Why Solo Developers Should Use Unreal

so I'm a Unity developer I've been working in unity for 10 plus years but lately like everybody else I've been wondering just how powerful is unreal and is it worth considering as a seasoned Unity developer I sat down with Gavin at two star games he's the creator of chuch Chu Charles and we discussed unreal and why he chose to use it to create his instant viral hit Chuchu Charles but also he told me about some misconceptions about the engine as well and by the way guys the Christmas slne year sale for fulltime game is officially live that means you're going to get 50% off my massive program dedicated to showing you how to go full-time Indie join Over 4,000 students for the New Year by clicking below 14 days left see you there so it started out with just kind of putting together I would call it like a visual prototype just enough gameplay just enough features to create that initial announcement trailer the process there was really I was just trying to do stuff as quick as possible really basic programming and stuff like that so so I started out by just trying to figure out the train system I hopped into Unreal Engine I started working with splines and started creating kind of just a train track system what's a spline a spline great question Thomas a spline is when you take two or more points in space so in your game space and you basically create a curve like an interpolated curve between those two points so you can create a smooth waving curving line and then what you can do is you can attach objects or meshes things like train tracks in this case you attach the train tracks to that spline so that it curves and waves all around whatever area so this so the mesh is not modular it's not modular pieces that are snapping to a grid rather it's no no it is it is it is it just straight pieces that are like 20 units long or is it literally building the mesh procedurally based on the spline it's sort of a mix of both so I've got a a static track mesh and then an Unreal Engine you can just snap that mesh to the spline and then that just kind of Curves it and then it'll just Loop that mesh all the way along the spline and you get this nice curving mess so let's give our audience here let's give them an idea of what they're capable of okay so let's try and be as honest as we can do you feel like anybody could create this spline system or are you uniquely suited as a solo developer are you smart with math are you smart with coding did you use blueprints did you use C++ are you uniquely suited to create this system because I look at this game and I go I wish I could say everybody could create something like this but I think Gavin's special I think he's he's a wizard what do you think I I wouldn't say special I think just that oddly dedicated and willing to be beat up by a computer I I guess that'd be a decent summary that's good I like that I mean I I think pretty much anybody if they really put their mind to it they could create a similar system like for the track itself you know just the tracks you know looping into each other and a train that follows that um blueprints or C++ blueprints 100% okay so you did all this with visual scripting yes the the entire game I've never used C++ in my life and I I want to make a note on this real quick because this is a misconception that I see way too much in the game industry and I've been thinking about it lately and I'm like dang I need to get the word out about this cuz this is ridiculous so here's the deal with Unreal Engine a lot of people have this misconception that you can only do a handful of things in Blueprint they think oh well yeah you can do some basic prototyping in Blueprint but for anything complicated you have to use C++ and there's a lot of information online that would seemingly reinforce this so if you're a beginner using Unreal you'll be looking up okay how do I make a trained spline system or something like that or how do I Snap A spline to another spline or whatever you're looking for you'll go on Reddit you'll go on the unreal forums and you'll always see always see people in the comments saying well that's impossible to do in Blueprint but here's how you do it in C++ and they'll show you how to do it in C++ but they'll tell you that it's impossible to do in Blueprint I have read the phrase that's impossible to do in blue I I've read that thousands of times and it has never been true there's always either um maybe there's a function that does the same thing but it goes by a different name in Blueprint as opposed to C++ maybe rather than being something that you do in Blueprint there's a different kind of asset that you use to do that function maybe there's a free plugin that you can download to get that functionality in Blueprint like unless you're making a AAA game or or an advanced doublea game you can use blueprint for everything like just I just I want to put that out I think it's it's a frustration that I think a lot of game developers who actually make games full-time that we all share the frustration being there's Gatekeepers or there's like cult-like Behavior about about how to make games the proper engine to I mean obviously Unity really screwed up based on their pricing but in terms of the engine itself I love unity I think it's great but there's pros and cons to all engines and and the purpose you're going to use it for point being though I'm I'm really into weight training as well the same thing is true in the weight training Community there's always a right way to do stuff and there's always a wrong way and there's always somebody saying you can't do X Y and Z but I've always said the people you should really be listening to are the people who have done it and not only done it but they do it full-time and they're profitable doing it those are the people you should listen to everyone else on the forums and on Reddit and on social media who are just complaining or talking about how to do something but they've never actually released anything my theory is it's best to just take their what they're saying with a great brain assault do you know what I mean I mean honestly it's like until you've done the thing yourself it's difficult to identify who doesn't know what they're talking about so yeah it's always just one of these things where yeah I mean exactly like you said here's the funny thing you can make a game wrong and it be profitable exactly exactly I mean if anybody was to crack open my game pinstripe or Never song or even twist a tower which is our first 3D game you're going to see a mess like there's so much about our games that's just wrong and when I live stream you know 25% of the comments and it doesn't make me mad but 25% of the comments are like here's how you should do it Thomas and I'm like yeah I don't really care you know we we're making progress here so we're good um so I just want to encourage everybody listening that there's a million ways to do something so don't let the internet Community tell you that you're stupid or you're not smart rather just make progress that's all you need to do make progress okay so you made this track system um you were really impressed with yourself and you did it with blueprints and you didn't even use C++ okay keep going I took some time a couple days to put together this you know a decent enough train model uh the player train model Drew up some textures for it and I just did fully from scratch textures for that one since I didn't since it wasn't based on an asset so I just had to do those ones from scratch so you didn't use like substance to paint the train or anything no no see this is one of these examples of something that I did wrong exactly I don't know why but I would rather I would rather open up a UV map in Photoshop and paint inside of that as if I was like coloring on Christmas wrapping paper you know what I mean and then you fold it up over the box that's how I prefer to do things which is totally wrong yeah I mean like just for an example here with how to do things the wrong way so for the train model for most of the basically any custom model that I did in in chuchi Charles there's always like six different materials that are applied to it I just use the blender smart UV unwrap yeah and like I don't even export the the UV map I make the texture first I put it into blender and then I adjust the UV map within blender dude to fit the T it's it's messy it's messy but it works at the end of the day I release the game so it's it's oh man but Gavin I'm sure that encourages so many people listening right now that they're like I I hope so to be blunt with you that is the most ridiculous way I've heard of of actually painting a model but the way my team does it uh I have a 3D artist that his name is fipy he's really great the way he does it is he does it the the right way you know and I put that in quotes cuz there's there's a million right ways to do things but he'll just he'll he'll actually export the blend model and then bring it into substance and then paint it that way but it doesn't matter cuz like when I look at choo choo Charles I look at a game that has a very unique flavor it just looks like it's handcrafted despite the fact that you used Assets Now I know that your game it seemingly relies heavily on postprocessing to make it look as beautiful as it does um is this correct no no it's not actually I think the are the volumetrics not post-processing well in unreal they're not post-processing in unreal the volumetrics that's a specific kind of it's an actor type I guess mhm I got you so it's it's classified a little bit differently I I would say the the volumetric fog that is that is pretty cool though it does add a lot to the to the atmosphere um the game would look very different without it the the Everlasting debate of Unreal Engine and unity there are merits to one being better than the other um but I'll just say to people maybe you disagree with me here but I think the majority of Us game developers shouldn't get too lost in the weeds and should just pick something and move forward um assuming unity's pricing model is going to stay the way it is which that's a big if but we'll see um cool thanks for watching guys and just remember if you want to join my massive full-time Game Dev program for 50% off there's just 14 days left and 100 seats total available you're also going to get my 2D and 3D art programs completely free and also my brand new gdau and unreal course and also my Unity courses whichever engine you want to learn it's yours to choose and these are completely free with the program here's the thing I think this is the most comp of course out there and even better it's taught by an actual indie game developer actually making indie games that's yours truly I'm published by 3D Realms and I've also been published by several other Publishers from my previous games and I'm working on my third commercial title so you can trust I know my chops join 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Channel: Thomas Brush

Views: 286,583

Keywords: unity vs ue4, unity vs unreal engine 4, unity or unreal engine, how to get into game development, unity vs unreal engine, unity vs ue, unity game engine, unreal, game, engine, better, ue4, school, beginner, study, program, game development beginner, unreal engine graphics, switching to unreal, how to make games, game developement, game development, choo choo charles, two star games

Id: l9y5B0cgUHY

Length: 10min 54sec (654 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 28 2023