Is it a good engine for a Indie FPS game?

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hello, I have been working with Unity for a couple years but I don’t like its graphics any more and I would like to jump to engine to create an Indie FPS game based on II World War which with some time will change to future environment against monsters(game based on single player with interesting story + multiplayer). Is it a good choice to make game in engine which I wish to include very high graphics quality with my own models from Blender including characters, weapons, environment etc.?

2

In my opinion it’s a good choice to use engine for a fps game, because the engine is really easy to use, there are many templates which you can take a look at, a friendly community, blueprints,… :slight_smile:

3

Absolutely, Unreal is the best FPS engine as the devs used it to make every Unreal game and the templates are really helpful and in addition there is a lot of FPS animsets in the marketplace.

4

UE4 is great choice. Multiplayer is great (You can check out Unreal Tournament 4 gameplay). But You HAVE TO LEARN some UE4 tech ASPECTS before start.
Such as

  • Baked GI (no level dynamics with built light, still can be achieved with dynamic lighting)
  • Mesh based level design (BSPs ain’t working well)
  • C++ code (most of AI and gameplay behavior can be done with Blueprints; some folks added C# through Mono)
  • Still in DEEP development (editor mostly)

Some games already released on UE4

  • Refunktion (free, great example of blueprint driven gameplay)
  • Lili: Child of Geos (not a ‘game’ but a graphics demo tps/rpg =))

List of games can be found here:
://www.moddb/engines/unreal-engine-4/games
://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games#Unreal_Engine_4

5

UE is the FPS engine, but making indie FPS now is kind of pointless, your game will compete with all those big sharks out there. I would say that making more AAA fps games for now is quite risky unless you have some fun and new ideas for gameplay.

6

I will look for more tutorials about those but I have already watched a lot of them generally. Is the multiplayer build in the engine or it needs scripting and external files?

I do have a nice ideas :smiley: My game is going to start as a standard IIWW game, and the first mission will be to escape the concentration camp and it will finish up with futuristic weapons created in the nazi labs, that will be used to kill monsters on the streets where actually the monsters are predators and we are the prey :slight_smile: just a quick describe. I will put big pressure on campaign and story.

Thanks everyone for a respond on my post! :smiley:

7

S-ed could you elaborate on why BSP’s are not working well? I’ve never heard from anyone else.

8

Why would it need to compete with the big sharks? There’s plenty of market out there including users who play AAA games.

9

Too many BSP’s (or complex BSP’s) can cause a significant performance drop compared to a static mesh as the BSP is still in an editable state.

Best solution for is to model the BSP into the shape you want, and then in the details panel of the editor under “Brush Settings” click on the button to expand the advanced options and select “Create Static Mesh”, then choose where to save the file. You can now place duplicates of the mesh in your level and alleviate the performance issues, but it will not be editable from within UE4 (you can export out to a 3d package to modify if needed though).

10

Why wouldn’t there be some kind of option to automatically turn all BSP’s into static meshes? I was planning on using a lot of BSP’s in my levels but workflow sounds atrocious.

11

I think is a case of sounds worse than it actually is, is all you need to do :slight_smile:

staticmesh.PNG
staticmesh.PNG852×770 327 KB

12

Because BSP brushes are mainly used to create basic stuff/rough concept of the level/blocking the player -> so normally you just have some few in your level. So when you want to have separate meshes you will have to do all those steps again and again, but you could also select all brushes in the scene outliner and then you just have to do it once (but it will turn into one single mesh) :slight_smile:

But a button which turns all BSP into meshes would be really cool :smiley:

13

You are partially right, I was assuming that the static mesh would not replace the BSP (and I would have to go back and replace everything). However, I tried to convert a section of my level from BSP to static meshes and I’ve already run into several complications including invalid lightmap settings and collision settings that are set to bock all but aren’t blocking anything (is a bug?). I wanted to work with BSPs because it is extremely fast for a one man team like me, and I have no time to create static meshes for my levels. Is there a reason needs to be such a pain? The source engine uses BSPs and doesn’t require jumping through any of these hoops.

I assume once I understand how to fix these issues the process will be faster, but still I don’t think there needs to be a process at all and could be automated.

14

invalid lightmap settings -> double click onto the static mesh - add a value to “lightmap resolution” e.g 32, 64, 128,…
collision -> check in the static mesh editor if there is a collision (show collision). Otherwise create one -> (for basic meshes you can use the collision generation in the editor) :slight_smile:

15

Thanks for replying with the answers , I was about to post the same. :stuck_out_tongue:

Still, I think both default lightmap resolutions and collision meshes could be generated automatically. It’s just annoying to have to go into the settings for every single BSP in my level that I want to convert and change it.

16

I’ve got a question, do I have to pay anything more than just $19 per month if I don’t earn from my project?

17

When it’s not commercial you just have to pay the 19$ per month. :slight_smile: Otherwise:

If I release a commercial product, what royalties are due to Epic, and when?

Generally, you are obligated to pay to Epic 5% of all gross revenue after the first $3,000 per game per calendar quarter for your product, regardless of what company collects the revenue. For example, if your product earns $10 from sales on the App Store, the royalty due is $0.50 (5% of $10), even though you would receive roughly $7 from Apple after they deduct their distribution fee of roughly $3 (30% of $10).

Royalty payments are due 45 days after the close of each calendar quarter. Along with the payment, you must send a royalty report on a per-product basis. For more information, see here.

https://www.unrealengine/faq

Btw, you dont have to pay those 19$ every month -> even when you unsubscribe you will be still abel to use the engine, but you wont get any updates till you resubscribe

18

Thanks, I have seen FAQ but now I know what I needed. :slight_smile:

19

UE4 is a good Engine for anybody I have to repeat again-again on Reddit you only have to pay Epic per quarterly period and its .05% royalty fee $10 is like $0.05 you pay per 3 months only if you don’t make $3,000 or more you do not pay Epic and can get away making $100,000 a year. I read the EULA. The Engine is pretty self-explanatory I highly suggest taking a few weeks learning about the basic Blueprint and then weeks on 3D modelling and you will be good to go all that’s necessary is the programming language only if you want it to have a multiplayer access that most people would definitely want on their game.

C++ is not that hard to learn

20

Your math doesn’t make sense.

First, .05% of $10 is $0.005 – half a cent, so your illustration of what .05% is is not correct.
Second, the actual Unreal royalty (once you pass the “floor” of not having to pay) is 5%. ( means multiplying the income by .05 – maybe that’s where you got that number from and wrote it down wrong?)

5% of $10 is $0.50.

By comparison, places like Steam and Apple typically take 30%. Add 5% for Epic, and you still get to keep (100%-30%-5%) == 65%