Game development thread: What engine?

If you're on your own, unity. If you're part of a team, UE4.

Nobody on /v/ understands game engines or game dev in general.

Fags here will slag engines like GameMaker but then suck off Hotline Miami, not knowing it was made in it.

Don't expect high level tech talk here. People just parrot opinions with no thinking behind that repetition.

>>272948363
>Implying Hotline Miami only runs on GameMaker.

>>272948363
There's been game dev threads on /v/ before though. I couldn't see one.

>>272948280
this all the way, i have used both and Unity is by far more user friendly for small team or just one guy, also Unreal looks awesome but its a bit harder to code for it, and blueprints are awesome.

>>272949197
Aside from the lack of brushes, I do like Unity. Just sucks that they lock out really basic visuals like shadows and shaders.

>>272949562
shadows can be used on unity free, shaders im not sure anymore, but the new unity5 beta seems to look at least on par with Unreal 4.

>>272950026
I think it can only use baked shadows. Dynamic ones show the 'you must have Pro' message.

Maybe Unity5 will change that but seeing how there's already Oculus Rift support for free, I'm not sure.

>>272950380
nope, just checked unity free can use realtime shadows, but ony with directional ligths.

also i want to try an oculus rift, im currently making in my spare time a f-zero style pod racer and implementing an oculus rift comera could be really awesome but i dont have the 300 spare dollars to buy an oculus headset.

I actually just switched from unity to UE4 to get more familiar with C++ and I really dig it, It's much easier to work with in general. Not so buggy in the general UI.

Blueprints are neat but they're really confusing, I feel like it's much quicker and more beneficial to just build it in code and edit parameters in the blueprints.

>>272950967
It's pretty easy. You download a package from oculus developer site (login needed but you don't need a Rift to register) and inside are unity files containing prefabs for a camera and FPS controller that use the oculus. Just drag them onto your project to import them.

It's kinda neat because they're entities and scripts you can open up and look at for tweaking. UE4's Oculus support seems to be built in and just 'there'. I'm not sure how it can be messed with yet.

>>272948139
What kind of hardware do i need to make 3D games?

>>272952662

A computer that can run 3D games?

>>272952784
more or less, you should be able to do games for the hardware you have.

>>272948363
Including you obviously.
>inb4 I GOT MUH COMPUTER SCIENCE 3 I AM DAH SMURTEST PERSON ON VEE

If you have the capability to do ridiculous visuals and complex shit, go with Unreal.
Otherwise, Unity.

>>272948139
There's 2 mobile unreal 4 demos you can check out and they both shit on unity.
If you want to make something that looks legit then unreal all the way.

My own.

Unity's pricing model is absolutely terrible and stupid. You can't do basic optimization without paying big bucks.

Unreal is free if you're a student.

Here's a blog post about some guys that switched from Unity to Unreal. It gives a good insight on the pros and cons of each.
http://martiancraft.com/blog/2014/08/an-unreal-decision/

>>272948139
I use unity with a 4 man team, i've tried both engines. I feel unity has an uglier set of standard shaders (5 supposedly fixes that but i havent tried it) but the workflow and customizeability of unity makes it the winner for us at least. Learn shaderlab code to make it not look like unity.

what are the odds of getting busted for pirating Unity when you actually release a game?

Could always just pay up right before you want to release a commercial game.

>>272957458
same odds of getting caught pirating any other thing

>>272948139
Use idTech2/idTech3 or goldSRC, they're still the best after all these years.

>>272957589
Yeah so I dont get why the prices for stuff get brought up all the time.

Or are all the devs here anti piracy?
What if you compare a fully unlocked Unity to Unreal?

>>272957458

depends, are you charging money for the game?

if yes and you are running a game dev business then Unity will demand their cut (usually $400 that is the charge for their software)

if no, and you are giving the software out for free then you're in the clear

Why do you need an engine

>>272957989

because how else are you going to display graphics

>>272958078
OpenGL
GLFW
GLEW
GLM

Are you fucking kidding me

File: image.jpg (85KB, 500x500px) Image search: [Google]

85KB, 500x500px

>using a licensed engine

>>272957989
Graphics is one part of a game engine

Dummy

>>272958210

yes, but the majority of /v/ probably isn't competent enough to make their own vidya game engine from scratch

>>272957738
you can use pirated unity and unreal but you can never release a game, it would be like playing a pirated game on twitch

>>272948363
/v/ is that guy who does things the hard way for no other reason than to look really hardcore, only to get angry when no one gives a shit and they give up before they even start

There's really no need to reinvent the wheel

>>272958701
I've played pirated games on twitch.
I dont get the analogy.

>>272958597
I didn't mention graphics in my post, I asked why you would use engine

>>272958681
>/v/ isn't competent enough to work opengl
>/v/ is artists

LOL

why do you even NEED to make an engine yourself holy shit

This entire abstract OO design bullshit is where your game goes to die. In reality you make a goddammn struct and shove your game data in it.

>>272958515
>Not using idTech 3

>>272959030
Why even make a game when you can do lucid dreaming?

>>272959330
Are lucid dreams an actual thing?

Never had one (one which I could remember anyways), so sounds like bullshit to me.

>>272959330
A game is not your escapist VN bullshit kid

With all the movies disguised as games out there today, I don't blame you for losing grasp on the concept of a game

Unity isn't as powerful or respectable as an engine, but I find it both easier to work in but also more versatile because it's actual code instead of flowchart scripting bullshit

>>272961087
>actual code

>>272959030

>using an engine
>not programming your game in assembly

>>272961489
>asm
>2014

Any compiler will generate better code than you

You maxtard

>>272961419
I'm just saying I'm familiar with programming so being able to actually code things is easier for me than learning how to script it with lines and boxes.

>>272961641
You don't want to learn your flowchart bullshit but you sure love the rest of your artist tools as well

>>272961863
When did I say anything about artist tools?
I think you may be confusing me for someone else

>>272948363
Bingo. Game engines is the thing /v/ knows least about.

>>272961930
That's what your buzzword-filled faggot engine bullshit is tailored for LOL

Your "visual-coding" "data-driven" engine which is designed to keep coding to as little as possible where you just plug your faggot designer data in, arrange some logic blocks and it just werks

It's shit m8

>>272962452
Can you not read?
I'm talking about how much I hate the "visual-coding" "data-driven" stuff, I'm telling you I prefer actual code

>>272962452
Are you talking about the blueprint editor in Unreal? If you are it most certainly does not "just werk". It's probably more fiddly than actually programming stuff.

>>272959173
Just how user-friendly is the idTech series?

>>272961489
>>272957989
>>272958515
>Wasting time reinventing the wheel.

>>272955598
Any names? The only ones I could find that used UE4 and not the previous engines, was a 2D flappy ripoff and some basic racer game with shittier graphics than Unity.

Like I said, I'm looking for something that could look great on a toaster, not lag like a bitch or look ugly as shit if you don't have the latest GPU.

>>272948139
I've tried UE4 but not Unity.
Made a little obstacle course and it turned out alright

>>272962875
You're talking to some retard who's just spouting shit. He hears Unity or Unreal and he goes crazy like some challenged kid you find in the special classrooms.

>>272962875
diferent annon here, im currently using unity but im interestend in transfering my project to Unreal.

how hard is it to go from C# to C++ or is the Blueprint editor any good?

My dad works for epic and he says unreal is amzing for easy programming and modding

I use Unity purely because I'm a C# developer. If I knew C++ better than I know C# I'd have picked UE4.

Unity has a god awful pricing structure. Blueprints looks nifty. I don't feel like learning C++ any more than I have to.

Answer: Pick the one with the language you like more. Faggots who know nothing will say C++ is better. They probably use hammers for screws too.

>>272948139
>Unity
>Toasters
Are fucking stupid anon what the fuck where the fucking shit did you fucking see Unity running on toasters I cant even run fucking Receiver on minimum without it glitching go fuck yourself and your shit advertising of a shit engine filled with microtransactions

>>272966061
>paying to use bloaty software because you're too lazy or too stupid to build a dedicated engine to your game.

>>272968003
If you know C#, you can learn C++ fairly easily. I would avoid using the visual scripting for anything other than possibly event-handling or state machines. Either way, I'd highly advise you to write all the method logic and everything in code the way you would in Unity; 5 lines of C++ code can easily become a whole screen's worth of nodes (just look at this shit. it could literally be done with 1 lambda expression: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/32489/sort-items-in-array-with-blueprints.html )

Unreal's overall workflow isn't as intuitive as Unity's, imo. For instance, it doesn't let you just drag a script over to an object in the editor to add functionality: you actually have to create a whole new class for any cool new thing you want, then make a blueprint (prefab) based on that one class, and then set up all the modelling and so on.

C++/C# syntax and UE4/Unity API differences aside, you'll probably find UE4's programming to be more tedious than Unity's, simply because C++ isn't compiled during runtime. Epic's added a hot-reloading feature to try to match Unity's flexibility, but it's still kind of sketchy at times and the Unreal editor is likely gonna crash on you from time to time whenever you compile new code in visual studio.

Character animation sucks compared to Unity's: While I'm sure some dedicated artist out there might find a use in the 100 different labels and boxes in the animation editor, I sure as hell don't. And as far as I know, it only supports FBX models/animations, and its skeletal rigging system isn't the standard kind you find everywhere else. Unreal's biggest advantages over Unity are its level, particle system, and shader editors. They all seriously put Unity's counterparts to shame. I'm beta-testing Unity 5, and while they've made some huge updates to their shaders and lighting and overall graphics, you'll still be relying on third-party editor addons like Shader Forge in order for it to match Unreal's.

>>272973019
>calling a full-featured game engine bloated just because you're too stupid to use all those features that you'd eventually need to replicate in your own game engine anyway.

>tfw you make a super basic deathmatch map with UDK for a school project

>it looks way better than your classmate's shitty photoshop project or making generic DnB songs

Feels good man I hope I don't sound too pretentious.

>>272974383
ok thats good to know.

im making a f-zero inspired racing game, but im looking to move the project to Unreal 4, but im still weigthing the options.

How about IA?
in unity i made a simple IA that tries to avoid obstacles while steering for waypoints in the track, can i do something similar in Unreal? does it have a special API or Unreal specific methods?

>>272974539
>get shilled out of all your money for a shit premade engine
>"b-but muh features"
you even fell down to calling someone stupid for talking against and engine with it's own fuckin built-in store.
you can't even build those features on your own engine, can't you goyim?

>>272975414
You know, both the engines being discussed in this thread can totally (and legally) used for free. In Unity's case, it's just with certain features withheld. But that shouldn't matter, since that's just "bloat," right? After all, it's not like it takes any time to set up a whole lighting system, PhysX-compatible physics system, a modelling system compatible with .fbx/.blend/.3ds/etc formats, an animation editor, and 100 other things that have only taken a whole industry 30 years to achieve.

I hope you aren't considering a career in game development with that line of thinking, or else I can already see how any job interview you get is gonna go.
>Thanks for your interest in working at [insert company here]. Do you have any experience working with AAA engines like Unreal/CryEngine/Unity/Source/literally anything that allows for transferable skills to whatever full-featured ("bloated") engine we're using?
>FUCK NO I MADE MY OWN SHITTY 2D "ENGINE" FOR A FLAPPY/ANGRY/ETC BIRD RIPOFF THAT WILL NEVER BE FINISHED
>I see, have a nice day.

>>272976710
>Implying I would ever slave myself for spare cash in an "AAA Company"
>Implying one wouldn't investigate before taking a job
one of all those engines you listed are good and fine, except for unity.
If you don't get that building your own engine is better than fucking Unity then you're just wating your life

>>272966061
But anon,someone needs to know how to make a wheel in case the current wheel makers ever retire.

>>272975175
Don't unless youre fine with giving 4% to them forever

>>272975175
UE4 has a navmesh system that so far seems very similar to Unity's, with obstacle avoidance and all that stuff built into the navigators just like Unity's. I haven't found any big difference between them. AI is one area where I could see Unreal being a little easier to work with, just because it has its own state-machine window kind of like the one you use for animation in Unity.

So far UE4's API seems like it can do just about everything Unity's can do, but their documentation isn't anywhere near as good. Epic also gives you full access to the engine's source code if there's something you just absolutely have to tweak, but I haven't found a need for that yet.

Really though, unless you have a dedicated artist working on the visuals, you probably won't see any huge benefits from switching to Unreal. Yeah, it's capable of letting a typical professional game artist do much more with visuals than Unity can, but really, the biggest reason that AAA Unreal games look so much better than indie Unity games is precisely because those Unreal games are made with multi-million-dollar budgets and armies of experienced, professional artists. A typical indie game probably wouldn't look much different on either engine.

UE4 also has a steeper learning curve, and the overall workflow doesn't feel as fast as Unity's. With Unity I can add a completely new feature to a game by just writing the code, attaching it to a new model (or existing! which can't be done in UE4) all in the MAIN WINDOW and you're ready to go. With Unreal, expect to go through several windows for any new thing you want to add.

>>272977309
You can't talk shit about working for a AAA company, then talk shit about the most indie-friendly game engine out there in the same post, THEN act as though using a ready-to-go and highly extensible engine is a bigger waste of time than writing your own shitty engine over the course of years for whatever shitty game you have in mind. The level of stupidity needed for that is too high even by 4chan's standards.

>>272978793
ik, thats good to know. maybe ill try Unreal after i finish my current project then.

thanks annon

>>272979293
did you even read my post?
I said Unity is shit, not all the others.
Those have actual constant development behind them, more than your "highly extensible" Unity.
I said shit is better than that.
And I worked on firaxis until 2 years ago, I know exactly what I'm fucking saying.

>>272979951
>on firaxis
Do you mean "at firaxis", or is there a game engine called firaxis?

>>272979951
Did you even read MY post? I'm well aware that you're talking about Unity. You seem to be aware of this too, since in your very next sentence you address the comment I made about Unity.

Your reading sucks and your grammar sucks. Guess I was right about the level of stupidity going into your comments.

>not using CryEngine

Still mad that the original CryEngine 3 will never EVER get released