So after years of contemplating getting into 3D, and learning some Cinema4D, which is limited to modeling and very counter-intuitive, and trying some Unity, I was convinced Unreal Engine 4 was the way to go.
I ended buying a WHOLE new Macbook Pro to test it and planned on later buy a whole PC.
What a huge disappointment. I understand Unreal Engine is a reference for engines, it says a lot on the horrible environment game developers have to work in…because here is my experience and all the thing I’ve notice which ended-up make me give-up Unreal Engine 4:
When you download the app, the last version is OSX compatible, it’s perfect, that’s all you would expect from a modern application.
you fire up Epic Launcher and you realize that the interface is not even compatible with high DPI…in 2015.
you install the engine, try to find the Marketplace asset you downloaded from the website but can’t find your “vault” and fire-up the engine
You realize that it has to start the engine, you have to start and wait for a single UE Editor to open-up, and when you try to bake light you realize that if you have a firewall, it simply doesn’t work
The overall of the interface is very screen-estate consuming and clunky
You try to save a projet, and define a default folder, you can’t, you try to retrieve your project, they’re not there, you try to open or add content from the vault and you realize this is the most non-sensical, obnoxious, out of this world way to manage it: you simply can’t fire up an Editor and open-up asset from content pack or just open an Editor with content pack and you have to add first add them to each individual project that the launcher doesn’t even find although you can’t even set the default folder to save these.
When I’m launching an Editor from the project library it is even asking for the build I want to launch it with.
Randomly the Editor is not even launching and stuck at 94%
Trying to launch a game build, but error came up
ETC…
Clearly this is the kind of obnoxiously bad app that I’ll waste more time debugging just to make it work normally than using. I’m really disappointed that Unreal Engine is not the modern engine promised bu just another 10 years old counter-intuitive interface that makes me understand why developing in 3D is so long, tedious, budget and time consuming…
I’m not sure what you mean, the vault is in the library tab at the bottom in the launcher.
I’m not sure why it doesn’t work with a firewall, but you should be able to quickly set a firewall exception
UE4 is built for development of high-end/top-tier games, which means any developer should need, and should expect to be able to view many things at once, 2 1080p monitors is my minimum recommendation for anyone developing a game regardless of engine. I personally feel that the UE4 workspace was well planned out, and is perfect the way it is.
I’m not sure why you are having problems with things not showing up, could be a problem with your system?
I feel a budget of at least $1000 for PC, or $2000-3000 for a Mac is a minimum for something like game development especially using an engine like UE4 which targets high-end platforms.
Edit: I definitely agree with darthviper’s post, these are very simple things, and don’t be afraid to ask around on the forums, we are glad to help.
Those are some very basic things, seems like you just need to go over some basic tutorials to get used to the editor.
Also, given you only have one post, if you have issues ask questions
Man you give up so easily the problems you posted are just small incoveniences you dont know how to fix yet.UE4 has a very steep learning curve, its not very newbies friendly but there are solutions for everything.
As for the layout and screen space consumption i can tell you are wrong, the problem is configuring a proper layout takes some time is not very intuitive which i can agree with it should be more user friendly but take a look at my editor layout >link< ,if you use the default layout i have to say you are doing it wrong because its not intuitive that the default layout is just wrong.
Trust me the biggest problem with UE4 and any engine is lack of proper documentation and VisualScript/C++ tutorials.
C++ should be learned on its own and programming and maths too but the UE4 C++ classes and functions work differently, thats my biggest problem tbh, the small quirks you mentioned are nothing, you overcome those easily.
If you got discouraged from something that small you wont get far in game development; programming/game develop etc its all about documentations/configuration/ fixing problems etc, try to solve the problems before giving up, i know its frustrating, no one said its going to be easy.
Its not easy on any engine.
Of course modern game dev is not like clicking a button and your game is ready. As Darthviper107 said, you have some very basic problems which are easy to solve. You just need to spend some time in watching tutorials.
Developing a game - especially programming - is about solving problems. If you want a specific result, you need to find a way to get it and rarely the easiest one is the one you should take. If you give up because of minor problems you could easily solve, you shouldn’t start developing a game.
There you have your problem, using a macbook for anything other than facebook and internet its problematic, those have literally NO power at all for anything game related, very pretty though.
Also,there is no game engine that has the legendary “make awesome game” button. You need to work and its not easy at all.
I’m not a professional in the gaming industry, but I have seen and worked with some game engines. UE4 is by far the best I’ve ever seen! Some engines dont even have a user interface at all!
Compatible with high DPI… those applications are hard to find! Its not a UE specific thing.
Not sure how it works on the Mac, but in Windows its one click accepting the port to be opened for the light building application and after that its never a problem. One click, and it simply works
I’ve seen quite some applications in my life. Epic did a remarkable job with the UE4 interface, believe me!
When clicking on a 4.7 project in my library, it opens engine version 4.7. Same with 4.8. But perhaps I dont understand the problem correctly??
Never had any problems with this. Must be something in your PC or OS config??
What error? Perhaps we can help you??
Is UE4 the first ever application you open?? Seriously, UE4 is a very good application. Even compared to other non-3D/gaming software.
Note: This is a “reactionary” post. This is not meant to be an absolute critic but rather a relative one to shed light, from the step-back of a complete newbie who’s a designer (and I believe lots of tools, including 3D engine are heading toward a more intuitive machine-to-man semantic language and interface) to make people at EPIC realise that: there are lots of basic problems, errors, bugs (which is more or less to be expected from most software) but more importantly from an interface, workflow, UI logic point of view.
The fact that it even works (at least the Lightning, Sci-Fi Hallway etc…demos) on my Macbook Pro (13,3 with Intel HD 6100 which is a very underpower) is impressive.
Still, as I said, the number of problems I encounter and impracticalities makes it almost unusable. I can understand that there are some basic concepts and processes that might seem “normal” like the fact that you have to pre-bake, choose and adapt even lightning for each sources and object or that applying texture is still a very obnoxious process (and worse if it wasn’t for materials) etc…I can understand.
But the fact that you have to fire up a Launcher, an Editor launcher, an Editor, that might or might not launch and has the lightning rendered has to connect, that project management and the way you can access, import or open other vault assets is a mess etc…that’s not good.
You don’t have to do these things at all. You can just launch the editor straight into a current project. Other things, like lighting bakes or the application of textures via materials, are intrinsic to how games actually work.
As others have said, there are multiple ways to load up your project. For example, if you just double click on your UProject file, it’ll automatically load up the editor and your project instantly. Great for getting into your project quickly.
I don’t want to come off as rude, but did you check out tutorials on how to properly use UE4 before delving into it?
You said yourself, that you have little to no experience with this.
With that being true, why did you think that this WOULDN’T be overwhelming?
You have to understand, a lot of the people here have roots in modding on other engine or have been using UE for a long time.
Trust me when I say, you’ll be lost fast if you are just getting into this and decided to not watch a single video or read a single book on what to do…
And I’m not referring to UE specifically, this is with any engine and game development in general.
Mac support, may be an uphill battle, I can’t say as I do not have a mac or macb pro either one, but I can say with certainty, that if ue4 works ‘reliably’ with mac osx, its not the mac that will not be able to rise to the occasion and handle 3d. Macs come with just as much power , as Pc’s, I"ve seen their stastics, they have i7’s too , ahem.
HOWEVER, I will say this, if you buy a mac from the apple store and expect to do hardcore 3d game development, you wont be doing it ON your mac, you will very likely be using a hdmi cable out to your big lcd display, because it seems, mac discontinued their 17" laptops ? I can’t find current ones.
You can get them from ebay or amazon however, even with warranties for extra cash, faik anyway that currently holds true.
Intel’s HD 6100 is the problem it will never be good for developing with UE4 with exception of some GTX models stay away from any mobile GPU even dedicated ones let a lon a GPU fused in the freaking CPU like the HD 6100 .intel drivers suck no matter how good/powerful their architecture and design even a 5 years old desktop GPU from Nvidia or AMD is better , buy a pc with something like Nvidia GTX770 or GTX960 and up if you want to have a smooth experience if you only go with laptops because you need the portability , stay in the range of gtx960/gtx970m/780m/880m/ GTX980m otherwise forget about laptops for serious development .
Why would you buy a whole new macbook if you knew it would come with a piece of **** onboard Intel chip? That was a HUGE waste of money. Also, working with **** like Cinema 4D, have you actually used it or you just downloaded it, tried to follow a tutorial, and quit? Because to buy it costs thousands of dollars, that is a professional 3D program, meant for high end professionals, to make amazing looking CGI ****… I really hope you didn’t previously buy a Mac for that program too.
To get a Mac desktop with specs equivalent to a windows desktop costs like 3x as much, everyone knows that. I mean even if you didn’t, did you not try to compare prices of similarly spec’d windows and macbook computers? Of course you didn’t… because if you looked at the minimum recommended requirements, it wants more than a ****** intel chip. It wants a real video card, something made in the last 2 years at the very, very least, especially if you’re trying to make a game for the PC, and not just 2D mobile games.
Return your mac if you still got the receipt, and go here http://pcpartpicker.com/ and get a proper PC.
And you can go even cheaper for the 960, 870, 860, 780/770. All at least 2x cheaper than the CrapBook Pros.
That is OP’s problem. He wasted money on a stupid brand name facebook machine, when he could’ve used half of that cash to either hire a dev for tutoring/making part of the game himself, or buying nice plugins, or 3D model/animation/texture assets, all kinds of nice things.
Hey All. Another UE newb here. Been learning it for about 3 weeks now. There have certainly been times when I wanted to scream and rip my hair out, like spending the better part of a day and a half just trying to fix a registry error, so I could get Unreal to install:mad: but I knew this wouldn’t be easy. People spend years in college learning to develop games. In spite of the moments of complete frustration, I’m loving the experience. When a situation starts to really **** me off, I find the best thing to do is back away. Focus on learning another area for a little while and give myself time to breath lol. Best case scenario, I hope in a year I will be at least close to not calling myself a newb anymore Hope You hang in there and stick with it, Sinay. Best of luck in Your journey.
You’re experience would be greatly improved with a more powerful system running multiple monitors.
For instance, my computer specs:
i7-4770k @ 3.5
32GB DDR3 @ 1833
EVGA GTX 760
SSD
24" & 22" monitors
While fairly beefy, I’m at the point where I want need an update.
another SSD
additional or upgraded GPU
replace 24" & 22" with 2-3 30+" monitors.
That, or a whole other machine.
Mind you, I’m up to the point where I run Visual C with Incredibuild + Visual Assist, at least one instance of the UE4 editor, Skype, Firefox, Notepad++, remote connection to server machine etc etc.
Yeah… so upgrade if you can.
Aside from greatly improving your ability to work with UE4, you’ll also become one with the PC Master Race ™.
And thank you for the follow up post.
It was more constructive you’re original one
If you do stick at it, hello and welcome aboard!
I’m a UDK3 user not a UDK4 one. When I heard about how it was the next step to UDK3 and now that it was free. I tried it… didn’t like it.
The interface is no more distinct but more like a unity clone. In UDK3 it was cool everything was in his own easily accessible button, now it all spreaded everywhere, the game screen is so tiny. The other thing that make me ragequit it’s the bluprint who is based on C+ rather that unrealscript with no other coding mode choice(contrary to unith who offer more option). It was just a question of second before I was lost in it.
+the engin is somewhat crippled on my ‘‘old’’ computer
Hope You hang in there and stick with it, Sinay. Best of luck in Your journey.