Forum Discussion
New developer : Which to learn Unreal 4 or Unity 5?
I am currently developing IOS apps but I want to make the transition to developing for VR. I will start dedicating some time each week to learning either Unreal 4 or Unity 5. My instinct is to use Unreal 4 as it seems to produce more graphically impressive results. However, I am concerned that Carmack said 95% of indie developers are using Unity. I'm wondering if there is a reason almost no indies are using Unreal 4. Is Unity much easier to learn/use? Is the Unity asset store such a big advantage over Unreal 4 that one man band indies would be crazy not to use Unity? Does Unreal 4 integrate well with the Rift ?
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks :)
My background :
Degree in Computer Science
Signal Analysis, Image Processing/Analysis, Web Development, IOS Apps
(and made a VRML game back when I was at Uni [2005].. remember VRML ? ;) )
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks :)
My background :
Degree in Computer Science
Signal Analysis, Image Processing/Analysis, Web Development, IOS Apps
(and made a VRML game back when I was at Uni [2005].. remember VRML ? ;) )
5 Replies
- I think either can be learned and there isn't a huge advantage to one or the other (well there are, but not so much that one is clearly better). It's true that most of the indie developers are using Unity. I think some of this is inertia, since Unity has been popular for years and Unreal 4 just recently (in the past year) became affordable for indies.
Unity is nice for quick prototyping, as it is very easy to experiment (i.e. changing values while the game is running). Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but it seems much harder to change values in Unreal when the game is playing. Unity appears to support more platforms, and may scale better to lower-end hardware, but Unreal has most of the biggest bases covered. Now both are mostly free, though the 5% royalty on Unreal may or may not make a big difference to you.
My personal pick is with Unreal as it just seems like the more heavy-weight option. I do very much like Visual Studio over MonoDevelop (no comparison really) and having the engine source-code is pretty nice. The visual scripting in Unreal (Blueprint) is nice for simple stuff, and you have the option of going to C++ for more complex tasks. In terms of graphics, they are somewhat comparable now, so I wouldn't worry about that. And both engines will work with the Rift.
I would recommend downloading both and then spending about 2 weeks with each going through tutorials. Try to do something simple, like spawning a few cubes on the grid, making a spinning cube, texturing a model with full options (i.e. diffuse, normal, specular, etc.) and seeing which was a better flow, etc. Really, you can make both work, it's just about what you prefer. - Ah, right. I did actually hear about that but it must have slipped my mind.
Doesn't change my opinion much, though. "cybereality" wrote:
I think either can be learned and there isn't a huge advantage to one or the other....
My personal pick is with Unreal as it just seems like the more heavy-weight option.
Than you for your answer. Exactly the kind of detail I needed, much appreciated. I think I will do as you say and do a couple of weeks with one then the other and then dive in.
Hopefully by the time I have learned and practiced enough to make a game it will be more clear which input method to target.- https://answers.oculus.com/questions/11 ... g-for.html
