I’m sure I’m not the first person to say this but I’m new here. I would really like to make a third person espionage game (similar to Syphon Filter) but I have absolutely no experience making games. The only experience I have with video games is playing them, nothing else.
After a while of research I’ve become torn between two game making engines that can be used by a beginner: Unity 3D and 3D Rad.
I’m not a stickler for graphics (yet), as I consider a game’s storyline to be more important. I don’t mind if my game looks like it came right out of 1998 as long and I can make the game long enough to create a reasonable storyline and with decent in game features.
I imagine Unity offers the same and more that 3D Rad does, but realistically for a beginner video game maker, which is the best way to go?
Well I don’t know a whole lot about 3d rad - but one major difference is going to be coding. In unity you’ve got c# that majority of users seem to prefer, although there are plenty of javascript/unityscript diehard users too - and both of those end up with relatively similar end results if you use them right.
And so 3d rad uses “script”, a c-like language that might be significantly different than most traditional languages because it’s a special flavor of code specifically for 3d rad. So while you can’t copy and paste 3d rad code into another non-game ide and build code nearly the same, no matter what language your coding in the logic ends up working mostly the same with different syntax.
So what it comes down to is preference - and consider that the unity community is huge, with many millions of users worldwide with a large support forum that is very active. But really it’s about what your more comfortable with. I’d say dabble in both, test simple mechanics of the game you want, and see which lets you work faster, which looks better, which is easier, which suits you!
Edit: one last thing - plan ahead what platform your releasing on, as unity builds for a big bunch of consoles, mobiles, standalones, and Web builds! I believe 3d rad is only capable of standalone windows builds…
Prior to your thread I had never heard of 3D Rad nor the scripting language it uses. While it is entirely possible I simply failed to notice it back when I was researching alternative engines, I suspect it is simply less popular.
Unity’s advantages are pretty straightforward. It currently supports up to twenty-two platforms whereas 3D Rad appears to be limited solely to Windows. This may not have mattered as much in the past but now the majority of gamers are not actually on Windows.
Unity’s more popular scripting language is C#. It is an excellent language to learn as it is popular both inside and outside of Unity for both game and non-game development. Contrast this to 3D Rad which does not use a major language for scripting and thus it won’t really be used much outside of 3D Rad.
Because both the engine and the primary language are very popular there are a lot of learning resources available both online and offline. Unity has their own dedicated section with video tutorials. The community is very helpful and willing to assist newcomers with their problems as well.
Thank you very much for you help! I think I’ve decided to got with Unity for my main project and sometime down the road dabble with 3D Rad for small simpler games.
Thank you guys again for helping me with my new hobby.
I first heard of 3D Rad over a decade ago. It looked like an interesting option back then, but I ultimately chose other tools and it doesn’t look like 3D Rad has progressed much since then. I definitely recognize the skinned mesh model in that demo/tutorial, and considering I first saw it over a decade ago, that’s not a good sign.
The best way to go is not to ride a dead horse. And 3D Rad is one. Out of development since years now. And it was never any close to the power and easiness of Unity, even not in its best times. You have no working community anymore, no tutorials, no support. Just forget about it i would say.
I noticed that too, and the fact that I got these replies right as soon as I posted this topic shows the amount of help I can get with Unity. Unity it is! Thanks!
Unity all the way, i used 3drad for a while but trying to complete a game is near impossible as it looks good as you progress through your project untill you start adding rigidbodies and it starts to slow down and crash, the language is basic c with parts of pythonscript so some of the script is familiar in c# unity but some is not, funny i came across this thread as i just found a hdd with one of my old 3drad projects on it that was about 75% complete when i decided to move to unity, now i am trying to port this over to unity so i wonder if anyone knows an easy way to convert the code,. so my answer would be stick with unity, by all means take a look at 3drad as it is easy to use as most things are pretty modular drag and drop, but with support now discontinued a while ago there is a shrinking user base and getting help through the 3drad forum will be hard.
I am UNITY3d Beginner and have also used 3dRad a little. Unity is a more difficult that 3D rad in that you will have the to write script, but the help here is amazing. My advice from one beginner to another is to at least do the first three Tutorials in the learning section. It will give a real feel of what you are in for.
I think a Syphon Filter clone would be ambitious for a first game for someone with no experience making games. Everyone learns differently, but my path is going to make a very simple game based on what I learnt in those tutorials. Coding daunted me, but if you just follow the tutorial instructions, you will learn about a bit about coding as you go. Don’t expect to understand why all the code works, just follow the instructions, you will pick some things up and then bit by bit you knowledge of coding will grow.
Well thats whats working for me. Anyway, welcome to the forums. I think Unity is the best tool for someone wanting to learn how to make games and everyone here has been nothing but helpful to me.