I’m just curious, if someone has experience with both Unity and Unreal 3 Engine, now the Unreal Development Kit. How much easier is Unity exactly? or is it easier at all?
I’m trying to decide which one to learn and Unity seems so nicely put together, well documented and all that.
And UDK just seems so daunting. Is this just how it appears? Or does UDK become the more slick development platform once you get down some of the basics?
Yes, Unity is easier, both to learn and when dealing with asset import workflow, though overall asset management is going to be down to whatever solution you use, Unity now supports Subversion and Perforce though so for most small to mid sized teams that’s plenty.
It’s important to remember though that easy is subjective, you need to try them both and see which one you find easiest and the most enjoyable to use. Personally I find Unity gives me instant gratification while UDK gives me flashbacks to the early days of desktop 3D, however it’s power in the right (and patient) hands cannot be denied.
UDK is for modders, very Unreal strict, it commes with a moddified demo version of UT3. By default your game is FPS ready. Is not a general purpose engine as Unity.
If you would like to become a level designer and look for an industry job, or wana make a quick UT FPS clone, go ahead, otherwise stay away it pretty hard to make something else…
Not to mention that getting your assets into the Editor, is painfull and requires lots of steps.
Sure, the Editor’s tools are better than Unity ones but in my case, i cannot trade low level control, easyness and asset integration for a bunch of fews nice tools…
Dont get fooled by Unreal eyecandy capabilities, you can get similar results with Unity 2.6. Did you know that UE3 do not support more than one light casting shadows on the same object? The engine, will switch shadows automatically to the nearest light. A directional light will allways switch off any light’s shadows!
Perhanps, this is not the case with CryEngine…
It’s not all bad though eh :twisted:
I’m conflicted on this.
On one hand Unity offers a better overall value, toolset/editor, scripting system, and asset pipeline… but yeah, it’s the unreal engine with all it’s name recognition, and yes though it’s mostly eye-candy, that could potentially steal people away from unity.
The UDK license is insane. You get the full featured package and don’t have to pay for a license until you’re ready to sell. Compare this to Unity where we can’t use the engines full feature set unless we pay (very very little) up front but yeah, you never pay another dime. That’s really risky, now more than ever!
The UDK license states that it’s $99 and then 25% after the first $5000.
I think the UDK directly challenges the Unity licensing model at least on the PC. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this is happening when Unity is starting to pick up speed and become a buzzword at GDC. Epic has for ages been known as the reference for game development done right with artist friendly tools but I think Unity has proven them to be rather outdated and they’ve raised the bar in many many areas.
I haven’t brought up Torque yet, that’s because given the statement above about Unreal being used for modders only where you can really only make an FPS easily… yeah, that’s Torque. Unreal is pretty straight forward to make all kinds of games. So is CryEngine for that matter. Are they as easy as Unity… nope. Does Unity have LightMass? nope. Does unity come with a full copy of SpeedTree modeler and compiler? nope. Are materials easier to build in Unreal? double yep. Does Unity have an animation tree? Nope. Does Unreal support fbx, obj, lwo, blend, etc etc? hell no. Does Unreal have awesome terrain tools or run on mac or support web publishing, iphones or the wii? nope.
I could go on and on but the point is that there are advantages to both unity and unreal and given the really really attractive licensing of the udk I fear it will cut a lot of potential developers from unity.
Nope, if price is an issue then people would go for unity hands down given that it is so much easier to use and code. And then UDK is priced at $99 once ready to sell and 25% of revenue. Unity3d may cost $1500 straight up for pro, but you can design your whole game in the indie version and just upgrade the shaders and what not when you are ready to sell. And taking away the developers profit is outrageous.
Without sources, i don’t see any interest on UDK, you dont have the same low level access as in Unity. Sure, Unreal modders will be happy now…
But am not a modder, am a game programmer.
If I was part of a large unpaid team hoping to find a publisher for my awesome FPS idea, I’d use UDK.
It’s a great opportunity for people in that situation. Then again, those same people could have worked on mod teams before to do practically the same thing.
Agreed + 1000
Unless you are actually programming Unity3d core itself you are only modding it with the SDK they gave you because you do not have access to the said engine core. Anything about Unity3d programming is modding game play feature. With no support for real time debugging I do not understand how you can actually say you are “a game programmer” and modders are not 
I have been studiying Unity3d for the past 6 months, then switched when displaying relevant information in the editor made me crazy because it was so laggy and it did not support real time debugging, I called quit.
I checked Torque3d out, it had real time debugging, C++ source code access (you do not have source code access in Unity3d), but the documentation is just plain inadequate for people that need to jump into the ship. Although the engine IS very interesting, it gets my second place for having multi-platform deployment like Unity3d.
Then UDK came out and I sat and checked it out carefully. The first thing that made me hesitate for the engine was the 25% cut on profits. Let me just state that after seeing that not only the engine has automatic voice recognition of wav for facial animation, easy and CLEAR modeling and animating tools, Easy integration with Nvidia shader tool (or you can use the visual material editor), a free liscence to speed tree (which costs 15,000$ per seat) a modern content browser. A visual scripting editor (that even my artist find easy to use, because its almost the same as XSI), stepable real-time debugging of scripts. Morphing animations on 3d models. Modern navigation system for AI integrated, Advanced cut scene editor… I could go on a couple more lines, but frankly, any other game engine available on WINDOWS has simply no chance of matching these features, its in its own league.
Now the question you must ask yourself is : do i need all this ? do you target browser games ? Do I even need shaders ? What is my target audience ? Do I target Windows-only games ?
If in any case you target hard core gamers and have a 4-5 people team, can handle 1 to 2 year dev cycle to learn the tools, and are not really interested in the free-online-MMO-Klondike-virtual-goods-that-has-no-real-value then this engine is for you.
Until Unity becomes debuggable in visual studio, I am entirely staying away from it, I find Torque is a better dev platform than Unity. But both have bad documentation. Maybe its me but any documentation that is under the level of Ogre3d (a free 3d engine), is not good if you payed for it.
If you are just plainly serious about making games, you can make games with any engine if you take the time to get it right. Right now, it has taken me a week to understand UDK, the Unreal developper network is very helpfull and the documentation is intelligent, concise and on par, if not better than with Microsoft. This summer it took me 3 weeks with a modeler to get the model importation right, in UDK its so well explained it took us 1 hour.
There are multiple books on mastering unreal like http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Unreal-Technology-Introduction-Design/dp/0672329913. The volume 3 on scripting is getting out 20th of December 2009 and should target UDK, I guess.
So my 2 cents are if you want to make a next gen looking game easily with good graphic editing tools for artists, go for UDK, the 25% IS worth it. This engine costed 1.5 mil. to liscence 4 years ago… (used in more AAA than you have toes and fingers) Its worth the 25% to get real reusable skills if you also want to have a job in game dev.
By any mean using UDK will cut the need to develop technology and you will be able to concentrate on making good game play instead !
Most Unity users are actually writing code, and most Unreal modders are not.
Using kismet is not programming.
Unity has very good documentation. Also the editor is not laggy at all, it’s very fast, so I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about.
–Eric
That’s actually quite a failure at an elitist attitude. You should realize that working with mods and UDK is game programming and there is no difference between that and modding. I’ve worked in the industry for quite some time now and you rarely see any high level game code in C++ so does that mean that every single game you build is modding and not programming? Of course not! Both require programming to get functionality, they are exactly the same thing and the only difference is project scope. Although ironically as we’ve seen in the past there are mods are actually larger in scope than many games. You would actually say the guys are Gearbox were not “game programming” when building Opposing Force? Of course not.
While I agree that I would do anything do have a debugger for Unity it does not make it impossible to develop with. We’ve recently ported our game in production from another engine to Unity and have had no issues at all. Do we miss having a debugger? Of course. But do the pros of the Unity platform outweight this fact? For us it does, but obviously as in your case your milage may vary.
Having used many other commercial engines in the past such as Reality Engine, Unreal Engine, GameBryo, and a proprietary in-house engine I can assure you that Unity is a quite capable platform even without having some of the things we miss such as the debugger. I actually prefer it to the other engines given the scope of our games and how quick and easy it is to put something together. Also considering our targets are iPhone and web it is a moot point. Once Unity Tech. adds debugging support it will just make it that much better. We found the documentation and examples were absolutely great and got us up to speed very quickly, and we have never seen performance issues in the game and/or editor at all.
Now note i am not trying to sway people from using UDK as if I was making a next-gen PC title and/or wanted to take a team and build it on the PC and pitch a fully prototyped game to a publisher hoping to land on consoles I would use it because publishers are all about lowering the risk/reward and if you are built on UE3 that is significantly less risk for them. And if you found Unity wasn’t usable for you due to not having a debugger who am I to say that it isn’t important I just wanted express what I thought about it from my experience.
EDIT: And while I agree with the post above stating that using Kismet is not traditional programming I can assure you that unless you want anything other than a UE3 mod you will definitely need game programmers to write custom UnrealScript so that the designers can do what they want in Kismet. And it is actually quite a nice tool to have to be honest and a big improvement to development and prototyping with Unreal by letting programmers focus on programming and designers focus on designing the game.
Put it this way…
Say, I just want to prototype a game and pitch them to publishers. I use UDK… it’s free during development.
If any publisher bites (say, for PSN or XBLA or Wiiware), then make a sale and they would be the one giving the 25% royalties to Epic (Not me!), unless they decide to reprogram the whole thing from scratch.
But lets say everyone turns down my game saying it sucks, but I still believe in it enough that I’m willing to self-publish. Then I use Unity3D indie to prototype it, upgrade the game to Pro right before the final builds, then get chummy with any group of indies who already have their circle of cross-promotion and purchase system set up.
Of course like already mentioned, if I wanted ad-supported browser games or iphone, Unity is the only choice.
Steam is another beast… whether Unreal or Unity3D it doesn’t matter I suppose what you use… since I see that they can publish indie games made in both engines.
With all this talk of UDK I thought I’d go and see what’s what.
Is it easier than Unity was the question…
I’ve now been using it for about a day and I must say the editor is great although due to it’s complexity most options are/seem to be buried with the other options. This makes changing minor things more long-winded than the overly simplified Unity editor. All this though is due to lack of experience, my working in UnrealEd is speeding upevery minute.
Am I too concerned with web deployment? No.
Am I too concerned with Mac deployment? No.
Casual games? Not really.
So why did I pick Unity… For the fantastic workflow. As I am working on a FPS it does seem logical to move to UDK, but, as a sole developer, the money I have spent on Unity Pro is considerable. I’m planning on running with UDK for a month to try and convert my horror project, and to try and achieve the great visual results i have with Unity, I’ll make a development decision then.
A few people have talked about Unity advancing with every release and maybe by release 3.x it may be comparable with toolsets etc. This for me is not an option as I could never justify any further Unity Pro upgrade costs due to family commitments etc.
I do love Unity and I’m hoping Udk doesn’t “do it for me!”… That said, with only 1 days usage I’m making great advances… I have my meshes imported and textured without an issue, and the material editor is plain heaven.
Regards,
Matt.
I personally think it has more to do with the type of game you want to make. UDK, at least in my opinion, is made for First-Person Shooters and nothing more. The MMO that is being made with it (pardon me forget the name) is a fps type of game. I dont think any Unreal Engine is designed for making RPG’s. When I say RPG, I mean like WoW, or Guild Wars, or any type of gameplay like those. I think this is the major difference between the two engines, not including editor, source code ect.
Unity has the capabilities, and quality, to make the next Guild Wars. At least in my opinion. You just have to put forth the amount of time that not many people want to put forth. But that is just one type of game. Another that Unity has over UDK are RTS games. I dont think UDK can make these, mainly because it was not DESIGNED to do this. Unity has alot of advantages in areas.
With all these good things about Unity, not trying to say Unity is not good cause its amazing, Unity lacks on some parts. I am sorry but Unity isnt the best FPS Engine. I think it can look as good but UDK has the ability to look better. UDK was designed for FPS whereas Unity seems, to me anyway, to be designed for a greater variety. They are both equally as great and amazing, I just think it comes down to opinion. As I have stated mine 
I will be downloading UDK just to have it, and look at it. I think Unity is the engine for what I want to do right now, but I will make a game in UDK JUST to say I did 
UDK is a great tool for making FPS games, or similar games that don’t really stray for the general FPS mechanics.
And as others have said, its rendering is just more polished. That’s not a knock on Unity. Unreal is very specific in what they are targeting.
Unity is the Cadillac Escalade. Decent torque. Roomy, and can be used for a variety of purposes. Pick up the kids. Lug a bunch of baggage. A road trip with all of your buddies. And it can go decently fast. If something goes wrong, it’s fairly easy to fix.
Unreal is a Ferrari. You can’t bring your friends on a road trip. You can’t pick up the kids. You can’t lug a bunch of baggage. But if you want to go fast, you can go really really fast. If something goes wrong, it’s really hard to fix.
So, if you want to do a lot of things, then Unity will allow you to do that. It’s more forgiving an more practical.
If you know that you only want to go really really fast, then get Unreal. That’s what it was made for. It has its purpose, and it accomplishes it very very well.
Personally, I think if you have only a few people working on a project that you want to pitch to a publisher, create the entire level in Unity. Yes, even if it’s an FPS.
Then also create a mini-port in Unreal. Not the entire level. Maybe just one very small sequence.
Use Unity to demonstrate your unique gameplay ideas and awesome game mechanics.
Use Unreal to show how awesome you could make the game look. “With your investment, we could take those game mechanics you saw in Unity, but make it look like this.”
Then ask the publisher to buy you the Unreal license and a few million dollars for additional staff.
If you are pitching to a publisher you really don’t want to be showing them two different technologies you should choose to work with either Unity or UDK. Otherwise you look very unfocused. Sure it’s great you have it working in two technologies, but in project management terms it shows time wasted on side focus which is definitely a knock against you.
My personal opinion is that if I have a full team funded for pre-production (and I’m pitching to a publisher for production funding) on a title I’m hoping to push onto the 360 or PS3 I would probably look at using UDK, a good amount of the people on the team would already know how to use the tools and in a publishers eyes it is less risk.
If I was funding the title myself, was not funded and/or an indie or small company I would definitely be using Unity hands down (and no coincidence our company is just finishing migration of a production title to Unity). I find Unity to have a much more proficient workflow when you are looking at small teams, one of the strengths of UE3 is clear separation between jobs (i.e. designers with kismet, animators with their tools, game programmers using unrealscript to supply designers for use in kismet, etc) and this isn’t needed in a small team and sometimes feels like a detriment as people have to learn to use a variety of tools.
EDIT: I also strongly disagree with people saying that you can only build an FPS with UE3… considering nearly half of the UE3 games out there are not in that genre. There really is no reason why you can’t use it for any type of game at all I would love to hear the exact reasons why people are stating this? (not opinion but exact technical reasons). Having used UE3 before I’m just really interested what people have experienced with it that made them think this?
People are saying that ‘you can only build an FPS’ with UDK, not UE3. UE3 is full SDK, with source access. UDK is ‘just’ Unreal Editor with some new tools/features and ability to publish standalone builds instead of mods. There is no source access; you have to rely on UnrealScript. Which is not to say its impossible to do a non-fps game, but as people have already pointed out, you would be fighting the engine, because this isnt what it was made for.
As of now, only two games have been made with UDK - one is a simple example project, and the other one is UT3 mod ported to UDK.
I am unfamiliar with UDK but can someone tell me what the difference is between “only” getting access to UnrealScript and how Unity works? Each is only providing an API to the engine not the engine itself.
This is a sincere question – I am busy enough with Unity – but I am curious since I’ve heard the above before.