What's wrong with Unity?
by Wes · in General Discussion · 01/22/2009 (1:15 pm) · 71 replies
Over at the Unity forums they make a pretty strong case for using their engine over Torque. I'm surprised to find that the Torque community isn't defending itself.
Well here's your chance. Tell us why you prefer Torque over Unity (other than the obvious MAC ONLY issue). don't be afraid to get brutal, they're not showing you guys any mercy over there.
Well here's your chance. Tell us why you prefer Torque over Unity (other than the obvious MAC ONLY issue). don't be afraid to get brutal, they're not showing you guys any mercy over there.
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#2
Personally I like the ones suggesting Torque is only good for building FPS's... Most of the "made with Torque" games I've played in the last couple of years have been anything but FPS.
I'm not really sure starting a similar "bash Unity" thread over here serves much purpose. Pretty sure I've seen GG employees post here that Unity is a decent product if it suits your requirements.
For what it's worth, I found Unity somewhat inaccessible as an "entity", where I found I wealth of information, resources and references for Torque.
I like car analogies. Unity strikes me as a something akin to building a kit car in a well equipped home garage. Torque lets me get my hands dirty with raw engineering, machining parts and all that fun stuff. Let the real men get their hands dirty and leave the toy racers to their kit cars. :D
01/22/2009 (2:10 pm)
Assuming I've found the right thread over there I'm not really seeing a "strong case" for using Unity. For the most part it's Unity users bashing Torque with personal gripes. There's a couple of genuine posts that weigh up the strengths and weaknesses (and come out quite favourably for Torque), the rest is pretty trashy.Personally I like the ones suggesting Torque is only good for building FPS's... Most of the "made with Torque" games I've played in the last couple of years have been anything but FPS.
I'm not really sure starting a similar "bash Unity" thread over here serves much purpose. Pretty sure I've seen GG employees post here that Unity is a decent product if it suits your requirements.
For what it's worth, I found Unity somewhat inaccessible as an "entity", where I found I wealth of information, resources and references for Torque.
I like car analogies. Unity strikes me as a something akin to building a kit car in a well equipped home garage. Torque lets me get my hands dirty with raw engineering, machining parts and all that fun stuff. Let the real men get their hands dirty and leave the toy racers to their kit cars. :D
#3
Jehsup's comment was probable the best one in the entire thread:
As for the logo requirement off-shoot, I strongly support both engine's use of branding. The watermark on the webplayer is annoying because of the screen real estate that it takes up on licensed versions, but I have no beef with logo requirements.
I'm a licensee of all three engines mentioned in the topic, and the only reason I haven't mentioned anything there is that I don't have the time right now to give the answers required when people start asking questions. We had a nice and lively discussion about a month ago on a similar topic. I had a little more time then to give more in-depth answers.
With the web changes over here and getting my sound design ready for tech this weekend plus my university work stuff, I'm kinda busy right now. I might enter the conversation if things calm down a bit on Sunday. They're a good bunch.
01/22/2009 (2:43 pm)
It's not that we're not defending ourselves, it's that Torque is the right fit for a number of developers just as Unity is a good fit for others. Most of the derision in that topic comes from people who could not get Torque to work with their projects with their workflow and moved to another engine. You will see various engine ex-pats around different communities, usually with really bad things to say about the previous community or engine. I see it all the time with people who move between A7, Blitz, DarkBasic, C4, Unity, Torque, Irrlicht, etc.Jehsup's comment was probable the best one in the entire thread:
Quote:I love and hate BOTH Unity and GG products. I hate Unity for what I can't get at when I need to, and I hate GG products for what I have to get at when I need too =).
As for the logo requirement off-shoot, I strongly support both engine's use of branding. The watermark on the webplayer is annoying because of the screen real estate that it takes up on licensed versions, but I have no beef with logo requirements.
I'm a licensee of all three engines mentioned in the topic, and the only reason I haven't mentioned anything there is that I don't have the time right now to give the answers required when people start asking questions. We had a nice and lively discussion about a month ago on a similar topic. I had a little more time then to give more in-depth answers.
With the web changes over here and getting my sound design ready for tech this weekend plus my university work stuff, I'm kinda busy right now. I might enter the conversation if things calm down a bit on Sunday. They're a good bunch.
#4
________
"I own both pro of Unity and TGEA. TGEA is seamless worlds, multi server networking, both features Unity is not. TGEA is on the WII and XBox, Unity is on the WII but not XBox.
Mission Editor vs Unity
Drag and drop items from item tree = both
LOD = both
TGEA = no compile time edit loss, what you see is what you get
Unity = compile time edit, scene changes lost during run, so don't make them unless you want to loose them
Graphics = same, both have per pixel shaders, post processing shaders, etc, no difference here really
Terrain editing system, both have them and they both work, both have the ability to pain the terrain in their editors etc.
Torque comes with a few multiplayer examples with lobby ~256 player setup, Unity has admitted that their network out of the box is geared to <64 players and only 1 server allowed since the server component does not support multi server connection at the same time, where as Torque can support >1000 with low latency configuration. There is no other hint or otherwise discussion from Unity if their build in networking will support clustering or multi server configuration. Don't suspect they will even talk about it right now since they are working on other more important things.
Torque and Unity are both scripting engines, but as you pointed out, you can fiddle around with the core since you have access to the code, I have done this and improved upon the core to integrate a few missing features that I wanted. Torque scripting engine is a custom scripting, where as Unity you can use C#, Java, and BOO. You can use regular C# DLL's with Unity, you can't with Torque. Expanding Torque requires the core to be rebuilt, where as Unity you just drag a DLL into your assets folder and you are ready to use it.
TGEA creates a distribution bundle that is encrypted, Unity does not, they allow your objects full exposure. Plenty of discussions about that around the treads, just search for it. This one feature puts TGEA ahead of Unity on security. Simply put, TGEA has security, Unity does not.
TGEA and Unity both have physics, TGEA supports all 3 major versions, Unity just uses NVidia's PhysX (old Ageia Physx) PhysX is a $50 per product license now.
TGEA and Unity are platform independent.
TGEA and Unity both use OpenAL for sound.
There are more features / differences, but again, they are for different audiences. TGEA network surpasses the current configuration of Unity's networking only because of HOW Unity choose to implement RakNet, Jenkins software is superior to TGEA's networking by FAR, it is watered down for Unity by choice of Unity. Out of the box RakNet supports lobby system, mmo capable seemless clustering for networking, reliable and unreliable network traffic, lowest packet transport, the list goes on. The implementation that Unity currently has, is substandard to that of TGEA's use for their built in networking.
Their is even more detailed information than this including pathfinding differences, etc, but its not really worth getting into the low level differences, these are totally different products with different publication histories and different user base levels. TGE itself, the predecessor to TGEA is proven MMO level, to date, Unity is not, which is sure to change in the future.
Unity on its current path will build and supersede that of HeroEngine.
http://www.heroengine.com/
At current, TGEA by GarageGames is a different target than that of Unity, Unity target is that of HeroEngine, which by the way is the core engine to the next MMORPG of Lucas Arts, Star Wars: The Old Republic
I see great future potential in Unity, time will tell if where I think they are going becomes true or not."
01/22/2009 (3:21 pm)
well after reading this post you made i decided to go over there and read some more. out of all those posts i don't like any of them decides this one. its made by zumwalt on in the forums there and gives everything you need to know.________
"I own both pro of Unity and TGEA. TGEA is seamless worlds, multi server networking, both features Unity is not. TGEA is on the WII and XBox, Unity is on the WII but not XBox.
Mission Editor vs Unity
Drag and drop items from item tree = both
LOD = both
TGEA = no compile time edit loss, what you see is what you get
Unity = compile time edit, scene changes lost during run, so don't make them unless you want to loose them
Graphics = same, both have per pixel shaders, post processing shaders, etc, no difference here really
Terrain editing system, both have them and they both work, both have the ability to pain the terrain in their editors etc.
Torque comes with a few multiplayer examples with lobby ~256 player setup, Unity has admitted that their network out of the box is geared to <64 players and only 1 server allowed since the server component does not support multi server connection at the same time, where as Torque can support >1000 with low latency configuration. There is no other hint or otherwise discussion from Unity if their build in networking will support clustering or multi server configuration. Don't suspect they will even talk about it right now since they are working on other more important things.
Torque and Unity are both scripting engines, but as you pointed out, you can fiddle around with the core since you have access to the code, I have done this and improved upon the core to integrate a few missing features that I wanted. Torque scripting engine is a custom scripting, where as Unity you can use C#, Java, and BOO. You can use regular C# DLL's with Unity, you can't with Torque. Expanding Torque requires the core to be rebuilt, where as Unity you just drag a DLL into your assets folder and you are ready to use it.
TGEA creates a distribution bundle that is encrypted, Unity does not, they allow your objects full exposure. Plenty of discussions about that around the treads, just search for it. This one feature puts TGEA ahead of Unity on security. Simply put, TGEA has security, Unity does not.
TGEA and Unity both have physics, TGEA supports all 3 major versions, Unity just uses NVidia's PhysX (old Ageia Physx) PhysX is a $50 per product license now.
TGEA and Unity are platform independent.
TGEA and Unity both use OpenAL for sound.
There are more features / differences, but again, they are for different audiences. TGEA network surpasses the current configuration of Unity's networking only because of HOW Unity choose to implement RakNet, Jenkins software is superior to TGEA's networking by FAR, it is watered down for Unity by choice of Unity. Out of the box RakNet supports lobby system, mmo capable seemless clustering for networking, reliable and unreliable network traffic, lowest packet transport, the list goes on. The implementation that Unity currently has, is substandard to that of TGEA's use for their built in networking.
Their is even more detailed information than this including pathfinding differences, etc, but its not really worth getting into the low level differences, these are totally different products with different publication histories and different user base levels. TGE itself, the predecessor to TGEA is proven MMO level, to date, Unity is not, which is sure to change in the future.
Unity on its current path will build and supersede that of HeroEngine.
http://www.heroengine.com/
At current, TGEA by GarageGames is a different target than that of Unity, Unity target is that of HeroEngine, which by the way is the core engine to the next MMORPG of Lucas Arts, Star Wars: The Old Republic
I see great future potential in Unity, time will tell if where I think they are going becomes true or not."
#5
this is after that last post i made it was over 1k words to making 2 posts.
i still like torque better even after reading this post there's just to many + marks on torque. also if you look at the new turn torque is going with t3d that puts allot more + marks at lest the last blog about t3d has made me very very happy. the very last part on that post he made about HeroEngine torque 3d seems to be going more in that direction now at lest from what i see so far. i like HeroEngine more then any engine out there so any engine that's putting stuff in that's from that one is perfect for me. i and many people cant afford a $300k for lowest license all the way up to $950k for the highest one.
i do like one thing more then anything about unity though as you can make your 3d objects and put them in the game super easy that's the one thing torque lacks. i been going over and over on torque for a month now and yet every time i go to unity or c4 i still like torque better. the thing i like most about torque is its community if you need help with a little problem just ask and they will solve it for you. there's also the extra things you can buy that have been made by the community that makes torque ether easier to use or just save you allot of time making it your self.
price don't take into account on anything out of the 2 even with the price change of t3d from what i seen being put in for t3d its already well worth any price change.
01/22/2009 (3:23 pm)
_________this is after that last post i made it was over 1k words to making 2 posts.
i still like torque better even after reading this post there's just to many + marks on torque. also if you look at the new turn torque is going with t3d that puts allot more + marks at lest the last blog about t3d has made me very very happy. the very last part on that post he made about HeroEngine torque 3d seems to be going more in that direction now at lest from what i see so far. i like HeroEngine more then any engine out there so any engine that's putting stuff in that's from that one is perfect for me. i and many people cant afford a $300k for lowest license all the way up to $950k for the highest one.
i do like one thing more then anything about unity though as you can make your 3d objects and put them in the game super easy that's the one thing torque lacks. i been going over and over on torque for a month now and yet every time i go to unity or c4 i still like torque better. the thing i like most about torque is its community if you need help with a little problem just ask and they will solve it for you. there's also the extra things you can buy that have been made by the community that makes torque ether easier to use or just save you allot of time making it your self.
price don't take into account on anything out of the 2 even with the price change of t3d from what i seen being put in for t3d its already well worth any price change.
#6
The thing is, if you're doing something worth doing, you will have vehement opponents. Great products inspire change and strong opinions for and against said change. I'd be more worried if I didn't see people bashing Torque. Nobody does something great without a little controversy.
And I do hope to see how this thread might create some topics of discussion. It would be interesting from a GarageGames viewpoint to see how our community feels about us versus other engines like Unity.
01/22/2009 (3:27 pm)
I actually have gone a few rounds now and then on other forums when the Unity advocates show up. I'll defend Torque if people ask the question or if I see misinformation out there. I certainly don't think a good persuasive technique, though, is to be "fanboy" myself. I honestly think our engine speaks for itself, and by really supporting this community, we create advocates who speak for us, which is ALWAYS more powerful than just pushing press releases and hoping for the traditional "marketing buzz."The thing is, if you're doing something worth doing, you will have vehement opponents. Great products inspire change and strong opinions for and against said change. I'd be more worried if I didn't see people bashing Torque. Nobody does something great without a little controversy.
And I do hope to see how this thread might create some topics of discussion. It would be interesting from a GarageGames viewpoint to see how our community feels about us versus other engines like Unity.
#7
I'll just stick with torque and not worry about what other engine communities say. There are a lot of people who go out and "try" an engine, but find they go cross-eyed when they look at it. Then, they go to a dll engine and blast the former becouse of it's "shortcommings". (as if.) I have tried Irrlicht and ogre. Both are really good graphics engines, but I don't have the time or the patience to make them into game engines. Torque fills the bill.
The other reason I like torque over any other is the community here. I have never had a problem asking a question and getting help. At some of the others I've tried, I got flamed for being a newbie. Oh well. Their loss.
01/22/2009 (4:16 pm)
I looked at unity once. It was mac only at the time (still is to a point) so I didn't even download the trial version. (does it have one? I dunno, didn't look) I chose torque becouse it worked on all 3 flavors of computers. (at that time. only 2 now out of the box)I'll just stick with torque and not worry about what other engine communities say. There are a lot of people who go out and "try" an engine, but find they go cross-eyed when they look at it. Then, they go to a dll engine and blast the former becouse of it's "shortcommings". (as if.) I have tried Irrlicht and ogre. Both are really good graphics engines, but I don't have the time or the patience to make them into game engines. Torque fills the bill.
The other reason I like torque over any other is the community here. I have never had a problem asking a question and getting help. At some of the others I've tried, I got flamed for being a newbie. Oh well. Their loss.
#8
01/22/2009 (6:10 pm)
lol...is this a troll?
#9
01/22/2009 (7:12 pm)
If I didn't know any better I would say that a Garage Games employee just referred to a member of this community and a paying customer as a troll. 
#10
See take the non cap's 'lol' followed by '...' this translates to 'i didn't read any of this forum, because the subject alone is way to silly'
Next we have is this a troll?, with the 'this' being non defined participle what might be pointing to the lol... but not in this case, lol... is not a subject. We must go back to translation of the 'lol' = 'i didn't read any of this forum, because the subject alone is way to silly' Key here being the word subject.
So we put it all together and its plain to see, Brett Seyler, who have been locked inside the office for most of the day, and being it is winter a cold day with the windows closed no doubt perfect conditions for the common flu, take into consideration- if you will- It is a Thursday here and studies have proven most people are late to work on Thursdays, so Brett did not have time for a good relaxing cup of coffy is growing sleepy by the time of this forum post. He see it and snort with a chuckle at the mere thought of trying to compare Unity and Torque, accidentally shoots a booger onto his keyboard, feeling light headed and groggy hallucinates the booger to be a troll. Its a cry for help!
But... i might be wrong....
01/22/2009 (7:55 pm)
No, i dont think so. See take the non cap's 'lol' followed by '...' this translates to 'i didn't read any of this forum, because the subject alone is way to silly'
Next we have is this a troll?, with the 'this' being non defined participle what might be pointing to the lol... but not in this case, lol... is not a subject. We must go back to translation of the 'lol' = 'i didn't read any of this forum, because the subject alone is way to silly' Key here being the word subject.
So we put it all together and its plain to see, Brett Seyler, who have been locked inside the office for most of the day, and being it is winter a cold day with the windows closed no doubt perfect conditions for the common flu, take into consideration- if you will- It is a Thursday here and studies have proven most people are late to work on Thursdays, so Brett did not have time for a good relaxing cup of coffy is growing sleepy by the time of this forum post. He see it and snort with a chuckle at the mere thought of trying to compare Unity and Torque, accidentally shoots a booger onto his keyboard, feeling light headed and groggy hallucinates the booger to be a troll. Its a cry for help!
But... i might be wrong....
#12
01/22/2009 (10:05 pm)
Accepts award, 'I wish to thank all the little people i had to step on to make this possible...'
#13
01/22/2009 (10:14 pm)
wow that is a good post he made. :P i did not think he called him a troll ether in mater of fact i thought he was talking about ogre as there logo is a troll head or looks like a troll to me.
#14
01/22/2009 (11:17 pm)
..for more nonsense, plz deposit 25 cents..
#15
@Wes: No offense intended, man. I wasn't calling *you* a troll, but I did read the titles and think "wtf?" This just looked like a trolling post.
Nevertheless, I'll take the bait and give you my thoughts...
"What's wrong with Unity?" Nothing. That's like asking "what's wrong with Director" or "what's wrong with Game Maker?" There's nothing wrong with these products, they're just not trying to be serious 3D game engines. That's my impression.
The presumption here is that you want to make a game and have certain skill set. If that skill set is lacking in any real scripting or coding knowledge and you just want to do some design work (as opposed to shipping a game), Unity might be a good choice. If you're wanting to round out your skill set and become a game developer, TGB seems like a much better choice to get started with.
Honestly, I expect more questions about engine comparisons to come up between Torque and C4 / Ogre / Irrlicht, etc. These engines offer you far more blue sky and greater resources to finish the game you want and not make compromises. If you don't want to touch script or code and maybe never do though...well, building a game is hard, and Unity some of those parts of it easier.
Obviously I know that some Torque-bashing goes on aplenty over in the Unity forums. I read some it, but ignore most. Nearly all of the commentary I've seen is completely non-substantive...the kind of stuff you see train wreck Mac vs. PC forums. I'd say zumwalt's well-thought out commentary is an exception to the rule, though he does say Unity and TGEA have roughly equivalent graphics capability, definitely not true. It's more than just being able to render pixel shaders, it's about performance too, and TGEA is years ahead in that department.
Do I think it's reasonable to compare Unity with Torque? I don't know. I guess it depends on what you want to do. Do you want to be a game developer and build a game? Maybe a game you can charge money for? I can't see Unity being a reasonable choice for this. There are too many limitations, too much wonkiness with the no source code license model and the bizarre proprietary version control system (which is a must if you're working on a team bigger than 1).
Contrast this with Torque, which has a long, rich track record that sets it apart from all other options in this space. What I hear most about Unity are how great it's tools are and how much time they save. Well, there's getting a game to prototype stage and then there's getting it finished. Not having source code makes getting a game of any sophistication or complexity finished *awfully* difficult. If Unity really did save game developers (as opposed to just tinkerers) time, wouldn't you see some games? They've been around since 2005.
I've seen press releases from Unity that say stuff like (paraphrasing from memory here) "...from games like Velociraptor Safari to Fusionfall, Unity is capable of making any kind of game you can imagine!" I remember reading that and almost falling out of my chair. Aren't those the only two games that been shipped with Unity and didn't Fusionfall require the Unity staff to heavily customize the engine at the source code level to ship it? This is not something you can do, even with their high-end no-source $2000 license. You might say I'm exaggerating, but please, show me where I can buy a Unity game. While Velociraptor Safari may be fun, it's not at all monetized and from a fidelity perspective, it's a short step up from a 3D Flash game.
>>> continued below...
01/23/2009 (1:54 am)
@Caylo: Congrats...you nailed it :) I think you must have special remote viewing powers. It *did* look like a troll...@Wes: No offense intended, man. I wasn't calling *you* a troll, but I did read the titles and think "wtf?" This just looked like a trolling post.
Nevertheless, I'll take the bait and give you my thoughts...
"What's wrong with Unity?" Nothing. That's like asking "what's wrong with Director" or "what's wrong with Game Maker?" There's nothing wrong with these products, they're just not trying to be serious 3D game engines. That's my impression.
The presumption here is that you want to make a game and have certain skill set. If that skill set is lacking in any real scripting or coding knowledge and you just want to do some design work (as opposed to shipping a game), Unity might be a good choice. If you're wanting to round out your skill set and become a game developer, TGB seems like a much better choice to get started with.
Honestly, I expect more questions about engine comparisons to come up between Torque and C4 / Ogre / Irrlicht, etc. These engines offer you far more blue sky and greater resources to finish the game you want and not make compromises. If you don't want to touch script or code and maybe never do though...well, building a game is hard, and Unity some of those parts of it easier.
Obviously I know that some Torque-bashing goes on aplenty over in the Unity forums. I read some it, but ignore most. Nearly all of the commentary I've seen is completely non-substantive...the kind of stuff you see train wreck Mac vs. PC forums. I'd say zumwalt's well-thought out commentary is an exception to the rule, though he does say Unity and TGEA have roughly equivalent graphics capability, definitely not true. It's more than just being able to render pixel shaders, it's about performance too, and TGEA is years ahead in that department.
Do I think it's reasonable to compare Unity with Torque? I don't know. I guess it depends on what you want to do. Do you want to be a game developer and build a game? Maybe a game you can charge money for? I can't see Unity being a reasonable choice for this. There are too many limitations, too much wonkiness with the no source code license model and the bizarre proprietary version control system (which is a must if you're working on a team bigger than 1).
Contrast this with Torque, which has a long, rich track record that sets it apart from all other options in this space. What I hear most about Unity are how great it's tools are and how much time they save. Well, there's getting a game to prototype stage and then there's getting it finished. Not having source code makes getting a game of any sophistication or complexity finished *awfully* difficult. If Unity really did save game developers (as opposed to just tinkerers) time, wouldn't you see some games? They've been around since 2005.
I've seen press releases from Unity that say stuff like (paraphrasing from memory here) "...from games like Velociraptor Safari to Fusionfall, Unity is capable of making any kind of game you can imagine!" I remember reading that and almost falling out of my chair. Aren't those the only two games that been shipped with Unity and didn't Fusionfall require the Unity staff to heavily customize the engine at the source code level to ship it? This is not something you can do, even with their high-end no-source $2000 license. You might say I'm exaggerating, but please, show me where I can buy a Unity game. While Velociraptor Safari may be fun, it's not at all monetized and from a fidelity perspective, it's a short step up from a 3D Flash game.
>>> continued below...
#16
The above observations don't mean anything is "wrong with Unity." It just means that it's probably not the right fit for aspiring game developers. Hobbyists? Maybe. That depends on what outcomes you want and what kind of skills you want to develop. Using Torque gives you all the power and capability available to the largest, richest developers and publishers in the industry. You'll have the chance to develop similar skills, use similar tools, and learn valuable skills. Do you think any game developers are out there making a game without access to the source code? It's just silly.
There's a larger question here though that I want to answer. "Is Unity good for the games industry?" In my opinion, that's an emphatic "YES." It is tools like Unity, Game Maker, and Director that give a lot of future game developers their start. They fuel the growth of the games industry by making it more accessible, from a technical perspective, to design and construct a game and that's really a good thing for everyone.
Just as we see lots of developers come to Torque from Flash (Director), Game Maker, and other simpler tools when they want to take game development a bit more seriously, we see the same thing with Unity. In the end, it's not a zero sum game. There's plenty of room for all kinds of options for people who have just a budding interest or perhaps a burning desire to make games.
If anyone wants me to expand on any of the points or claims above, I'm happy to.
01/23/2009 (1:55 am)
...continued from aboveThe above observations don't mean anything is "wrong with Unity." It just means that it's probably not the right fit for aspiring game developers. Hobbyists? Maybe. That depends on what outcomes you want and what kind of skills you want to develop. Using Torque gives you all the power and capability available to the largest, richest developers and publishers in the industry. You'll have the chance to develop similar skills, use similar tools, and learn valuable skills. Do you think any game developers are out there making a game without access to the source code? It's just silly.
There's a larger question here though that I want to answer. "Is Unity good for the games industry?" In my opinion, that's an emphatic "YES." It is tools like Unity, Game Maker, and Director that give a lot of future game developers their start. They fuel the growth of the games industry by making it more accessible, from a technical perspective, to design and construct a game and that's really a good thing for everyone.
Just as we see lots of developers come to Torque from Flash (Director), Game Maker, and other simpler tools when they want to take game development a bit more seriously, we see the same thing with Unity. In the end, it's not a zero sum game. There's plenty of room for all kinds of options for people who have just a budding interest or perhaps a burning desire to make games.
If anyone wants me to expand on any of the points or claims above, I'm happy to.
#17
They are all pretty good engines (otherwise it wouldn't be so hard to choose).
I have been comparing Unity, TGEA and C4 (and T3D with any features I can assume).
Unity 3D:
There are a few obvious things with Unity, firstly you don't get source code, so if the engine can't do something you want then you are stuck. Honestly for most people, if you just want to publish a web game or make a single player game, then this will not be an issue. It has heaps of features out of the box - the lighting/shaders & shadows are probably better quality than what Torque currently has to offer.
Unity has the best editing interface and scripting system. Let's face it, you don't get the source, so it needs to excel in this area. It is pretty easy for you to do things that you would otherwise have to code/script in Torque. In my opinion this is it's strongest feature. I don't agree with Brett on some things, he implies that you can not make a serious game with Unity - this is simply not true. It has all the features you need to make a serious game.
As far as licensing and price - in my opinion Unity has the worst license of the three engines. Sure the indie version is a bit cheaper, but you miss out on some features, I'm sure people would pay an extra hundred or so for these features as an Indie. In addition to this, you need a license per person, including artists - this is not the case for C4/Torque.
I found the Unity community to be pretty helpful, friendly and quite responsive.
C4 Engine:
The biggest disadvantage C4 has at the moment, is that it needs around 6 more months of development before it will have a full feature set. This time next year, I believe it will be better than TGEA and probably T3D in most ways - probably not networking. If you are just starting to develop a game now, it will take you at least 6 months so it is a great time to start with C4.
C4 uses voxel terrains, these have huge advantages and will save you development and artwork time. It allows for much more interesting terrains as well, this is a huge bonus for C4. C4 also has a pretty damn good built-in Material and Shader editor, and a bunch of other stuff I was surprised to see. We have been testing this out quite a bit - I have to say I was surprised at how much you can do without the source code.
The editor that C4 has is quite impressive, it's not as pretty as Unity but it is quite functional. The new terrain editor is very good. Once it has a few more features and adjustments it will be great.
The community at C4 has been incredibly helpful, and is alot easier to find out anything you want to know about the engine compared to over here at GG. Eric responds to your questions very quickly and does not stuff around or add fluff.
TGEA:
You have the advantage of getting the source with TGEA, this is good and it does do some things well. The impression I get however from this engine is a bit 'chaotic'. The documentation and TDN are incomplete and messy, some of the features seem to be incomplete, and a lot of the features on the TGEA page are... interesting. If I didn't know any better and went to buy TGEA I would be extremely dissapointed with the amount of things that didn't work out of the box.
It's not all bad with TGEA, even though I think it has the worst editor, shaders, shadows, art pipeline and lighting - it probably has the best networking out of the 3 engines. The physics is probably pretty good too as far as the basic stuff goes, and maybe rigid body - but even this doesn't work out of the box I believe.
Overall with TGEA I feel like you get a bit of a dated engine that you need to spend a while on to get everything working and up to scratch before you can go head into your development.
01/23/2009 (6:04 am)
If you have looked around a bit you will notice I have been deciding between 3 engines for the last few weeks, I have made posts equally on the forums of each 3 engines.They are all pretty good engines (otherwise it wouldn't be so hard to choose).
I have been comparing Unity, TGEA and C4 (and T3D with any features I can assume).
Unity 3D:
There are a few obvious things with Unity, firstly you don't get source code, so if the engine can't do something you want then you are stuck. Honestly for most people, if you just want to publish a web game or make a single player game, then this will not be an issue. It has heaps of features out of the box - the lighting/shaders & shadows are probably better quality than what Torque currently has to offer.
Unity has the best editing interface and scripting system. Let's face it, you don't get the source, so it needs to excel in this area. It is pretty easy for you to do things that you would otherwise have to code/script in Torque. In my opinion this is it's strongest feature. I don't agree with Brett on some things, he implies that you can not make a serious game with Unity - this is simply not true. It has all the features you need to make a serious game.
As far as licensing and price - in my opinion Unity has the worst license of the three engines. Sure the indie version is a bit cheaper, but you miss out on some features, I'm sure people would pay an extra hundred or so for these features as an Indie. In addition to this, you need a license per person, including artists - this is not the case for C4/Torque.
I found the Unity community to be pretty helpful, friendly and quite responsive.
C4 Engine:
The biggest disadvantage C4 has at the moment, is that it needs around 6 more months of development before it will have a full feature set. This time next year, I believe it will be better than TGEA and probably T3D in most ways - probably not networking. If you are just starting to develop a game now, it will take you at least 6 months so it is a great time to start with C4.
C4 uses voxel terrains, these have huge advantages and will save you development and artwork time. It allows for much more interesting terrains as well, this is a huge bonus for C4. C4 also has a pretty damn good built-in Material and Shader editor, and a bunch of other stuff I was surprised to see. We have been testing this out quite a bit - I have to say I was surprised at how much you can do without the source code.
The editor that C4 has is quite impressive, it's not as pretty as Unity but it is quite functional. The new terrain editor is very good. Once it has a few more features and adjustments it will be great.
The community at C4 has been incredibly helpful, and is alot easier to find out anything you want to know about the engine compared to over here at GG. Eric responds to your questions very quickly and does not stuff around or add fluff.
TGEA:
You have the advantage of getting the source with TGEA, this is good and it does do some things well. The impression I get however from this engine is a bit 'chaotic'. The documentation and TDN are incomplete and messy, some of the features seem to be incomplete, and a lot of the features on the TGEA page are... interesting. If I didn't know any better and went to buy TGEA I would be extremely dissapointed with the amount of things that didn't work out of the box.
It's not all bad with TGEA, even though I think it has the worst editor, shaders, shadows, art pipeline and lighting - it probably has the best networking out of the 3 engines. The physics is probably pretty good too as far as the basic stuff goes, and maybe rigid body - but even this doesn't work out of the box I believe.
Overall with TGEA I feel like you get a bit of a dated engine that you need to spend a while on to get everything working and up to scratch before you can go head into your development.
#18
..continued:
Torque3D:
We don't know much about this so it is pretty difficult to comment. The impression I get is that they are (hopefully) fixing up any issues that TGEA 1.8 has, throwing in a few kits to make it easy for people to get started and adding some bling in the process. In my opinion this will bring the engine to where it should already be.
Obviously there is some new stuff like Web Publishing - this will help it compete with Unity - so this is good, if you need it.
The price hike is what worries me most about this, I don't see how they can double the price of TGEA or more for fixes that should have been made to TGEA anyway. If they increase the price too much, then many more people will move to other engines such as C4, which are fast becoming - in my opinion - superior engines, with better licenses (C4 is currently $350 with free updates for life).
Anyhow, if they are increasing the price more than $100, they better be adding alot more than just fixes, a few kits and some fancy shaders.
Conclusion:
Deciding between Unity and TGEA should not be too difficult. You need to determine IF Unity has all of the features you need for your game. - If it doesn't, then it is no longer an option because you don't get the source code.
- If the restricted indie features are a problem for you, and you can't afford the Pro version, then it is no longer an option.
- If you can't afford the multiple licenses you need to buy for your artists if you want to use their proper art pipeline, then it is no longer an option.
As you might guess our team is currently leaning towards C4. We don't like the restrictions on Unity's indie license, we think C4 is better than TGEA, and we are worried that T3D's price hike is not worth waiting for. It seems it is going to cost at least twice as much as TGEA, so we don't see any reason to hang around and wait for it.
Plus, once you go Voxel Terrain, you never go back :) (Seriously be careful if you play with Voxel Terrains in C4, it's so awesome you will want to buy it straight away)
By the way..:
You will notice we haven't compared the other GG products such as TGB. This don't suit our project so we haven't looked into them, so make sure you compare the appropriate engines when you are choosing.
01/23/2009 (6:06 am)
---- er.. 1000 chars, maybe increase that :)..continued:
Torque3D:
We don't know much about this so it is pretty difficult to comment. The impression I get is that they are (hopefully) fixing up any issues that TGEA 1.8 has, throwing in a few kits to make it easy for people to get started and adding some bling in the process. In my opinion this will bring the engine to where it should already be.
Obviously there is some new stuff like Web Publishing - this will help it compete with Unity - so this is good, if you need it.
The price hike is what worries me most about this, I don't see how they can double the price of TGEA or more for fixes that should have been made to TGEA anyway. If they increase the price too much, then many more people will move to other engines such as C4, which are fast becoming - in my opinion - superior engines, with better licenses (C4 is currently $350 with free updates for life).
Anyhow, if they are increasing the price more than $100, they better be adding alot more than just fixes, a few kits and some fancy shaders.
Conclusion:
Deciding between Unity and TGEA should not be too difficult. You need to determine IF Unity has all of the features you need for your game. - If it doesn't, then it is no longer an option because you don't get the source code.
- If the restricted indie features are a problem for you, and you can't afford the Pro version, then it is no longer an option.
- If you can't afford the multiple licenses you need to buy for your artists if you want to use their proper art pipeline, then it is no longer an option.
As you might guess our team is currently leaning towards C4. We don't like the restrictions on Unity's indie license, we think C4 is better than TGEA, and we are worried that T3D's price hike is not worth waiting for. It seems it is going to cost at least twice as much as TGEA, so we don't see any reason to hang around and wait for it.
Plus, once you go Voxel Terrain, you never go back :) (Seriously be careful if you play with Voxel Terrains in C4, it's so awesome you will want to buy it straight away)
By the way..:
You will notice we haven't compared the other GG products such as TGB. This don't suit our project so we haven't looked into them, so make sure you compare the appropriate engines when you are choosing.
#19
01/23/2009 (7:12 am)
For now, TGEA is less expensive. That is the main benefit for me.
#20
One thing I have noticed is that by not giving the code out, it's made the Unity team generally more responsive because they cannot delay taking ownership of an issue.
01/23/2009 (10:40 am)
Unity is extendable through custom-written libraries, unfortunately only through on the Pro version. One thing I have noticed is that by not giving the code out, it's made the Unity team generally more responsive because they cannot delay taking ownership of an issue.
Torque 3D Owner Caylo Gypsyblood