Just as a matter of curiosity, how have most Unity users adapted to UE4? I’ve found myself prototyping in Unity and then when I have the core logic / coding and art kind of how I want it I then bring it over to UE4 to add the “magic” so to speak.
I adjusted very well.
I have used UDK before Unity, but thought it too difficult and Unity a lot easier. Now, with UE4 and it’s constant improvements, I find it MUCH easier. There are still some things I have to learn in UE4 like the particles system, matinee, etc. I just haven’t found a use for them yet, so I didn’t try to learn it.
To me, I think creating art like materials and audio is the same on both, but it feels more professional on UE. Also, the templates are a godsend when learning how to create genres and it’s corresponding BP/C++ code.
Agree, I’m all for prototyping in Unity.
Having used it and UDK primarily, UE4 feels like a merger of the two.
Its just a pity that there aren’t more porting tools to help migrate WIP…
Personally, I took to Unreal very fast. I played with it for a little over a week before deciding to throw out our 8-month old Unity version and start over in Unreal. Maybe because it’s an older engine and I’m, well… kinda old, but the way Unreal is put together just makes a lot more sense to my brain. And when it doesn’t make sense, I can go look at the engine code and figure out where the disconnect is.
I’m surprised Unreal devs prototype in Unity, though. I find the iteration speeds to be much faster in Unreal. When we first switched, Unity might have been a little faster because UE4 Mac support was a little rough back then, but now, it would take me so much longer to do anything in Unity. Another team here is working on a Unity project and I’ll periodically help debug or profile, and everything just seems like it takes so… much… longer. Part of that is because we’re mostly a mobile shop, and I can go right to device from UE4, but have to output an Xcode project from Unity and then build to device.
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The wide variation of Assets, especially environments and complete project templates is key.
The marketplace has a long way to go regarding this and quality control. -
Unity’s componentized C# is quicker for test-driving code with no risk of BP-corruption.
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Unity’s graphics come close to UDK but run on much lower hardware (more potential customers)…
Great to hear some feedback, as Franktech mentioned I use Unity mainly for code logic. It’s pretty hard to break and easy to setup with instant results no matter what you do, the component thing just seems logical to my off centre brain. Plus it’s not hard to really convert between the two, I’ve found UE graphically much easier to get along with.
Shaders / Materials for example I’d prefer either GL or a Material editor in Unity, I’ve never got along with shaderlab.
It’s odd because personally I’ve found more complex topics (TOD, Procedural generation) really simple in UE4 with BP and some of the simpler things more difficult or time consuming.
@FrankTech would be awesome to have a Unity C# to UE4 C++ converter :D…
Oh lawd, you haven’t made up your mind yet? lol
Lol :), it’s all UE4 all the way. I just spent so long with Unity and find it easier to prototype, tis all :).
Not that my other team members agree with me.
Just curious, if you guys have already prototyped in Unity, why bother to port it to UE4? Is UDK level graphic quality not good enough? Or base on other consideration?
Obviously there’s prototyping a working game, and then there’s very early prototyping which is highly exploratory. If you progress from that, you may or may not have a game. Most of the time it goes nowhere which is like real world inventing… 
To start with UDK. Its still a really good looking engine, and physics-wise its pretty capable too. But its not great for exploring ideas, because pulling in assets involves lots of manual voodoo including INI-file-edits, copying of UPKs & UCs to specific folders, and frequent editing / merging of UC master classes / subclassing. In short, you can’t drag and drop assets like characters, weapons, vehicles into new maps as easily as you can with Unity. More importantly, Kismet drag and drop functionality is too-limited without some sort of experience with UC which has been deprecated.
Whereas tweaking C# properties to change how a vehicle or character moves is a breeze in Unity, and if you copy a bunch of assets into an existing Unity project using windows explorer etc, the editor will figure it all out for you. Seconds later, you’re dragging and dropping ready-built prefabs for third-person action characters, driveable Lamborghini’s, first-person sniper-kits and advanced AI-bots. There are caveats in that older packs (pre-U5) may need tweaking in the script and material departments. But overall, Unity is a breeze to prototype in.
Now, UE4 clearly surpasses UDK visually, and of course Unity, and it is the future… It also has a similar asset structure to Unity which is a vast departure from UDK. But at the moment the marketplace is still pretty bare, so you’re looking at having to A. do a lot of manual FBX asset imports & new mat set-ups. B. deal with a lot of UE4 crashes, and C. have much higher graphics hardware out of the box. Then, there’s the whole code porting issue…
But the UE4 and Unreal community in general vastly surpasses the CryTek and Unity3d community. When it comes to the point of actually building fully-featured games beyond prototyping, then UE4 is a much more welcoming and forgiving place to live… So I’m not advocating building games in Unity beyond prototyping, unless low-hardware, mobile or short-term-dev are your goals…
Hi franktech, I totally agree with you that Unity is super easy to prototype with. As a Unity user since 2009, and now a daily UE4 user, I can’t say I don’t miss how easy Unity is. My question is, if you have already have functional prototype in Unity and since Unity5 has got the UDK level graphic quality, what prevent you from finishing the final game in Unity? Yes, UE4 has superior visual, but Unity compensate that with wider targets reach (talking about platforms and low-spec pcs).
I can only offer a view… First its harder to customize the look of games in Unity IMHO. UE4 and UDK have tools and editors for materials, particles, animations, landscapes, matinee etc. These are far superior than anything Unity has to offer, especially for non-pro 3D modellers. i.e. Who wants to learn shader language when you can just drag & drop!
Because of that, you risk ending up with a game that looks like many others. This isn’t a killer in itself, particularly if the genre is a good earner, but if you’re trying to distinguish yourself or users have higher expectations then maybe it is.
Second, I’ve never pushed Unity to the limit in the same way as UDK. I wonder how well it can handle open-worlds with large-scale terrain, tens of thousands of meshes, hundreds of bots and complex physics?
Third, what’s the game type?.. If its single-player mobile then no worries. But if its PC multiplayer, will it have legs, scaleability, a future???
In short, if a game is mobile and at the lower-end of the game market hardware-wise then Unity is a logical choice, and I would definitely recommend it for simple RPG, simple FPS. But for large-scale open-worlds with hundreds of bots and a multiplayer networking layer not even mentioning RTS or MMO… Never! Its way too tough an ask. Even UDK wasn’t designed for those kinds of games… As said elsewhere, push UDK and it will fight you… I fear Unity may fight back too, even with its new features.
As an Unity user for a long time and now UE4 user, I can say that for sure Unity is much easier because even kids make their own projects with this engine. I have a situation that I made the demo of my 3D app in Unity but then we made a decision that the Main Project wouldn’t be made with this software because Unity isn’t professional enough. Easy and fast, but not professional. Unity is a toy rather; good for beginners. When I made my huge Demo for PC, I saw many drawbacks. I believe C++ and UE4 will allow me to realize the Main Project successfully because with Unity I have no chance to do that because of the Main Project complexity. I’m still not an expert in UE4 as in Unity was but I’m learning all the time, especially programming in C++ with UE4.
Do you think the majority of indies are able to create such big open worlds games ?
Because a lot of systems are already complete in UE4, we were getting pretty **** deep. Changing the rendering pipeline, building world tools, changing all shaders / post. Then there were major issues with AI and Nav due to the size of the game, in which we’d have to extensively modify that or bolt on. There’s no cinematics tools, particles as an accumulative matter does not look as good…
In essence I believe UE4 is a great fit for PC / Console, quite performant as well if you keep within the bounds of lightmaps.
Unity in short is too much work to finish off, doesn’t mean doing the basics is far easier and code experimentation.
When it was UDK VS U4, U4 was faster and easier (although hated that old buggy monodev! still do). I just didn’t like UE script much and found the construction tools naf and buggy in UDK. Still not a great fan of the UE4 flight controls (but I am a Max-er not a Maya-er, so always hitting the wrong keys and zooming off into space! - I wish there was a switch to use Max flight controls!!!).
Prototyping now can all be done in BP - and some of it left there too - rest converted to C++ for speed later, when happy. Now that it is free, almost completely reloadable from the IDE (not so often having to close the IDE recompile and reopen etc), Unity has to be watching its back ($75 /mo is high now - and the free version is still lacking in very basic stuff like shadows). AAA’s are unlikely to chose Unity over the other Engines (or their own in-house), so it is Indies and small devs - and thy are being chased away by the cost and attractiveness of UE.
There is nothing AAA about this Yooka ding dong
There has never been an AAA game released on unity.
Unity is just a game development tool. One the other hand Unreal, especially latest version(4) is a modern game “engine”
I personally don’t care if Unity or Unreal is capable of making AAA games (though I do believe both are), since I don’t think I’ll ever make an AAA game alone in a foreseeable future, and both are quite modern game engine to me. 
Back to topic, I find myself still struggle adjusting to UE4 from time to time. I miss how easy to make custom editor tool, try out crazy new game play idea in Unity. But I also believe the power of source, and totally buy the UE4 is the future speech, so I guess I’ll just keep both in my tool bags.
It’s a game engine.
There was Rochard, which was ported to PC, PS3 and XBOX 360.
Also, there is Magnetic Cage Closed which I couldn’t tell that it was made in Unity. It pays homage to games like Portal.