After 2 weeks of intense Unreal Engine 4 training I have decided to uninstall it TODAY!
I'm sticking with Unity3D, which I have been using for almost a year now. Here's why:
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| Project Escape Room project with the Udemy Course "Unreal Engine C++ Developer: Learn C++ and Make Video Games"... |
About a year ago I wanted to dive deeper into game development. I'd been using Game Maker for awhile and then Godot, then some other programs to create text adventures. I wanted a game engine where I could fully express my games the way I wanted them (or close to it). I had to make a tough decision:
Which one was it going to be? I chose Unity and did a bunch of courses, watched tutorials on YouTube etc. In fact, I even created my first game with Unity! In the back of my mind I was always wondering what would have happened if I'd chosen Unreal. I was always curious about it. What if it was better than Unity and I was missing out on some important features that I wanted to implement in my game. Especially the whole 'Blue Print' system had me intrigued. But I'd have to try it to know about it!
Unreal
A few weeks ago I download Unreal Engine 4 and did a course on Udemy alongside with some YT tutorials. At first glance it seemed better than Unity! But soon I saw the flaws of UE4, at least in my opinion. Perhaps UE4 is perfect to design your game, after all it's all a matter of personal preference.
But here are my pointers why I uninstalled Unreal Engine 4:
The first issue I had with Unreal is the compiler, each time you make an adjustment in your scripts you have to push the "Compile" button (which automatically happens in Unity), that in itself is not such a big deal, but sometimes the compiler doesn't 'fetch' all your updated scripts! So you think you made a mistake in your coding, so you go over it again and again, and then find out you just have to press the compiler button again because it didn't compile properly in the first time... the Unreal instructor called it a 'bug' in Unreal, I call it annoying! (not to mention it takes a long time to compile, there was a workaround for that, but there shouldn't be one!)
The second issue is the "Build" button. Yes, next to the "Compile" button is a "Build" button. Once pressed it Builds your game. Now my project wasn't that big, a simple room with some chairs and a table. It takes about two minutes to build the lighting, and the level itself! Seriously? What if I have a huge level (what I'm about to make in Unity), it would take 4 hours to build, and if you come across something you don't want in your level, or a bug you'd have to do it all over again. In Unity this can be done in seconds.
Third, the script implementation is way too complex. It's not as simple as adding or removing a script component (like in Unity), in Unreal you have to create a whole entire new class. Also Unreal uses 2 scripts for the same object, a .cpp file and a header file (.h) which I found a bit confusing at first.
Speaking of scripts, the C++ language used in Unreal is very similar to C#, which is used in Unity. I have no coding background at all, and started coding only in C# last year, but was pleasantly surprised how easy C++ is once you know C#!
Another thing, call it the fourth issue, is that it seems that the Unity community is way larger than Unreal's. You can also find a lot more tutorials on YT, get help from community forums and other places like Discord.
After a week into Unreal Engine 4 classes I started to have my doubts about Unreal, and wondered if I should switch back to Unity (although I never gave up on Unity, it was more an exploration mission into Unreal so to speak). Then I came across a YT video of one of my favorite Unity instructors, Jason Weimann who I follow on YT. He addressed the points that I experienced as well with Unreal.
In the end, I am very glad I did the Unreal Engine 4 course, otherwise I'd always been wondering about it. Now I know what it's like, and how it's different from Unity. As a solo indie developer I'm sticking with Unity. If you are in doubt which game development engine is best for your game, my advice is to try both for about a few weeks and see which one 'clicks'. Who knows, you may find Unreal Engine 4 best for your game. For me, not so much.
~Marcus
