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jmc
New Participant
June 3, 2014

vid artist looking for best dev software

hello,

i just preordered the devkit2 and am looking to get started making some stuff for it so I'll have it ready when it arrives.

i have invested a lot of time learning UDK and now it seems like that's no more so i will need to learn Ue4 or unity.

I am more of an "video artist" than a game designer. i'm just looking to quickly be able to design first person immersive environments with no HUD or guns or purpose really. not for distribution anywhere other than a gallery setting. not working with a team. i do most of my assets in cinema4d but i know 3ds max to an extent, too. i don't really want to do any programming at all....or at least keep it minimal. i can follow along with basic scripting stuff and some c++. oh and also i am pretty broke.

so my question is, is Ue4 worth the 20 a month? or i know i can just pay 20 once and cancel, but then can i access the forums and tutorials and stuff still? is the free version of unity okay? i don't understand the difference between free unity and the 75/mo one.

any advice in general?

thanks so much! really excited to get started!

    4 replies

    cybereality
    Inspiring
    June 3, 2014
    UE4 is most definitely worth $20/m (probably much more than that). Unity is great too, but it requires more cash upfront. Unfortunately the Rift will NOT work on the free version of Unity. You need Pro. However, it is a nice engine and pretty easy to learn.

    I don't have much experience with UE4. However, I know they have a visual scripting language (blueprint) that will allow you to put together simple projects without any programming necessary. Might be worth spending $20 to check it out for a month and see what you think.
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    Korda
    Up and Coming
    June 4, 2014
    If you cancel your Unreal subscription you will just no longer have access to new updates and new demos on the marketplace might require a newer version than you have.

    I love Unity and have the pro version. It is very easy to use but they don't have a built in equivalent of blueprint. Playmaker (a plug in for unity) is similar to Blueprint but it's an additional $45-$100. If you want to go past the capabilities of visual scripting (blueprint, playmaker etc) then Unity's C# scripting is much easier to learn than Unreal's C++.

    From a purely fiscal standpoint you are looking at $20 for Unreal and $1500 or $75 per month (locked in for 12 months) + the $45 for Playmaker.

    If you want to sell your creations Unreal may become more expensive due to their 5% royalty fee (although people on the Unity forums worked out that you need to make about $50k before it starts to become more expensive than Unity).

    From a visual standpoint Unreal is prettier than Unity although that gap will close with Unity's 5.0 update coming soon.

    So to sum it up: You should definitely try Uneal since you only have to spend $20. Unity is much easier to use but is much more expensive. Still it's worth trying out the free version of Unity even if it doesn't support the Rift just to see the differences for yourself.

    *edit: On the differences between Unity Free and Pro
    The free version of Unity locks out certain features: real time shadows for spot lights and point lights, post processing effects (which is needed for the pre-warping for the Rift ) and a few other things.
    jmcAuthor
    New Participant
    June 5, 2014
    thanks so much for the replies. i will definitely try out Ue4 then. sounds great that all you have to do is plug in the oculus open the game and it just works. (that's true, right?)
    does anyone know how different it is than UDK? UDK took me months and months of banging my head to get the hang of it. i'd hate to start all over. are there huge differences? i imagine ue4 is more intuitive and nicer looking/more stable just from what i've seen.

    thanks again
    STW
    Up and Coming
    June 6, 2014
    Hey jmc,

    I'm a visual artist in Montreal, just starting out with development. Money's tight, so I'm glad you got some good answers here. I'm using Blender for 3d modelling, though might move to cinema4d. Although I tried the trial of Unity, I hear it's expensive. So i'm going to go with this $20/month UE4.

    Good to see another artist gettin into it ;)
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