switching from quest3d

Hi I’m thinking about switching from quest3d to either unreal or unity.
Unity has a lot of third party visual scripting tools, I see that unreal has this thing called blueprints.
I was wondering if you can really do everything with blueprints or beyond some basic actions you’ll have to rely on traditional scripting.
Consider that I’m an artist, I can handle a visual scripting tool but I’m totally scared by code.
I’d like to hear your opinions, consider that with quest3d I really never write a single line of code, every single aspect of the game is handled by visual logic.

hi

Yeah you can do pretty much w/e you want with blueprints : check this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFZCp4xsPmo. And the best part is that you have the same perfs with blueprints and pure C++ code. (at least for no AAA games i guess).

You can do kind of everything small to medium sized game needs. But best way is to work with hybrid approach of blueprints and c++ code in mind.
You prototype everything in blueprints, then you ask programmer to make new blueprint nodes for you, or simply move your prototypes to C++ level.
There are people reporting problems and crashes, lost and corrupted files with blueprint. So C++ is safer for now.

If you are making some small game or prototype, blueprints are fine. But when you start thinking about real game, you need somebody who can move all your blueprints to C++.
Also for bigger teams than 1 or 2 people, you need some kind of version control (like git). Bigger you go more C++ you need.

But do not worry hardest thing with programming for Unreal is learning all those classes, variable types and what they are for and how to use them.
You learn all that while working with blueprints. Then programming will be mostly writing fuunction calls instead of dragging lines, not much difference.

Also get source code from github, there may be (i hope) useful comments inside code. I am not sure yet, because my git didn’t git all them sources yet.

I actually developed a complete game with quest3d. I can’t tell you how “big” it was since it is my only game so far, but for me it was complex, It was a turn-based strategy games, with lots of screen, options, and even an a.i.
I didn’t write a single line of code, everything was done with visual blocks, and yes it was complex to debug but not impossible, the only thing is visually organizing your blocks (something an artist is supposed to be very good at).

What I’m trying to understand is if there’s a technical limit to what you can achieve with blueprints or is purely a choice. I mean, if you don’t care about graphs getting huge, if you don’t mind about debugging by searching tons of tiny flashing boxes, can you technically make a complex game like a mmorpg? I wrote mmorpg not because I want to develop one but because probably it’s the most complex kind of game to develop, it requires networking, dynamic loading, database connectivity.

I’d like to avoid spending a year or so in learning ue4+blueprints just to discover that there’s a techincal limit that I can overcome only by learning c++ or hiring a coder something I really can’t afford to do.
So I really don’t understand when people write that you’ll still need a coder. Do you need it because it’s more polished to code something rather than creating a huge graph? or because simply blueprints do not provide you with enough nodes to complete a game from a to z?

Blueprints have breakpoints and debug filters, and you can probably do some debug interface/log easily. So debugging should not be a guess and try game in blueprints.
You can do huge blueprints, or split all logic into separate “black boxes” that you call. There are also macros. Epic have some brilliant coders, or artists that can push programmers in right direction.
So there probably is no limit to size of blueprints, and you can structure them very well.

There are probably technical limits when you want some non implemented functionality, like MMO server/client, augmented reality for android/ios, SQL integration, not sure if all possible android sensors are implemented.
But since unreal code is public and Epic encourages community to fork and add custom modules, we we will have those niche extensions soon or later.