Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

gist.github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 319 posts

Re: Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

#31

Post by barbecue_sauce »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #5

What is the learning curve on UE like? Unity took some time but it seemed reasonable for the tiny game I made. Also, is UE something to consider for 2D games? Or is Godot more the pick there?

UE is much more of a "batteries included" engine, so there are a lot more existing systems that you have to learn to integrate to make anything worthwhile. UE is a lot more inheritance-oriented than Unity. Unity's C# scripting is a lot more flexible and composeable. Also, even if you are an experienced C++ coder, learning Blueprints is absolutely necessary so that you can get a handle on all of the included APIs of the engine and common interaction patterns. Even if you do get a good grasp on the C++ APIs, it is much easier to compose a complex game object with Blueprints because there isn't really a "Prefab" concept like in Unity. (Some people will compare Blueprints to Prefabs, but I initially found them much less useful). The mental model for how levels work is also very different.

That said, I think UE is much more powerful overall, and worth learning if you take game development seriously.

Re: Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

#32

Post by andybak »

tonguez wrote: post #19

unity always required that you use a mouse to manually drag and drop certain things in its GUI interface (prefabs), and this is intolerable to people who feel like their entire project should be storable in simple (text) files. otherwise what are you supposed to do, take screenshots of the state of the editor when everything is dragged and dropped into the right place? it’s so bizarre

You can mostly avoid that workflow if you prefer.

Re: Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

#33

Post by mynegation »

theThreeTuples wrote: post #3

Unreal licensing is crazy compared to Unity. A % of revenue is millions of dollars potentially. You cant compare that to the fixed opex per developer seat with unity. It’s a strategic design for a company to use one or the other. So far in all companies I’ve worked for and have consulted for attribute their choice to cost and ease of hiring.

So it looks like there is a break-even point in revenue per developer above which Unreal is more expensive. The question is how often studios hit that.

Re: Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

#34

Post by cdash »

sidlls wrote: post #16
theThreeTuples wrote: post #3

Unreal licensing is crazy compared to Unity. A % of revenue is millions of dollars potentially. You cant compare that to the fixed opex per developer seat with unity. It’s a strategic design for a company to use one or the other. So far in all companies I’ve worked for and have consulted for attribute their choice to cost and ease of hiring.

To underscore the sibling comment: at the point where a "% of revenue is millions of dollars" the company can easily afford to invest in an in-house solution if it's that important for their revenue goals. The tradeoff is hiring a sufficient number of skilled game engine programmers to make that work. It's not cheap.

They don't even need to do that. If they are large enough where it would become millions there is a different license for them that they can negotiate with Epic.

Note: it doesn't have a royalty

Re: Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

#35

Post by akyu »

As a hobbyist I found Unreal to be far better than Unity. The technical debt that Unity has continued to accrue starts impacting you even as a casual user. It's a bit of a mess to be honest.

Unreal on the other hand has a very solid architecture and goes out of its way to be reliable and maintainable. Plus you have the full source available in your project to search through if you want to dig into the code. The code is generally well written enough that you can use the source code over documentation if you prefer. Blueprints are also great if you are prototyping things.

Also if you are interested in doing networked multiplayer, there is no comparison. Unreal's networking is fantastic, while Unity doesn't really have networking built in.

Re: Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

#36

Post by akyu »

leetrout wrote: post #9
dleslie wrote: post #7

I've worked with Unreal and Unity both, professionally and for many years. Several triple A games, indie titles, commercial sims, and social experiences. What sets unity apart by leaps and bounds is its asset store, community and educational materials.

Doesnt unity Just Work(tm) with git, too?

Other way around. Unreal works better with git.

Re: Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

#37

Post by keyle »

minism wrote: post #30

Having worked in Unity as a hobbyist for about a decade and considering the switch to Unreal due to obvious issues Unity is currently facing (3 rendering pipelines being the main one), I'd like to hear more input from the programmer experience in both engines. I think C# in Unity hits a really nice sweet spot: You have a powerful and expressive type system, can use nice high level features like async/await, you get (…

Having used Unreal for years in the past (UE4 only), I agree with you that C# would definitely win over the C++/Blueprint combo.

Over the years, especially since blueprints compile down to C++, I've learnt to let go and embrace a lot more this visual programming approach. And it does have its benefits. With a strict approach, just as you would in programming paradigm, the readability and 'visual scanning' of opening old code in blueprints really stands out. You instantly feel where everything is, much faster than scrolling up and down code, navigating to/from methods.

I've had experimented with Unity but I found at the time that UE4 was the way for me. At the time I was even working with some guys promoting UnrealJS or something, can't remember the name now, which was bringing JS to Unreal, but it sort of faded as it takes a monumental effort to bring another language to such platform. Ultimately, blueprints are fine, and I'm only using C++ for A* path finding or other heavy algo where math functions are the main focus. You can also make a library of C++ heavy math'ish things and expose them to blueprint. Overall It's pretty ok.

One aspect that is not talked about much is the weight of it all. UE4 was huge. Recompiling the engine was a 3-4 hours business. When I switched to Godot for lighter games, the whole thing was rebuilt in 5-10 mins.

Re: Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

#38

Post by mysterydip »

doikor wrote: post #21
sidlls wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To underscore the sibling comment: at the point where a "% of revenue is millions of dollars" the company can easily afford to invest in an in-house solution if it's that important for their revenue goals. The tradeoff is hiring a sufficient number of skilled game engine programmers to make that work. It's not cheap.

Also it is not just making a game engine but you also have to build some kind of a editor, script/animation tooling, plug-in support, etc. Basically if you are big enough that you can make your own engine the engine also has to be usable by non programmers making the actual content for your game.

Tools can be nearly as important as the engine. I've read several postmortems where the lack of good tools made the asset creation and testing pipeline take way longer than necessary, leading to delays and crunch to compensate.

Re: Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

#39

Post by hnthrowaway0315 »

Talking on sidelines, I really, really hope there is a new Unreal single player game that follow the veins of Unreal I. However, I do think given the complexity of post UE3 engines, it is extremely difficult for even a large community to push such a game out. Years ago I heard about a project that tried to recreate Unreal I in UE4 but never heard much about it. It just takes too much time and effort.

What's your call on this? Do you think it is actually easier for a small, dedicated team (say a couple of programmers, a handful of level designers and artists for example) to get the Unreal I remake in UE4 project done, maybe in a few episodes? The first episode could be from "Vortex Rikers" to "Terraniux", the second from "Noork's Elbow" to "The Sunspire", the third from "Gateway to Na Pali" to "Cellars at Dasa Pass", and the last from "Serpent Canyon" to "The Source".

Re: Unreal vs. Unity Opinion

#40

Post by isaiahg »

minism wrote: post #30

Having worked in Unity as a hobbyist for about a decade and considering the switch to Unreal due to obvious issues Unity is currently facing (3 rendering pipelines being the main one), I'd like to hear more input from the programmer experience in both engines. I think C# in Unity hits a really nice sweet spot: You have a powerful and expressive type system, can use nice high level features like async/await, you get (…

As someone who generally hates visual programming and just wants a text editor, I'd say blueprints is actually one of the most enjoyable of these. They really nailed the editor and you can have a lot of fun just playing around.

Also the c++ unreal shouldn't be compared to pure C++. You're working with the unreal framework which adds a lot of quality of life features. I've been working with it for the last month or so and while it's not as easy an experience as c# it's probably the cleanest c++ experience I've had so far.

Post reply on HN