(Warning: Looooong post) Unreal 4 was announced 2005. Unity3D started 2005. Now we are at 2014. Unity has gone through 4 major iterations with Unity 5 coming out (likely September this year). From Unreal Development Kit in 2009 to its move to Mobile, Unreal has went through many changes as well. It is slated for release this year. There are many forces at play and all easy to generalize, but I feel like Unity is embracing software as a service more and has benefited from that tremendously. Monetization & Frequency Cost of entry Iteration Speed Unity has much shorter release periods in which it monetizes (roughly 2 years between recent versions). It also has a much barrier of entry, much like free to play games/games as a service. Its 1,500 a seat with subscription options. It constantly add new big features. For feature it doesnt have, it has the asset store which provides its customers features not yet available on their engine, from which they were able to hire talent to bring that feature (2D Toolkit-> native Unity 2D, NGUI -> New Unity GUI coming out 4.6). In contrast, Unreal is more of a traditional software as a product, though Alumni industry can probably point out what its really like. Unreal constantly improves the product you are getting whether you pay for it or not. UDK aside, Unreal costs a ton of money upfront (hundred thousands). Lastly, regarding iteration. Unreal constantly add more features, though many of the big improvements they are saving for Unreal 4 which is taking too long to arrive. For example, Unreal 3 has a complicated workflow, but they are saving the improvements for Unreal 4. For me, I think the different approach is very interesting. Looking at Unity 5 (unity3d/5), a lot of the new advertised features are about powerful engine capabilities. Shader, global illumination, expanding audio, 64 bit unit editor. Its also doing more software as a service related stuff in the form of Unity Cloud, an example being cross-promotion for mobile games. In contrast, Unreal 4 (unrealengine/unreal_engine_4/) is bringing new and better graphics option (directx11, global illumination, advanced GPU particle simulation and collision etc), but a lot of it is about smoother workflow. Blueprint debugging, hot reload, instant game preview, simulate mode, etc. The differences between the two engines seem to be much less than before, with each trying to catch up to the advantage of the other - ease of use vs powerful capabilities. For us students, the important thing is which engine should we be using for our projects. On interactive side, I feel like Unity dominates. On Engineering side, its a little different. Engineers like Artem and David Landau will tell you that the most important thing for engineer is to be able to work on low level engine components, something neither Unreal or Unity offers. You are scripting either way, just whether its unreal script, C#, or C++. For classes such as Advanced Game Projects, you would really pick one or the other as opposed to something like OGRE or Prime Engine as to better facilitate collaboration between designers and engineers. Many of the more powerful features also seem like its not relevant to us students. I have made the comparison way back that using UDK vs Unity is like using a racing car vs driving a compact/sedan. Sure, UDK can go faster, but we wont be needing that as students anyway. The difference seems to be less now. With Unity becoming increasingly more powerful and Unreal 4 becoming more friendly, what is the preferred engine if you have a choice? What attracts you to Unity 5 or Unreal 4 in place of the other?
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 21:28:49 +0000
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