it might be not the best place to ask this but I know this community is very friendly so I give it a try.
I have huge problems to decide between cryengine and unity. I am going in the direction of a First Person Shooter.
This are no pro and cons about the engine, this a pro and cons for my project.
What I think about unity:
it outports linux and windows
Mecanim looks fanatastic (didn’t try it yet)
Huge community
Good developer support
Networking code must be rewritten for my project.
Would like to program in c++
Pretty barebone
What I think about cryengine
Can build on the existing gamecode
Graphics code is included eg lightshafts, water, reflections etc(Huge time safer,)
Networking code only need adjustments
everything is realtime, awesome for random generated levels
I can program in c++
Pricing model fits my needs
outputs only windows
editor seems not as stable as unity
Very small community
I would be the only developer. I know that it is possible to get unity to look pretty good but this needs a lot of work. Unity in general is pretty barebone.
Cryengine offers me a lot of stuff that i can use out of the box.
I really like that unity supports linux and the animation looks awesome too.
I can’t find too much information about the updated renderer in unity. And for some reason they named the update “directx11” but I saw they also support openGl 4.2. Are there some features that are missing for linux users?
How is the support of dynamic lightning? Am I still limited to one shadow?
Is unity still singlethreaded?
To someone who has deep knowledge about the renderer. How does it compare to cryengine?
if you had read his requirements/wishes, he’s far better of with CE3 SDK, since it fulfills right out of the box.
(since we don’t know the project details, we can only follow the information given (which is not much). So based on that information, CE3 seems the better choice for 511.)
I too did a lot of engine shopping and settled on Unity for the community and the licensing. With Unity you know what you’re getting and don’t have to apply for every single release.
Also: it’s easy to use/learn, it’s flexible, it’s light, it’s very stable, and it can do anything that the big boys can do.
If you really want to do some research, go for it. But let me tell you now, I’d put dime to dollar that you’ll end up here.
Not in terms what he wants/needs is included out of the box (or without much hassle).
Luckely there is more to it, besides money, to choose an engine.
I don’t say he should not use Unity at all, but reading up his list, ce3 has most things covered already (FPS gametype, which is what CE3 is optimized for out of the box, not that CE3 cannot do other gametypes, but that’s not what it is optimized for out of the box).
I always look at the less dificult road for the project. (turning an non fps optmized engine in to one, is harder work, than altering an already optimized/proven engine for fps gameplay.)
Probably your main deciding factors are:
1.C++
2.How important are visuals to you
If you are experianced programmer and if you are willing to learn C# or JS and if visuals are not your primary concern for game then its easy. Pick Unity.If not then you would be probably better of with CE but still depends what exactly would you be looking for feature wise.
Bigger portion of CE advantages over Unity are visual features such as some DX11 features, shaders, lighting, volumetric stuff… If those are not top on your priority list and neither learning of C# bothers you then you will be better of with Unity.
Can you successfully contact CryTek and wait for them to ship to you a contract for you to sign and send back to them?
That contract where you ensure you will pay 'em 20% of all your game’s earnings.
I ask that because CryTek doesn’t look easy to talk to when you are not a established studio, it’s such a pain to make them send you that contract and you CAN’T publish your game before you sign that thing; they clearly don’t care about small projects and if yours is small you won’t get that contract from them thus if you use CryEngine, your business is f*cked.
Unless you are making something just for fun and wish to let everyone download it for free on PC, at this case CryEngine is perfect.
If you want to make money, why care about engine features when you are legally a ‘hostage’ of CryTek when you use their technology and barely manage to have any serious talk to them about licensing issues?!
UT at least answers your emails, you know
:: Is just me who reads forum topics backwards? Dunno why, I always do that… omg.
Good one CE3 and licensing are two different worlds so it seems…
Epic with their UDK is more clear/transparant about the costs, and you can actually purchage a commercial license (one to the two types) on their websites.
So, indeed pure based on licensing, UDK would be a better fit (CE3 vs UDK) for this type of project.
Yes indeed you need decent and polished game to be able shipping it with cryengine royaltie license in first place. I guess thats quite good deciding factor to include.
I would instantaneously pick udk if I would have access to the core (c++). I need a lot of control with my networking and I am scared that I could be stuck in the future. (It is for my master degree). I still don’t know why c++ is only available for licensees.
there is a reason nobody uses it
i used ogre for 5 years then tried both udk and cry but settled on unity. its not perfect but better then others.
it was 6 months ago when i tried cry and it was not stable, no proper documentation and a messy sample code.
i do not know how things have changed over 6 months, if you have the time give it a try.
I agree the documentation is literally non existent. The code seems mostly clean to me and it is stable too. Gonna take some months to read though the whole codebase.
UDK and ce3 are nearly the same age (for indies) but have a look at the docu. UDK it is just insanely well documented compared to ce3. But it is still faster than starting from zero.
I am not an artist either. In fact, I shouldn’t show anyone my attempts at art. I’m a writer and coder, and my artistic level means drawing mutated stickfigures with apparent serious body dysfunctions…
However, I came to Unity by UDK by CryEngine. I would say that the CryEngine is a joy to work with - particularly the editor, because you get a lot of instant gratification in the form of ‘Ooooh that looks nice’. But the reason I moved away from it was because I couldn’t make it do what I wanted. Well, not without learning C++, and I simply don’t want to do that. In Unity I could function.
That depends on if you want to use Unity (Free) or Unity Pro ($1500).
Basically, no “dynamic lighting” (shadow) for Unity (Free). You can use “Projector” (shadow projector) for a very very rudimentary shadow (basically a disc shadow), or you can get third party solution like Shadow Volumes Toolkit for $30.
As to which one to choose, I think only YOU can decide. And you can only decide if you try and test it yourself. Don’t decide only based on people’s opinion.
