Help Me Decide Unity Over Unreal

[Daryl Allison]

Hi all,

I'm hoping the community can give me a crash course in why Unity is a
better decision than Unreal. If I can be convinced that Unity is the
better choice, then I will need to recruit 2 or 3 of you as well!

I can't go into much detail without NDAs, so...
* This isn't a game product, but it will have some game like
features, a game quality UI, and onboard training (probably in a 3D
environment).
* The platform is closer to a mobile phone than a console, in terms
of specs, performance and screen resolution.
* Need ability to reproduce photorealistic environmental effects:
snow, fog, rain, dawn/dusk/full daylight, etc. Doing this in real-
time is preferred, but having the engine churn on it and result in a
video is acceptable.

I know Unreal can do what I want it to do. I know engineers and
artists who can produce the desired visual quality with Unreal. I
know I want to find a more cost effective solution.

What say you Unity group?

Thanks!
- Daryl

[Shay Pierce]

Hey I remember you from Midway. :)

All I have time to say is that I've worked in both engines and enjoy working in Unity more, I find it easier and faster to get things done in it - and as you pointed out the price is right. I think there's great people behind Unity, it's already great and it's only going to get better.

But if you want a solid and performant UI solution, you'll need to spend another $200 on one of the GUI extensions that people sell on the Unity App Store; Unity's built-in one is painfully hard to work with (no WYSIWYG); and its performance is terrible, which will kill you on slower mobile devices. Unfortunately I never got to try any of those UI extensions so I can't recommend any, I can just advise against using Unity's default solution, it burned me on two separate projects.

Shay

[Dmitri Wolf]

I've heard that Unity is about to unveil a new solution to their GUI dilemma. As it is, it's really not quite as hard as you might think. You do need to put all your textures on one or two sheets and use tiling and offset to access each one, so buying a tool isn't absolutely necessary, but forking over the $200 might be worth it if Unity's solution doesn't appear soon.

Other than that, after two years Unity just gets smoother and smoother. I now have Unity talking to my html pages so users fill out a reg form and sign in before launching my app. I work with Unity apps for business (not games) as well, so I also have Unity storing info to MySQL and even sending emails using php.

[Daryl Allison]

Shay, Dimitri -- Thanks for your feedback. It's good to hear of
Unity's ease of use overall and some thoughts on how it compares to
Unreal.

I'm curious if anyone has worked with Unreal on any of the mobile
platforms and not the PC/console version of the engine?

While Unity is easy to work with overall, how is it when it comes to
producing photorealistic scenes? The environmental effects are the
most important for the project I'm working on. I'm not overly
concerned with the objects and animation. I'm confident we can get
the quality needed in either engine. When it comes to lighting, fog,
snow, rain, wind, etc. is where I would need Unity to shine.

We don't need to build something on the scale of Gears of War 3. We
don't need to produce an end result on par with a game like that. We
do, however, need to create photorealistic environmental effects.
Scanning through videos on YouTube, I haven't seen any Unity 3D engine
demos that pushed the visuals far enough.

[Dmitri Wolf]

Daryl,
There are some very nice rainy day effects on the Unity 2010 highlight reel here:
http://unity3d.com/gallery/
Check the rain starting at 2:26. Note the reflections off the wet asphalt, also the steam rising from the manhole covers at 3:00 and 3:10.
That's Unity doing their best to brag about their effects, and this is the best I've seen. Note that using the available effects in context is the best way for things to look better. The shiny asphalt is a simple effect, but looks great in a dark scene. The steam from the manhole covers also is very pale and light, but it's on a dark background that makes it look so subtle. If the scene was bright it would be much more difficult to make the effects look subtle.

[Daryl Allison]

Thanks Dmitri!

- Daryl

On Jun 29, 5:13 pm, Dmitri Wolf <pinonw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Daryl,
> There are some very nice rainy day effects on the Unity 2010 highlight reel
> here:http://unity3d.com/gallery/
> Check the rain starting at 2:26. Note the reflections off the wet asphalt,
> also the steam rising from the manhole covers at 3:00 and 3:10.
> That's Unity doing their best to brag about their effects, and this is the

> best I've seen. Note that using the available effects* in context* is the

> best way for things to look better. The shiny asphalt is a simple effect,
> but looks great in a dark scene. The steam from the manhole covers also is
> very pale and light, but it's on a dark background that makes it look so
> subtle. If the scene was bright it would be much more difficult to make the
> effects look subtle.
>

> On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Daryl Allison <daryl.alli...@gmail.com>wrote:> Shay, Dimitri -- Thanks for your feedback.  It's good to hear of