hell))

 

But it almost always affects speed and quality.

 

Does Unity have a road map like Trello to check out. Similar to https://trello.com/b/gHooNW9I/ue4-roadmap

 

Oh that old nutshell, ok why does it take Epic 1/20th the time to make a GUI?

 

That's racist to aliens.

The 8 extra women should go adopt 8 orphans. I hope this doesn't kill the metaphor @superpig was going for. In that messed up analogy, what accounts for 1 person teams who accomplish a lot? Can't be premature birth, since that could imply defects / shoddy work.

9 mothers may not be able to birth the same child in 1 month, but 9 programmers should be able to produce 9x the work of 1 programmer, especially if the analogy given is that they can't work on the same project If 1 person can do x feature, then 9 programmers in a similar space of time (for something in similar difficulty) should produce a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h and i. No?

I'm not against UT or mr pig in any way, but I do believe the analogy is terrible. I'm going to end up doing a partnered ASSEMBLY program this semester, don't tell me you can't have multiple people working on different functions for 1 C# or C++ problem lol.

 

'9 mothers may not be able to birth the same child in 1 month, but 9 programmers should be able to produce 9x the work of 1 programmer, '

Unfortunately not (this is a theoretical calculation). Organizing the project and the communication between the coders could have a heavy cost in efficiency, but your point is still valid as it is a decision based on Unity's principals (being cost-effective or other reasons) and not a physical limit as in that wrong analogy by Superpig.

 

Well working in a team can go either one of two ways, the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing and it can become an absolute nightmare to do anything or it can really speed things up.

There's a lot of speculation as to why it takes Unity so long to do anything, but personally I think without a re-write from core Unity is just a massive cluster **** of code by now. Unreal is a modular design, with no where near as many platforms to support and it has 2.5 Million lines of code so far.. I wouldn't dare to imagine what state Unity is in.