Check this out! Unity 5 vs Unreal

You get 60fps with shaders? MC kills my comp with shaders.
But then again, built in shaders are different from a shader mod, so it probably shouldn't be that slow.

 

I just tried it, its super smooth. And I have a lot of things running in the bg. A couple Unity, Substance Painter, chrome with a million tabs, vlc player with a movie running, so I'd say it wins over regular Minecraft with mod shaders.
I have a GTX750Ti and AMD Athlon 860k 3,7ghz x 4, with 8gb of memory.

 

Dude, something like Minecraft should work smoothly on a Casio watch.

 

lol
Maybe your laptop has issues with those shaders? Or its just one of those weird cases where the game just won't work on some PCs. Like XCOM 2, or Chivalry Medieval Warfare, both using UE if im not wrong, and both have those weird cases where powerful machines can't run them. Neither works on my friend's 1000$ laptop, with equal specs to my PC, but it works fine on my PC.

 

It's not a pure technical comparison. But it's enough to show, at least at a basic scale, the engine isn't necessary be a deal breaker regarding visuals in THOSE generic examples.

Only one thing that's really missing there is how the scenes differ in performance.

Should have more variety. Eg. Open scenes. Closeups with DOF. Scenes with god rays, volumetric fog. Scenes with vast forests. Characters that animate. Physics. And so on.

 

As far as I know, that thing was made using blueprints. As a proof of concept. IT is most likely possible to boost the speed significantly by using actual programming language and running it through profiler couple of times.

 

He made this "comparison" to show that his asset looks good in both engines. It is not about the engines.

It was never intended as benchmark for engine comparision, so we shouldn't see it as such. It's a marketing gag.

 

If you think Unity is on par with Unreal you are everything but a game-developer... UE4 is light-years ahead of Unity and if you disagree you don't have a clue what you are talking about - which is great in the end because you ain't competition.

 

While this is generally true, there are few areas where unity is easier to use and works better. However, if I start listing the differences again, it'll turn into another Unity vs UE4 thread.

 

Well, I guess I am everything but a game developer and have no clue what I am talking about.

In seriousness; each engine/framework is best at certain things that it focuses on. There are some things that Unity does better than X, Y and Z engines and there are some things that X, Y and Z engines do better than Unity. The trick is to find an engine/framework that will achieve what you want, and then use it!

 

The thing is that people don't want to use X, Y and Z engines. They want instead X, Y and Z engine features within Unity and keep using it. Unity is life bro.

 

This! lol

 

Which X, Y and Z Features?

 

I believe we had several 40+ page threads on the topic, some listing out pages worth of items.. If Unity would take notice and add it to the list to do, I'd be more than happy to re-list everything.

I'd never want Unity to be like UE4, it's got it's own thing going on and it's what made it so popular. But UE is so much better for larger / shinier games and not necessarily because it's "potentially" more capable. It just provides an infrastructure to allow iteration in a fraction of the time with consistent and performant results.

Add on the amazing support, plethora of learning material showing how "AAA" do it. It's pretty awesome, if Unity had the tools / frameworks / learning material and update speed then I couldn't think of a reason not to use it.

 

@Andy Touch,
I think, it is safe to say what Epic and even Crytek (to some extends) are doing right now with their engines is a good move, business wise. Also to keep developers happy and more productive.

 

It's impressive that the Unity scene is dynamic, meaning you could change the time of day in realtime. In the Unreal scene, you couldn't, and would have to rebake for many minutes/hours for a night scene.

I don't think UE could get close to the Unity if all the lights were dynamic, because it doesn't have realtime GI, although maybe there's a in-dev version available.

 

C++ API instead of C#, UE4 Montages, Proper mixed mode shadows that blend with baked shadows, built-in AI behaviour trees, nested prefabs, built-in post-processing lensflare and SSR, subsurface scattering shader, skin/eye/hair shader, ability to cast shadows on transparent objects, precision control what is rendered with which replacement shader, automatic light probe placement, ability to have several nav-meshes for different agent radius, cloth that interacts with the world, spherecast and sphere triggers that can handle objects teleporting into their range properly, prop/ik bones on mecanim skeleton, ability to have "OR" condition in animation controller transition...

That's just a few.

It is not dynamic. If you have moving objects in the scene, all the nice precomputed GI goes out of the window instantly. UE4 baking is 4..10 times faster than unity one, that's not even touching all the experimental GI features.

 

Success UnityEngine = 1;
Success UnrealEngine = 2;
Success realSuccess = 3;
Success doomed;
if (Upgrade(LIGHTING.X, LIGHTING.Y, LIGHTING.Z) == true)
{
UnityEngine = realSuccess;
doomed = UnrealEngine;
}
else
{
doomed = UnityEngine;
}
Delete(Doomed);

Spoiler

It is your job to make that compile.

 

Compile error at line 0: Undefined identifier "Success".

Or something.

 

Or sleep around. It's fine you can't catch anything except opinionitis.

 

How is it not dynamic? Light probes cover any moving object.

 

I dunno. Seems like a lot of nit-picking to me. Those images show that 'generally' you can get similar results from Unity and UE4. From there, it's a matter of what do you want Unity to focus on? My impression is that the major push is a stable engine, followed by image quality. I am good with that. Nothing slows down development more than a show-stopping bug!

The given with Unity is a huge number of platforms to publish on, C# and usability across a wide range of game styles. I would certainly love perfect shadows, better terrain, better implementations of navMesh, etc. But, if they deliver great image quality in a stable product, I'm good.

Just got the Rift CV1 and when I see the circle U logo prior to loading a game, I am pretty sure I will be blowing something up shortly in a FPS. If your character requires a gun in it's hand, UE4 wins hands down!

 

For me it's mostly level-editing stuff. It rubs me the wrong way that I have to pay almost $100 to get level editing tools that are comparable to what is in Unreal or CE. No, I don't want to change the engine because

but most importantly, because other things about CE and UE outweighs any pros (for example having to either write using spaghetti Blueprints or wrestle with C++ in case of UE).

 

May I ask how to make Unity look decent using its default rig? I love the engine especially for mobile but with the same amount of time invested I can only make Unity renders look like s*** while I can make relatively decent renders in UE.
Is there a node editor for Unity shaders for look development? Or do I just plug in the textures and hope for the best?
Thanks in advance.

 

@agiro if you have a more specific question please make a thread and ask for more specific advice.

 

Cinematic image effects
Also note that similar image effects come with UE and are turned on by default, so unless you went and turned them off, they would have been enhancing your visuals in UE.

 

I'm not seeing anything actually ;(

 

I don't consider that a plus. The other stuff...yeah

 

Well, the OPTION for C++ certainly WOULD be nice.
IF IL2CPP would be available for PC, and would work well enough, that would do the job for me (and really, the fact they concentrate on other platforms first because of upgrading Mono is possible for PC but not for other platforms is... hard to understand for me. Again, the OPTION to compile to C++ IF you are developing on a PC for PC would be nice).
I am not a big fan of C++ development, and if I can get my cake and eat it too by getting the ease of development of C#, and most of the good performance of native executables thanks to conversion to C++, I am happy.

Yet I see some people that prefer C++, I see C++ being kind of an industry standart still in many other engines, and yet Unity, besides the very good C#, sticks to supporting their javascript adaption which really is not that much easier to learn and use than C#.
Why not change C# and Java/Unity script usable for Unity with the same API, to C# and C++ usable for Unity with the same API?
I am certain if somebody cannot handle C#, he will demand a visual scripting system today anyway.

Given that the whole IL2CPP thing is pulling Unity closer to C++ development anyway, you now can use visual studio instead of Monodevelop, and many of the backend Unity libraries being able to work with C# and C++ because of IL2CPP, I don't think this is something that would be impossible to do for the future.

 

Open World games are becoming very popular lately.

Anyway people having used both engines knows the strength and weak areas of each.
Take the tool that suits your project needs and your budget.

 

the right side has that ugly unreal logo on it ewww

I WISH Z WAS UP!!! ..itd make it a little easier from blender lol
(seriously, its frustrating, and has taken too much of my time, needlessly)

is this a bug? or am i just dumb and overlooking something?
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/edit-mesh-import-rotation-blender-to-unity-rotation.440031/

 

No they don't, all it proves is that the creator needs to spend more time researching the strengths and weaknesses of both engines. It's not hard to find better examples of both..!

End of the day, every engine makes compromises. In 3D games until we're at the stage where real-time pathtracing can be used at VR speeds it'll always be a matter of smoke and mirrors. That's what makes graphics tech in engines important, removing the fact that you need great artwork and a decent technical artist to take advantage of it Unity / AAA would be mad to invest so much money in things like Enlighten / R&D if it had no benefit. Hell some company's like CryTek were forged from advancement of graphics technology.

Some of the screenies / small demo's that come out of Unreal and Unity compete if not trounce AAA games graphically, there's a reason for that. They are not representative of ACTUAL games, where budgets are being eaten left right and centre by various systems. Also in some user screenies, I'm not entirely convinced it was rendered in a game engine.

In terms of games, the best engine isn't based soley on highest graphical fidelity. It's the one with the best compromises in terms of performance and graphics fidelity.

No point in having a gorgeous game that runs like a slideshow..

 

With Unity's latest demo(s) it seems to me there's little to envy about Unreal.

But one thing still impresses me about Unreal, is the scenes full of grass and foliage. Can Unity have the same quality in grass and foliage as Unreal? Or rather should I ask, can a mortal do it? Are there Asset Store options that I don't know about that are nearly as good?

 

That's exactly what the terrain team are working on right now, and one of the reasons they had to wait for instancing. They're busy at work on the whole dense foliage question right now - apparently paintable on any mesh surface not just terrains.

You should know UE4's foliage can tank a machine easily though...

 

I'm not experienced with UE4, but I always heard it had a fair bit of trouble with foliage, at least compared to Cryengine.

 

That is the difference between software that has an origin in architecture or similar where the main plane is horizontal (the plan), so the 3rd axis is vertical, and software that has an origin in video games or similar where the main plane is vertical (the screen), so the 3rd axis is horizontal. Video games industry standard tools for 3D modelling such as 3DS Max have z the same way as Unity.

 

That Kite demo certainly looks gorgeous, on screen. When you try that in a mid range computer, it blew the sh*t out of it. I've tried it in different ranges of computers here and only the one with an i7 6800 GTX980 runs it around 30fps. Not really suitable for the masses right now.
Make not mistake, a similar demo in Unity would gave similar results (perhaps slightly better or worse) in terms of performance. But still, a hugely populated open world game with such quality of graphics isn't possible right now, unless you have a very powerful gaming rig which is not the norm for the average gamer.
[EDIT] Anyone who say they can run the Kite demo in a low-end rig with acceptable frame rates (30fps at minimum). Please post a video prof of it, I'm curious.

 

Well, 3DS Max actually has the z axis pointing up. Even between Unity and Unreal the up axis differs.

 

He's correct though.

The original 3d studio (the DOS one), was more or less designed for architectural purposes, that's why z is up.

CAD programs use X-Y for the plans, so when they added a 3rd dimension, Z was used for up. Software that caters to the same audience that CAD (or at least used to), still uses Z-up.

I think blender using it was a stupid decision though.

 

Unreal also uses linear space from the beginning, while in Unity gamma space is enabled be default, which makes the lighting look wrong.

 

Blender: z up, y forward, x right.
Unreal: x forward, z up, y right.

 

Sure, just add grass meshes as "tree's" with an sss material / NM and AO and make sure you use GPU instancing.. Not actually that difficult to do.. Although it's far heavier than using Unity's native grass system which is essentially nothing but a plane and an alpha cutout.

In Unreal foliage completely destroy's framerate, so I wouldn't be too envious of that either.

Although the terrain system as a whole is far better (no suprise with how old Unity's is), I'm unsure as to the route cause, but I've done testing in UE and with a 50mil tris terrain and it runs like a dream. I've had a multi-tiled 8K (that's for all the tiles) HM in Unity @ 2Mil tris and it runs like rubbish, I did notice that the terrain alone was trying to do 8,000 batches. So I disabled static / dynamic batches and it made no difference?!

Something funky going on with that system, on the plus side though you really can get away with a metric ton more foliage.. Not a bad DR system / base rendering pipeline in Unity.

 

Do you have any idea why Cryengine would be able to do run foliage so much better (at least according to what I've heard)? It might be relevant to the discussion about what Unity could improve.

 

Well yes, that is exactly the reason I pointed out 3DS Max has in a fact a different axis orientation.

 

Sorry, you are correct. I've been using Wings 3D for a while and it has z horizontal. It has been more than a decade since I used Max, and I thought it was the same. I'd done a quick check online and and the website I went to said z into the screen, but a full read shows it was actually talking about the viewports, not the world.

 

In terms of foliage I don't believe it does, all engines have different issues.. In Unreal it's due to their deferred rendering setup, they've always had issues with transparent / translucent and alpha materials, mass amounts of foliage really shows up that flaw..

Unity in terms of foliage is fine, the DR got updated and it seems to be able to handle a lot of transparent materials which is mighty cool.. But they are slow to adopt semi-modern techniques, it's the actual terrain system itself causing the issue.. There's all sorts of problems, frustrum culling overhead, batching size's etc.

If you seriously limit the amount of foliage in UE (like in a desert scene with palm tree's and small amounts of grass in areas) it will pound Unity in terms of performance. The terrain system is natively streamed, supports foliage GPU instancing out the box and it's well optimised. In tests, Unreal's native terrain system was around 26X faster than Unity's (for once that's not a made up statistic, I measured all kinds of profiler information from both Unity / Unreal even down to tris / LOD amounts)..

Irrelevant of that a radeon 390X should NEVER struggle with a terrain that equates to 2Mil tris (with 0 foliage / no water), in Unreal I was closer to 50 - 60 Million on some tests and still receiving up to 110FPS ( 8 - 10ms) (shoved in the biggest tiled terrain I could)..

As for CE, it doesn't really have any of these issues as they use the best of both worlds.. Shame it's not as user friendly as Unity.

Luckily, there is supposed to be a new terrain system on it's way..

 

@ShadowK
If a terrain shows 50-60 millions tris, is either very badly distant LODed or overly tesselated near the screen.
But still, I want to see a screenshot showing that terrain displaying 50-60 millions tris with 110fps.

 

I wouldn't hold my breath for this one tho. If you look at the roadmap, this is under 'research'. Not even in development (like visual scripting).

Yes something that bothered me always with Unreal (but not a deal-breaker). But luckily there is forward rending coming in the next version.

 

I really like Unity but Unreal has great visuals that I can make without buying a bunch of assets.