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.
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.
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 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?
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).
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.
Rochard is a very good *indie *game.
If you can tell me why no big studios used Unity for their AAA titles, I’d be happy to find out. Like Mass Effect, Batman and dozens of others. Despite being compared to unreal all the time, it baffles me why no big studios prefer unity if it is really that “easy to prototype”
I really want to understand this, really asking.
Is there a button in unity that “lets” you try a crazy idea?
What is stopping you in unreal 4 for “trying out a crazy idea”?
I’ll give you the quantity of assets argument. There is definitely a lot more stuff in the Unity Asset Store. I’m going to have to disagree with the quality argument, though. I’ve been really impressed with the overall quality of Marketplace assets. On the other hand, there’s an awful lot of **** in the Unity asset store, and even a lot of the stuff that seems good at first, when you dig in, you realize it is coded by someone lacking much in the way of real-world production coding experience. I rewrote every C# class I used from Asset Store purchases with the exception of the Prime31 stuff and NGUI. Models, particle systems, and shaders are often decent, but lawd, the code. So little of the code in the asset store would even come close to passing code review at our shop.
So… I’ve been using Unreal for over a year now, migrating a project from 4.1 all the way up to 4.7, plus I’ve done dozens of prototyping and experimental projects. I’ve seen exactly one problem where a BP got corrupted, and cleaning out my intermediates folder fixed it. Occasionally I’ll have to do a Refresh All Nodes to get a BP to compile, but I really think you’re overstating the risk of BP corruption. Plus… you should have redundant on- and off-site backup systems and everything under source control. Belts and suspenders when it comes to your livelihood. Always assume any computer file can get corrupted or accidentally changed or deleted. You should never be more than a few clicks or keystrokes away from fixing or restoring a corrupted, changed, or deleted file.
I think if you’re honest with yourself, Unity’s C# is faster for you because you’re more comfortable with it. I really don’t think it’s an inherent advantage of the platform.
Again, have to disagree here. The graphic and performance on iOS hardware was one of the main reasons we switched off of Unity. We couldn’t get the look and performance we wanted on Unity without writing lots of custom shaders and we spent literally hundreds of hours performance optimizing our custom shaders to try and get something that looked good and performed well (and were never 100% happy after that). UE4 looked pretty good out of the box, and with a little time spent setting up device profiles, runs great on older hardware.
I’m currently helping another team here whose project is still in Unity work around serious performance issues they’re having on older mobile devices. It’s a non-trivial exercise to get it run well on older hardware despite not being a very complex or large project.
Not to mention having to use allocation pools to avoid the garbage collection overhead. The IL2CPP stuff is great in theory and helps with a lot of traditional complaints about Mono, but it’s turned the mobile debug cycle into a 20-30 minute ordeal every time you want to run or debug on the device. Every time you compile the project, it compiles every single file, even the ones that haven’t changed. And even with IL2CPP, the GC still tends to cause hiccups.
Despite all I hear about the improvements in Unity over the last year, what I’m seeing in the project I’ve been helping with is that it’s still kind of a hot sloppy mess.
Trust me, you don’t wanna see their ‘crazy ideas’.
From my understanding, ‘crazy’ ideas to them is purchasing various assets from Unity store and mix them all up, there you have it. 
THAT IS why it’s so easy.
I started out using Unity, but after being constantly blown away by UE4 features and previews, I decided to try it out last year, and since then I haven’t used Unity once- such an intuitive and powerful set of tools, I don’t see myself using anything else for the foreseeable future! As with anything there is a learning curve, but it is very much worth it, and if you are familiar with concepts common to game development, you’ll find yourself right at home!