hello guys,
As a newbie beginner /architecture student with 0 exp in coding. I got a chance this semester doing a project in unity. So this engine got my interest. After a lot of research here are my questions.
Ps. I don’t mean to say which one is better. I am just curiously asking these questions as I can not answer myself even with all of those research I did.
Comparing to UE4 why is Unity considered to be more beginner friendly? UE4 has a lot of built in artist friendly features like visual scripting, node based shader editor, particle system, 2d tile map editor etc. It seems like UE4 has a complete artist friendly system many years ago already while unity just rencently released shader graph, 2d editor (last year) and still doesn’t have official visual scripting. But why it’s still considered as more artist(coding newbies) friendly than UE4?
Why does it take so long for Unity to develope such user friendly system as shader graph, visual scripting etc… Aren’t these supposed to be fundamental features?
I am also planning to buy super tile map editor, Octave 3D. Do you think it’s still necessary ,considering unity has its own new 2d tilemap system and progrid and poly brush plugin?
As a new user, UE4 is probably a smidgen better than Unity but Unity has a far greater wealth of beginner resources than UE4 by a long shot. Even Unity’s own Learn Section offers a great starting point. That said, I think it’d be prudent to download both and give them a week long test drive or so to figure out which one works best for you as both Unity and UE4 are pretty complex bits of kit.
Sort of yes, sort of no. When UE4 came out, it came out swinging, building on the foundation that UDK/UE3 had before it. The fact that it took so long for Unity to get a visual shader editor is personally a little mind boggling, because writing shaders by hand kinda sucks but UE4 was also the first engine of its scope to lean so hard into visual scripting, so I think that caught a lot of people off guard.
I’ll leave this for other people to answer since I don’t really use Unity’s 2D tools.
Thank you for you reply! so the biggest reason for unity being more artist friendly is its compele beginner friendly community and tutorial session and superb asset store I guess? Is there any other reasons (like engine itself)?
One reason has already been touched on my @Murgilod , but there is another reason that you likely glossed over because you didn’t realize that it would become an issue and that’s having to work with C++. I know, Epic Games has node-based solutions for scripting, shaders, particle systems, etc, but you can only go so far with Blueprint.
Once you reach the point, and you will reach that point eventually regardless of how hard you try to stick with their visual systems, Blueprint is no longer sufficient for your needs you will have to work with C++ and while they’ve augmented it with a lot of support macros, the reality is it’s still way harder than C# for non-programmers.
It’s very possible that they’ve become fundamental features but it’s only a relatively recent thing. When Unity first became available these were not fundamental features by any stretch of the imagination. At best these were features that you found in engines that were designed to hold your hand or were custom designed for in-house use.
Since they’ve taken off Unity has wanted to implement their own solutions, but there were simply far more pressing issues that needed to be solved. For starters, Unity’s scripting framework (C# and Mono/.NET) was way out of date, the graphics needed serious overhauls, and so on. Visual node-based systems are way less important (because they’re built on these).
Thank u for u detailed reply!
So does the same thing apply to playmaker? What u mean is that playmaker, blueprint and all those node based editor have limits where those tools are no longer sufficient and eventually we have to work with the code. In that case, C# is way easier for non-professional programmer to pick up comparing to C++. Am I right?
Wow, then C# really makes unity popular then I guess.
Yes, it applies to every visual scripting language and is why the most popular of them have a way to create your own nodes when you inevitably run into a situation where you need a node that doesn’t already come with the language. A handful of third party assets come with custom nodes for the asset but most of them don’t.
If you want to be a game developer generalist, and you’re a beginner, I think Unity is far and away the best choice. The Learn section and millions of answered questions on the forums and Unity Answers puts UE to shame. I have never had an easier time learning a piece of software, by a large margin, than with Unity.
However I hear that artists have a fairly easy time just setting up scenes that look great in UE4, so I think if that’s all you want to do then UE4 is probably the way to go. I can’t vouch for the real utility of blueprints - they are not incredibly pleasant for my programmer brain to deal with, in my limited experience with them, but your mileage may vary.
In the long run, you should try both, and only your experience will tell you which to choose. The jury is still out as far as I’m concerned, and they may never be back.
Thank u all! So I can conclude that unity is more user friendly mainly because of simplicity / usability of C# coding language and a compelete active helpful forum assets store and community?
Well it’s just because sometimes it doesn’t make sense for me that UE4 has so many node based system and unity has just recnectly developed them. Hahahaha
When it comes to programming, the question is how useful blueprints have been in finishing and shipping games? I can see why they’d be fun to use as a beginner, but are they an alternative to programming? I think the answer is clearly no. They don’t offer anywhere near the same level of control, they become difficult to manage when things get complex, and you depend on someone having created all the blueprints you need, someone who knows C++.
So Unity maybe skipped this one. I think they would have benefited from the Asset Store possibilities of blueprints, but maybe they had a better idea planned for the year 2050.
If you’re creating a game of any complexity, and you want to be able to craft it the way you want to, I think the artistic side depends on the graphics tools, which UE4 has always been strong with, and the programming side depends on how easy it is to work with the language and API, as well as the documentation, which I think Unity wins in. So UE4 having blueprints, in my opinion, didn’t really help them improve the programming side, since in most cases they only provide enough out of the box control for prototyping, and sooner or later you have to face the language itself. As for their graphics tools and workflow though, I think they put Unity to shame.
This comes up in every thread and honest to god I have played multiple quality release games that were actually well polished that were made entirely in blueprints.
Fair enough, that’s why I posed it as a question. But I would ask:
Where did the blueprints come from?
What happened when the dev wanted to add something that wasn’t in the blueprint?
How complex, at the design level, were the mechanics (I’ve seen a couple of very cool games made with blueprints, that came off as complex due to the artistic handiwork and amount of juice and visual/audio feedback, but really the games were not complicated in design). Not all games need to be complicated, of course, but some are.
I like the idea of blueprints, and I’m ready to be convinced, but I can’t see a way to make it possible to create anything you want with them unless you happen to get exactly what you’re looking for.
And I think it’s a possibility that needs to be considered that although blueprints enabled these games to be made (which is important in itself of course) the process of creating the game was nonetheless quite inefficient.
I have programmed a lot in C, C++, and C# over the years. C# is the easiest. It does not bother the programmer with pointers, and the C# syntax is often more clear. C# is my favorite language. It is fantastic.
You seem to have conflated beginner friendly and artist friendly. Decent artists are anything but beginners. Getting your head around all of the features that Unreal throws at artists is anything but beginner friendly.
Unity’s main advantage is that if offers a completely blank slate. The engine was built with no particular game structure in mind, and can be relatively easily manipulated to produce any structure.
The correct answer to why Unity is dominant today is pricing. Unity was the first engine to offer an indie tier. It was the first to offer free a free tier. And it still offers prices better then Unreal at every level.
The pricing means that every hobbyist, amateur and student for the past decade has gone to Unity as their first point of call. Then when these people moved into professional development, they brought their engine preference with them.
I’ve never really understood why UE4 is seen as making it significantly harder to produce certain types of games due to being geared toward FPS. Maybe there are some things that came from that, but are they really obstacles?
Really what turns me on with Unity is that the editor is so intuitive and straightforward, and dead simple (as well as the ability to customize it). The UE4 editor compared to Unity is like taking a game like Journey and adding scifi greebles, neon lights and ACES tonemapping with a contrast of 5.
I’ve only ever briefly played with Unreal. Spent a few weeks experimenting with it. During those weeks it certainly felt like it was pushing me into an FPS. Every default was geared towards an FPS. Things had to be turned off to to get it to a blank slate for other games.
Now if I had a few years experience with the engine, I have no doubt I could make games it it about as fast as I do in Unity. But getting those few years experience is rough.