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[Martin 2BAM]

Hi there, have you ever used?

Because I'm going to try to make a game on it. Specially because my level designer is a UT3 map editor ace.
I'm going to use it for a free game.

Can you compare it to Unity3D?
Is it easy to script?

Tell me your experience.

Any info is well accepted


Regards

[Craig Stern]

I used the Unreal Tournament map editor (the original one!) to design levels back in the day, and while it took a little while to figure everything out, it was a very useful tool. I liked working with it because of its subtractive method for generating level geometry, which made it easy to "carve out" game areas.

I haven't really used it since then, though, and I haven't the faintest clue how well it would work for designing a game that isn't an FPS. My guess is that as games in that engine have come to rely increasingly on imported 3D meshes, it would have grown a lot more complicated.

[Martin 2BAM]

Thanks for the comment, I was actually wondering about the programming part.

I have a guy that is really familiar with the editor of UT3 (which is the same) and there will be no more than 2 models so the media part is already covered.

I want to know if it's too hard to get something going in UnrealScript. I scripted some mutators back in the day (UT2) but I forgot everything about it and it surely evolved a great deal since then.

Regards

[PlayMeTape]

I've just recently started learning it as a part of my Game Design education. We've only dabbled in Kismet which is it's "easy scripting editor". It feels like it would be fairly hard to have the kind of freedom I would want for making a game. I'm honestly more interested in Unity.

[moi]

Yeah commence the unity trolling...

[gimymblert]

Yeah commence the unity trolling...

Yeah commence the unity drooling...

[increpare]

Moi, weren't you communicating before that you have something of a greater level of intimacy with UE tech than many here, such as might lead you to give an informed and engaged response to the issues raised on this thread?

I'm a big fan of the unreal level editor.  Big big big big fan.  However, nobody much uses it in the industry as such to make levels; they tend to export from other pieces of software (3d studio max or whatever) so mainly the editor gets used for scripting.

We've only dabbled in Kismet which is it's "easy scripting editor". It feels like it would be fairly hard to have the kind of freedom I would want for making a game. I'm honestly more interested in Unity.

As for kismet.  Ah, kismet, oh my dear lovely kismet.  It's very possible to do very elaborate and intricate scripting in kismet.  

HOWEVAH: kismet isn't meant for making whole games, it's meant for doing level scripting.  Which is but a small subset of the overall set of features of UE3.

For the rest of the stuff, the majority of the code, as such, there's unrealscript.

Unrealscript obv doesn't have the versatility or overall power of the .NET languages supported in unity (it doesn't have gigantonormous libraries, for one).  'owevah, it is very well tuned for its some purposes (chief amongst which, for me, is its support for reasonably-transparent client-server logic thanks to its replication abilities).  I have a strong fondness for all of its various and sundry function modifier keywords.

But yeah, I can't run UE3 things on my current laptop, but I can run unity.  So.

[Hideous]

I might like the UE3 editor - if I ever bloody understood the goddamn thing.

I like Hammer. Hammer is easy.

[Titch]

I've programmed a UT2.x total conversion mod as part of a school project.

[WARNING. RANT AHEAD]

The scripting for UT2 was an absolute mess. The architecture of the engine was all over the place. Very few things behaved the way you expected them to and everything was crappily documented. The editor had a tendency to crash randomly and occasionally corrupt files for no apparently good reason. Getting everything hooked up was a pain.

In short. Everything aside from import pipelines sucked. On the bright side, we did manage to get a 3 player network, 3D, fairly shiny game up and running to an beta stage in about 4 months. Which is probably fairly good.

[END RANT]

Perhaps UT3 fixed all this stuff. But I doubt it, given that it was developed by the same company and thus engineered under similar principles. Plus enough companies sued epic over UT3 to shake my faith in it. I don't really have another 3D engine as point of reference until I get a bit more cosy with Unity, but I hope to god they aren't all as much of a pain in the ass as UT2.x was.

[increpare]

Plus enough companies sued epic over UT3 to shake my faith in it.

I thought it was just silicon knights?  (or maybe one is enough : P)

[Snakey]

I have used Unreal Engine for the last ten years and it can make many games that people would want to make.

However, what is important here is that you simply have to become accustomed to the way they have designed things. Many people have argued that it is a bad way of doing it, while people like me think it is alright. At the end of the day, it is a straw man issue.

The syntax of Unrealscript is not particularly hard or difficult. What is hard is understanding the existing source code that already exists. Unrealscript is very different from C++, in that with C++ you have to create pretty much everything yourself. Unrealscript comes with a lot of core libraries that you must learn and understand how it works. Until you understand the core libraries and how they work, it can be an exercise of frustration.

Kismet is designed to be an elaborate trigger-event-action system. While it could be used to create level specific games with, I wouldn't try to make a Kismet only game with it.

Engines are not totally generic tools that will suit every kind of game. We all have to remember that Unreal Engine was developed for Unreal Tournament and Gears of War in mind. Epic can't make technology to suit every other game out there because they wouldn't use them. That's not to say that it can't be used to make something other than a FPS or Third Person Shooter ... but it will be 'harder' to since you have to find work arounds to make things work.

[moi]

Moi, weren't you communicating before that you have something of a greater level of intimacy with UE tech than many here, such as might lead you to give an informed and engaged response to the issues raised on this thread?

I'm a big fan of the unreal level editor.  Big big big big fan.  However, nobody much uses it in the industry as such to make levels; they tend to export from other pieces of software (3d studio max or whatever) so mainly the editor gets used for scripting.

I don't pretend I'm better than anybody, I'm sure there are other unreal modders here, I have spent a lot of time modding and using unrealscript to the point where I could probably make any type of game, so yeah I think I can give advice to anybody's interested, as long they don't start their thread with something like
"I'm going to use it for a free game.

Can you compare it to Unity3D?"
And 20 answers from unity fans who never even used the unreal engine.

That said I never had a chance to download Udk (donload too big) so I don't know the engine structure, which is important to start scripting.

[Martin 2BAM]

Wow, thank you very much for all your answers. You guys are awesome

I've been busy with the LudumDare so I didn't check for answers for a couple of days.



Luckily what I'm trying to do is a Third-person-straight-track-racer-thingy.
I found tutorials on cameras, fov, actors, input binding, etc...

For those of you who have been using the UDK for a while...
Would it be too hard to implement (a.k.a hack in copy/paste spaghetti) a 1-level 1-"kart" race game?


Thanks again for the info! Greatly appreciated. I'll get deeper into this after the LudumDare.

[increpare]

For those of you who have been using the UDK for a while...
Would it be too hard to implement (a.k.a hack in copy/paste spaghetti) a 1-level 1-"kart" race game?

Not too hard, no.  CF here.

Though, wouldn't be hard to do in Unity, either.

[Alexander Bruce]

Aye. It comes down to what kinds of things you've wanted to make. I've always said that using Unreal didn't hinder my design choices, but that's because I was always making things that I would always be able to put into Unreal without too much hassle.

As noted by increpare (didn't check the link), no it wouldn't be that hard to make a kart racing game, as there have been people who have done exactly that in the past. Find their games, see what they did, etc.

[Martin 2BAM]

Thanks!

I think that the vehicle engine is a bit of an overkill (I don't really need wheel, suspension and all that)

And I really want to choose Unity but my level designer is really skilled with the Unreal Editor. And the level is a key component of the game I'm planning to make.

I'll try to look for games on UDK (hopefully open source ), if you can name any it could be great as a start point.

Best regards
-MArtín

[Snakey]

I'll try to look for games on UDK (hopefully open source Smiley), if you can name any it could be great as a start point.

The udk has only been around for a month or so.

[PlayMeTape]

I'll try to look for games on UDK (hopefully open source Smiley), if you can name any it could be great as a start point.

The udk has only been around for a month or so.

No...

[Schizoslayer]

The biggest hurdle with Unreal is that you get the code for an entire shipped game (UT3) which means you have a huge codebase to search through and learn before you can really get comfortable programming for it.

For me this isn't a problem anymore as I've spent 8-9 years growing up with Unreal either as a modder or in my day job so I'm very familiar with how everything works and can work very quickly as a result.

My advice is to get yourself Visual Studio (There's a free version I believe) and nFringe on the free non-commercial license and get used to searching the codebase before you implement something. The odds are good that 80% of what you want to do already exists in there somewhere and you just have to find it and follow the logic through. Fortunately the syntax is incredibly easy to pick up and the script compile times are short so you can experiment alot.

I taught myself how to program with Unreal and learnt everything just by searching through the code and trying stuff out to see what happens. My biggest piece of advice: Don't be afraid to completely cock things up. If you spend all your time worrying about whether something is possible or how best to do it then you won't get anywhere. Break things just to see how they work.

[Martin 2BAM]

I've started experimenting a bit, that Whizzle game creation doc is super-useful.

My advice is to get yourself Visual Studio (There's a free version I believe) and nFringe on the free

Thanks but the free one ("Express") doesn't allow you to add plugins or tools. And I think nFringe totally depends on that (for what I've seen).

I think I can do it... I'll surely write a post-mortem for anybody trying to "go UDK"

Regards