New Here

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hi Guys, my first post.

I am not a game developer/programer and really know diddly squat about games in general. Other than of course, I am an artist and make a living at creating assets. So I understand the asset pipeline fairly well. Last year I had a job with a developer who was fairly new to game development. It prompted me to DL Unity and poke around a bit so I could also add my assets into the engine and have a look at it from that perspective, and also help t answer some of his questions. Well I never got too far with it after that. But I learned that it was not all that hard to understand the basics. And this planted the seed to start to learn more about game engines.

Primarily I am a filmmaker when I am not slaving away at creating content for games and flight simulators. Have a few live action films to my credit and some animation. Which leads me to why I am here.

I can see the writing on the wall. And I see the future of filmmaking lies in the growing game development field. What I am seeing out of CryEngine is just mind blowing, though I understand it is not the best - or rather easiest - development tool out there.

My interest in game development from a producer’s perspective is more long-term. I don’t see myself learning to create a game, pretty much ever. But at some point in the future I’d like to create some titles based on my films and visa versa.

For now I do want to learn to use a game engine for visualization purposes and I would like to work this into the pipeline at my studio and even use it to create digital films. I really do see this is where things are going and I’d like to get in now and start learning.

I have a feeling that CE would be the best visual tool. However from what I have been hearing it might even be a challenge to pull those things off well with the current state of documentation/features. Seems like some nice features there but, I don’t know. Feels not so intuitive to me from tutorials so far.

So just introducing myself and what I will be up to. I’d like to start off with some initial questions if you don’t mind.

  1. Any reason not to give up on CE? I mean, visuals are looking real good. For me now, that is the primary interest. But with the latest version of Unreal what do you guys think? My thoughts are to invest time and energy into an engine I will likely be using to develop (or actually hire people to develop) with in the future. This leans me more toward Unreal.

  2. If I start out with UDK just to get my feet wet, should I build any, say, levels there, will I be able to import those into 4? Keep in mind that these would just be sets or actors. Po programing or game play elements, or I should say, perhaps some animation and camera moves, but that is about it.

  3. Would I have to be doing any coding to get Unreal to work as a visualization tool? Or will it work pretty much out of the box to create cinematics?

And finally

  1. Will there be a vast difference between UDK and Unreal 4 in terms of me wasting my time learning the interface and other basics of UDK first?

That is about it. A long first post. Probably won’t be the last… :slight_smile:

2
  1. visuals mostly depend on the skills of the artist -> but the UE4 is steadly getting better (e.g the new foliage shading mode)
  2. No, you cant import levels from UDK into the UE4
  3. The ue4 works out of the box -> matinee
  4. You can start with UDK, but it’s better when you directly go with the UE4 -> but it wont be wasted time when you start with UDK :slight_smile:
3

Thanks for the answers.

OK if I start out with UDK I won’t commit to anything and only use it for learning.

A few other questions.

  1. What about point cache data? Can you bring simulation in for cloth or facial animations? I did not see that right off the bat. I saw a request for it last year. Being Worked on? I also saw something about being able to use vertex cache data from FBX though I am not clear from the threads if it is actually working or not.

One of the things CryEngine is promoting.

  1. Output resolution for Matinee. Is there a limit? Can you output 4K or above if you are willing to wait for renders?

Tons of questions but finding most answers from web searches. The answers to these two are not totally clear to me yet.

Thanks again.

4
  1. I dont know if there is a limit, but it’s possible to render in 4k :slight_smile: Click on Capture Resolution drop down and you’ll see Custom option. There you can set any resolution you want.
5

Thanks for the answer.

Looking over the lack of support for cache at the moment. Kind of a deal breaker for someone like me doing animated visuals. CE support for this seems top notch.

Any news on this for Unreal?