First of all: I am definitly new to UE.
I dream of making a simulation for mass combat in a fantasy setting.
I have some questions though in which way I should head.
But first I would like to describe my progress so far as to add some light and life to my questions:
My starting point was to implement a rough simulation of some 1000 Orcs vs 1000 swordmen (with a rather rudimentary graphic) in another programming-language based on the D&D rules (tabletop fantasy setting):
https://youtube.com/watch?v=URf1HccJKhE
I also implemented arrows, riders and was able to set thousands of individuals against each other (though these clips where not life-footage):
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BUga17NO9n4
As scrolling around the “map” became an issue I took advantage of OpenGL 1.3 and changed to 3D (and also included flying units and magics):
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1q8R8s04j8g
Representation of the units was still VERY rough and so I included some finer meshes, some of them created with makehuman:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vyKwWe9czhE
Matter of fact I can not deny that while I was quite content with the “game”-mechanics (in regard of this early state) I wasn´t really satisfied about the 3D art.
Though I am not a guy who needs an realistic presentation in games (as you might have guessed from my above examples) a bit more decent presentation of the individuals might come handy.
I also hoped, that a game-engine might also simplify some other game mechanics (like path-finding etc.).
So I gave UE a try and made my first prototype of 100 orcs vs 100 swordmen (actually they are rather playing football instead of fighting):
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KaEQUGvmxuU
When I did the same with 1000 orcs and 1000 swordmen it came clear that such a simulation would be “unplayable” cause of “lagging” (at the moment). The following footage is made with matinee and not real-time-streaming:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KaEQUGvmxuU
I replaced the complex meshes with simply cubes but it soon came clear that (the way I did it) about 1000 characters is the maximum in regard to playability (with a modern middle-class GPU).
I would like to make some more experiments with UE, but I simply don´t know the engine well enough to know in which direction I should head to get far better performance while still keeping thousands of characters. I could accept MUCH less detailed graphics and would also accept that the characters are not animated (like chess-figures), maybe also 2D pictures placed in a 3D map, but would like to hear your opinion about it:
-
Is the Unreal Engine at all the right tool to head for what I want to do?
-
Do I get (much!) more performance when I change to NOT animated actors instead of characters?
-
Do I need to change to a 2D representation of the characters to be able to display thousands of units? If yes: Would widgets be the best way to implement them in UE?
-
Any other suggestions how I could speed up things a lot?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
#screenshotsaturday
#unrealdev