Unreal Engine 4 FREE...

It's true that it's easier to organize and communicate when working on small programs, but that's kinda the conclusion I'm hoping to force everyone to get at What you stated is exactly what everyone should be thinking now. Why is it so easy for UE4 to update? Well, check out the source code and see for yourself! Why is UT, with the simpler and easy to use and smart interface taking so much longer? who knows :3

Agreed. The code has probably got more noodles than the flying spaghetti monster.

 

I think from now until the end of time Unity will start bringing more features faster than they have in the pass.
If it wasn't for Epic coming out so strong from last year's announcement, do you guy really think Unity was going to change their policy. This move on Unity was very smart, because at the rate Unreal is rolling out new features and changing the industry you either adopt the grass will cover you quickly.
I like to see both engines grow this way. That means more toy for us to play with and easier time building.

 

Over time Unity has gradually become more accessible to those who cannot afford the full price. Initially it was in the form of Unity Indie with a $200 price tag but that eventually became Unity Free. Now Unity Free has become Unity Personal with a much wider range of features.

Was this caused by Unreal 4? Possibly to some degree. At the same time though Unreal 4's pricing scheme may be partially due to the success of Unity Free.

 

Competition is good for the consumer

 

Well it's not really the only case is it now, Unity was years behind on the 64-bit front. They're behind in tools like Cinematics and material editors, they've only just recently incorporated a decent lighting system.

Unity are always years behind the punch and it takes them ages to catch up. So it's not exactly a "single" pattern here, it's a slurry of easily definable repetition.

Thing is nobody knew or noticed and some didn't even care until AAA went topside and big engine developers started vying for the lowly indie. As soon as Epic and to a VERY low extent CE said, here's a proper AAA engine have fun nobody knew how any of these companies worked. It's a stark contrast and a wake up call, not saying Unity isn't good at what it's good at, if you've every used an in-house or third party AAA engine you can see where Unity excels.

But in terms of leading and development pace, They're are pretty low down the food chain. Again, if Unity does what you need, doesn't really matter though does it? Especially now with all it's competition.

 

Yes I can see it heading that way eventually. We all benefit no matter what tool you decide to go for your next project.
Personally I love both engines and knowing more means greater possibilities of success as a developer. You have to be open minded and go with what gets the job done quicker and more efficiently. I would focus more on art style and game play. Like how to entice the gamers and bring then back for more.

 

Exerpt from their wiki:

"In 1998, Epic MegaGames released Unreal, a3Dfirst-person shooter co-developed withDigital Extremes, which expanded into a series of Unreal games. The company also began to license the core technology, theUnreal Engine, to other game developers."

It's all there..

The initial comment I was replying to was the implication that in house engines don't make money. I disagreed, and used epic as that very same example. Point is, it was *never* designed as an engine to license first. Period.

 

Well by definition it's not an "in-house engine" if they're licensing it out. It's private release or public engine, Frostbite is an example of an "in-house" engine. Unreal isn't..

Not that it matters anyway.!

 

Interesting, I will try it out when I get a computer that can handle it.

 

In the future, it will take 9 robots women to make a human child under 1hour...

 

I think, UE4 has made Unity put to work instead of relying on outdated features : bad shadows, outdated terrain (still the case) etc ...
Also UE4 make games , this is why they are pushing themselves fast , they are in competition with other triple A games.
Gears of War 4 is the next big title a lot awaited specially for the multiplayer.

 

WTF, reading this thread makes me think that announcing that free gets dark skin and no splash would have been more appreciated than announcing pro being free. Competition sure is beneficial to the users, but I am not convinced this race to the bottom is. I wish the best for Unity and hope they somehow get paid for the value they provide.

 

Yes it's benefical.
But UE4 is backed by a big company , so they are safe, they don't need to win some competitin, they just need to be as competitive as Unity to attract people that will make games with UE4, after making games their other big concer is to gather more and more games made with UE4 and gather indies creative people using their engine.
Also only Epic is on the race, but the race of Triple A games, while Unity is on the race to keep people using it.

 

I don't know if this is news for you but epic's AAA market is shrinking quite a bit. This is because every major AAA now rolls their own engine. It's no longer a street cred thing to count how many AAA customers you have.

 

Activision-Blizzard? I know about Snowdrop, Frostbite, CryEngine and RED etc, but as far as I know Activision-Blizzard does not have it's own engine.

 

Yes SnowDrop and Red are very impressive in terms of tools and advanced features, not only graphics.

 

Blizzard definitely has it's own engine. EA. Ubisoft, Most japanese developers (it's a thing over there for console games to typically have a bespoke engine) and so on. Rockstar rage powered games like max payne, gta etc.

It's a far contrast from 10 years ago when every 2nd title was epic.

Far Cry longer has anything left of cryengine really, and same goes for cod with the quake3 engine. These things started off licensed and morphed into inhouse modern engines.

At big boy scales, it's more efficient to roll your own.

For both Unity and Unreal, catering for a mass market is their primary market now as evidenced by the proof above, and the drive to get as many indies as possible.

You are the primary market.

 

They have the IW engine at their disposal. They announced major improvements to it at GDC last year.

 

Lot of knowledge is shared nowadays, PBR shaders ,working GI systems, lot of curious people make reasearch in their free time for fun and each time they discover new things like Cone Ray tracing and many others.
Any big company can hire some talented people to make the rendering core and other people to make the editor and tools.

 

But they don't. They make their own engines instead of using UE4. Because they want so many changes, they figure they can just write their own engines to begin with and that ownership is more valuable. They can sub license freely or sell IP.

 

It seems Unreal 4 engine is persecuting you
read again :

Wasn't i saying some big companies make their engines instead of using UE4.

There is many points why many people will go UE4, but the major one is better graphics look, without needing to tweak anything.

 

Does anyone has a download link for the U5 compatible Unity projects? I only found the Viking Village.

 

More are coming.

 

You can make Real Life in unity

 

Nooo! My basement is already flooding from snow! No more, no more! D:

I intend to. Mwahahaha!

 

Actually, not wanting to be contentious without reason - I absolutely CANNOT use the Free version of Unity 5 because, though I started making 3D assets and programs when I was young - (like most of you present) - I am now old. Not non-productive, just old.

Especially, my eyes are old - and damaged from 30 + years of CRT, and overbright LCD display viewing - for many hours each day. If we could take a poll - I will wager that many productive CG people that are in their late 40's to 60's and older can no longer tolerate light backgrounds on their computer monitors - simply due to the fact that this kind of over-exposure ultimately damages and has damaged their eyes.

I actually believe there was a Unity poll once conducted regarding this HEALTH issue - and the respondents suffering from severe eye strain or other monitor related disabilities were unanimous.

To many of us, this "Dark Theme" exclusion present in the "Free" version of Unity is among the most petty of behaviors we've ever seen coming from a company that wants to pass itself off as a leader in "Democratization" of the games industry. Juvenile, really.

What do you think?

Greg Smith

 

https://justgetflux.com/

 

Flux is better than nothing at all - but with a large outcry from potential Unity users and existing Unity users:

http://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/editor-dark-skin-theme-in-free-
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/merged-dark-skinned-themes-for-unity-free-and-forum.245824/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/dark-ui-pro-only.306567/

Any CG artist will confirm how it would be impossible for them to put the necessary number of hours into game assets, were they required to do so using a screen that fries their eyes.

I cannot believe the childishness of this restriction. Maybe it is a matter of pride for one of the leading programmers or CFO's of Unity.

The Splash screen limitation is quite trivial compared to this unhealthy and absurd restriction.

Greg Smith

 

Yeah, calling Unity's decision childish and absurd is definitely the best way to ask for a feature.

 

More to the point: when all engines are free - some are more free than others.

And, as the 3 posted links above show clearly - this "request" has been made, politely, for years and years now - or, at least a reasonable explanation has been practically begged for - with no response received from Unity representatives.


Greg Smith

 

I personally consider it as a decent trollbait from UT - just look at what it can stir up on the forums only, and it always was like that, so why to change it ?
But considering the health issues - I agree with you - I probably cannot come up with any software right now which I use which doesn't allow theming, at least to some extent. I guess there's no other way for now, but to use something like flux.

 

btw speaking of theming - would windows accessibility mode with inverted screen colors work for you ? if you use windows that is
its not exactly great, but colors can be tweaked - maybe it is usable ( I wouldn't know, never used it )

 

As many have said in the threads linked to above, inverted colors won't do the job. A dark grey theme, such as is used in Unity Pro, is what has become the standard for all working CG artists.

Greg Smith

 

Programmers are getting the long end of the stick on this one. Mono, free or not, can switch to a dark theme.

 

So many people here forcefully convincing themselves, because you can't let go the invested time in Unity.

I've been researching hard which Engine to pick, reading comparisons and so on... But you guys are so afraid that Unity won't be a thing in the future. That it made my decision way easier...

 

Yeah and some people are so busy with engine comparisons the whole time, that they never get something actually done

 

Didn't want to offend you. It was more like an advice. If you really want to improve the image of Unity, you people should not freak out like that.

There's not only newbies getting their feet wet in the Engine field. Now when engines are free, 3D artists, animators and so on have no reason not getting into Engines. But hands off... marketing or not... it had huge influence over the whole industry.

 

No worries, I din't feel offended. It was just an regular observation.
If you read this thread you will see some folks here talk quite a lot about Engine X can do better things than Engine Y etc... But most of them have not shipped a single game so far, nor have they really been working on a serious game project in any of the related fields (programming, art, animation etc.).
That's not meant to offend someone here. I just think there is too much obsession with the engines themselves, that some forget what they wanted to do in the first place. Of course it is important to evaluate your tool carefully, which you'll use for quite a time.
But now the choice isn't easier with so many engines offered for free. That makes it even harder for less experienced people to opt for an engine and get really started IMO.

Yes it definitely has a huge influence. I'm not sure for the whole industry. But at least for the indie market.

Everyone should use what they think fits best and then get their hands dirty

 

Yeah, can't agree more. After all the tool is a tool, the person behind it is more important. Just like all related software in the industry, regardless engines, 3D modeling, texturing .etc...

But there's so many concern people in this thread, that makes the issue appears bigger than it actually probably is...

I've just downloaded the Unity 5, version from the torrent, so I'll start digging in and exploring,

That's all from me, have a nice developing folks!

 

You say that, but an engine is about the only tool that can slam a door shut and screw you over. I've tried nearly every engine under the sun and they all have things going for them, but I'll always have a place for Unity.!

 

The blender game engine is clearly the most superior engine. Unity and Unreal are decent for getting things done, but blender is the only engine with a fully featured modeler!

 

I know your comment was just sarcastic. But man, BGE is a train wreck. It was abandoned and now is only supported by some die-hard BGE fans.
While I'm using Blender, I wouldn't even touch BGE with a pole these days.
I feel a lot OpenSource Engines will have a hard time now. Not to mention the few commercial ones, operated by single developers like C4, or Leadwerks. I almost feel bad for those.

 

I wish I knew enough about BGE to even be sarcastic about it lol. No clue how any of that stuff works, really. Is it easier to write your own game engine with sdl or opengl than use BGE?

 

Haha, I know BGE and i can say that its very easy to make a game with it. However its outdated.
No its not easy to code a game engine than use bge.

 

Yes you're be able get things done with BGE. And it's less exhausting than writing your own engine from scratch. But as Akira_san says, it's outdated and feels pretty clunky. You can either code in Python, or with "logic bricks". which is similar to Playmaker, or Blueprints but not as sophisticated. And some things like GUI and asset management is just a pain in the a**, because not natively build in.
To be fair, there are some people who made (or still making) awesome stuff with it. But it's more for people who like to tinker around and have infinite patience. If money and a polished product in a timely manner are your main concerns, stay away from that.

 

What do I think? The only childishness I ever see are your posts and others like it.

The grey of the free theme is far less bright than the forum backgrounds. There's probably an argument that it's fine for your eyes.

Bye then. Only 99% of 3D mobile games use Unity, and the latest casual hit Crossy Road uses Unity. Have fun elsewhere.

 

Engine engine number 9...
Why is this thread still alive?

 

These are the threads that never end...

 

Only a lock can end a UE4 thread. These are the most active threads here as long as they stay open...