Why is Unity the most popular engine?

[motorsep]

I didn’t think I am gonna post in this thread, but here I am…

At this point, what tools / features does UE4 have that Unity does not, for VR development? (besides Blueprints; comparing most recent UE4 to most recent Unity)

While I absolutely love UE4 (particularly for community, Blueprints and set of tools), it’s getting to the point where Fortnite is the priority for Epic at the cost of engine development (Blueprint debugger is broken as hell, VR side of the engine seems to be stagnant, updates take forever to come out, no clear roadmap, training sessions became quite infrequent, etc. etc.)

[jojo8026]

@motorsep

I didn’t think I am gonna post in this thread, but here I am…

At this point, what tools / features does UE4 have that Unity does not, for VR development? (besides Blueprints; comparing most recent UE4 to most recent Unity)

While I absolutely love UE4 (particularly for community, Blueprints and set of tools), it’s getting to the point where Fortnite is the priority for Epic at the cost of engine development (Blueprint debugger is broken as hell, VR side of the engine seems to be stagnant, updates take forever to come out, no clear roadmap, training sessions became quite infrequent, etc. etc.)

it’s so sad

[BrUnO_XaVIeR]

Unity is just easy for you to get started and mess around.

Once you get involved with a serious relatively sizeable project you need a really good project manager to manage your team or things are going nowhere… From what I’ve experienced, in such a scenario Unity is way harder to use, but very pleasant if the project is just a small mobile game.

However the last time I worked on a product based on Unity as 2014, so to make sure we aren’t just biased the “big guys” told us to install Unity 2018 and see what have really changed.

For now all can say is Unreal Editor is running way smoother on my screen (I code on a 4k 48" screen with two smaller ones on the sides because reasons) while Unity’s with less drawcalls is just sluggish af.

Also, all this marketing around performance to me is just marketing bs because I checked and they are still using the same ancient garbage collector even though they seem to be slowly moving away from depency on. NET now that there’s a internal compiler they’re using to convert C# scripts into C++ DLLs.

Once (maybe in a decade from now?!) they remove engine dependency on. NET completely and leave it just as pure scripting option for C# lovers I think performance will be considerably good.

[motorsep]

That’s not what I talking about here. I am talking about focus on engine development (Unity) vs focus on internal game project (UE4). So for now it’s Fortnite. Next will be something else. And the focus will be always on the internal projects vs engine suited for everyone and working like a clock.

[BrUnO_XaVIeR]

Meanwhile Unity is popular since a decade ago and only now they bought level design tools for the Editor.

Why?! Whoever they hire over there, they’re hiring the wrong people who know nothing about tools focused on productivity for game development, if that wasn’t true they’d have things figured out at this point…

But no, since Unity 2.6 I see they add a ton of stupid “features” and some 30+ platforms nobody use.
At one point they had a Unity exporter for Adobe FLASH when everyone knew Flash was dead already.

“-But hey Unity, what about some GUI, Terrain engine, Level design tools?!”
“-Nah… Buy 'em from Asset Store!”

The focus was on adding platforms to export because they thought they could multiply pro license owners, making more money; you’d have to buy iOS exporter, Android, WinStore, etc, etc, all separately.
( but then Unreal 4 happened)

UE4 have there for everyone to see what a “real development toolset” really is… It’s been 4 years now, Unity is fixing the graphics, good.
What about the tools?! Well, they bought “Pro Builder”… Mecanim is still the same, no terrain system, no world composition systems, etc.

They had to “buy” Pro Builder to have a minimum set of tools; are you sure they know what they’re doing??

I’m not sure Unity know what they’re doing, they prove me wrong and I buy a Pro subscription the next day!!
Meanwhile I don’t see it as an alternative to Unreal Engine, really.

[EvilCleric]

Maybe, EPIC’s main focus is not on the engine right now.
However, at the end of the day, I will always place my bet on engines developed by companies that actually develop and ship games with them.

[anonymous_user_ac72a5bb]

I think Unity is very good, is approaching to have tools that can create very realistic environments, I sincerely don’t see a huge graphic difference with Unreal, I just “switched” (hope to use both) to Unreal because 2 reasons:

1. Unreal is more well integrated editor, having all I need without having to download 3rd party assets.
2. C++ … I love it…

[Jambax]

Tried Unity. Hated it. Hated it so much I quit the contract I had to use it for purely so I could leave it behind - and I was very surprised to find how few of my skills were actually transferable too. Frankly their documentation and example content doesn’t even touch Unreal’s. The key factor for me however, is that the approach to building or designing anything in Unity is entirely different to how you would go about it in Unreal.

IMO the single biggest problem with Unity is the complete lack of any kind of structure, and it’s awful tools. You can of course spend a small fortune on the Asset Store to “improve” the tools, but most of those tools are badly supported imitations of first-class features that exist in Unreal. (I’m looking at you ShaderForge, Amplify etc.) Why anyone would risk the success of their own products on somebody else’s content like that is beyond me. Oh, and C# is overrated.

Been using Unreal for 10+ years. Different strokes for different folks. There’s literally nothing more to say about it - people will prefer one or the other based on their experience and way of thinking. Pick a tool set that works best for you and stick with it.

[anonymous_user_ac72a5bb]

Tried Unity. Hated it. Hated it so much I quit the contract I had to use it for purely so I could leave it behind - and I was very surprised to find how few of my skills were actually transferable too. Frankly their documentation and example content doesn’t even touch Unreal’s. The key factor for me however, is that the approach to building or designing anything in Unity is entirely different to how you would go about it in Unreal.

IMO the single biggest problem with Unity is the complete lack of any kind of structure, and it’s awful tools. You can of course spend a small fortune on the Asset Store to “improve” the tools, but most of those tools are badly supported imitations of first-class features that exist in Unreal. (I’m looking at you ShaderForge, Amplify etc.) Why anyone would risk the success of their own products on somebody else’s content like that is beyond me. Oh, and C# is overrated.

Been using Unreal for 10+ years. Different strokes for different folks. There’s literally nothing more to say about it - people will prefer one or the other based on their experience and way of thinking. Pick a tool set that works best for you and stick with it.

with 4370 comments… is obvious that you will think like that…

[anonymous_user_9a913664]

Its not popular amongst real developers, no serious game have been ever made on this.
Only **** is being done on unity and nothing more, cheap asset flips and mobile games(trash, clones, assetflips). Unreal engine is the most popular engine for developing real games. Mass Effect, bulletstorm, gears of war, thousand other AAA titles

Unity is just a toy for children and is only popular for making trash.
I ll tell you more, scratch is even more popular

[BrUnO_XaVIeR]

lol we triggered someone from Unity’s forums once again xD

[anonymous_user_d6310f0a]

About all these “Unity doesn’t have any good tools for creating content” comments…does it even really matter that much?

I mean isn’t most content made using other tools anyway? Don’t most game devs use third party modeling programs like Blender/Maya/Modo/Photoshop/Substance/etc for content creation and then merely import it into the engine? The only thing I can see myself actually creating inside Unity are the levels using Probuilder, and even then only the base shape for hard surface environments. For organic levels I would still probably just use a modeling program. And speaking of probuilder, I don’t think Unreal 4 even has any good level design tools at all and expects you use only third party modeling programs for that purpose.

[BrUnO_XaVIeR]

Dude I worked with Unity for around 8 years.
When I was a Unity dev I had tools on Asset Store as well.
Because this is what I do, I make games and tools I create I sell them too.
The path you are at right now, I ensure you I’ve been there; if tomorrow I’m forced to leave UE4 and go work on Game Maker then I will go there and make tools for Game Maker as well… You’re trying to find something to attack because you’re mad about something someone said online, I understand

[anonymous_user_d6310f0a]

Being somebody who is just dipping their toes into game making (note though that I am not new to content creation. Been a game modder for over a decade) I am pretty torn on if I should start learning Unreal Vs Unity because learning how to use complex tools like this is a time sink and I don’t want my time or money wasted.

On one hand, I agree with those who say Unreal is overall better right now. But it takes years to get very good at using an engine anyway. Who’s to say that 5 years from now Unity won’t fix most of it’s problems such as the infamous performance issues? Fact is, Unity IS more flexible for creating games than Unreal. Yes Unreal is probably better for shooters, but what about other genres such as 4x strategy? Platformers? Or just anything that isn’t a fps or third person action game. This is why I am torn, because on one hand Unreal seems like a better deal right now but Unity seems like a far better long term investment assuming they can fix the biggest problems with the engine which for all we know they might very well end up doing.

[anonymous_user_d6310f0a]

@NGHTKING

Multiplayer FPS/TPS i would go with UE4, you get a template which basically leaves you to mostly do art stuff unless you want to stray from the tried and tested path, it beats unity in almost every aspect for the genre but anything else Unity will offer all better all around experience to you** as a beginner**. Still as a beginner i really don’t think UE4 is a good choice even extending that Multiplayer FPS template will be impossible unless you learn the fundamentals.

What about single player fps? I don’t care much for MP stuff. I must say that this Probuilder tool is looking pretty temping. I know I could just use Modo (the modeling program I am currently using) to make the levels but this looks so much faster.

[anonymous_user_d6310f0a]

@NGHTKING

and i saw a amazing DOOM clone a few days back on reddit, so it’s not like Unity is unsuited for it.

Can you link me to this Doom clone? The only Unity Doom clone I am aware of for Unity is Dusk, though it’s actually more of a Quake clone than a Doom one.

[anonymous_user_d6310f0a]

@NGHTKING

https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/com…roject_so_far/

It’s still in its early stages but he got the feel down perfectly.

That isn’t a Doom clone, it’s literally just Doom on the Unity engine lol.

But anyway, while this looks cool I don’t think it’s as impressive as it looks considering that the original Doom engine (well a source port for it actually) recently got PBR support (Yes, Doom has PBR now) and already people are creating stuff that looks arguably even better than that video.

Example:

[anonymous_user_d6310f0a]

@NGHTKING

clone: make an identical copy of.

Actually, the term “Doom clone” was created to describe carbon copies of Doom during the 90’s intended to piggyback on it’s success. But whatever we are splitting hairs.

@NGHTKING

Unity since version 5 and UE4 could do the same and far more since their inception, so i don’t really get your point.

Also those being better is your opinion, i mean if you are going to improve the visuals you might as well go all in. Again possible with both UE4 and Unity.

Yea, but the downside though is that using Unity/Unreal also means losing all support for pre-existing mods and maps of which there are literally thousands.

[eriknem]

I started to learn and teach Unity at the university few years ago. I liked the fact that there are many videotutorials directly from Unity creators. It was extremely easy to learn the basics. I liked also TOPICS section in this page: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials . You choose the particular topic and you find useful videotutorials for it.

But the very best tutorial is Roll a Ball - Roll-a-ball (Deprecated) - Unity Learn . In this tutorial you can learn a lot of fundamentals of the engine. I think it is the best learning material for begginers.

Now I am studying UE4 for few weeks. I can compare it and I do not think that UE4 is more difficult to learn in its core. But the problem is that there are only few tutorials where you can learn fundamentals so well as with Unity’s Roll a Ball or TOPICS. Yes, there are tutorials for advanced things but how can I understand them without basics?

UE4 developers should make something like “Roll a Ball tutorial” for beginners. I think it would be extremely helpful.

Now I recommend this: https://www.raywenderlich.com/771-unreal-engine-4-tutorial-for-beginners-getting-started