Epic drops the next bombshell, makes UE4 free, a deathblow for the BGE?

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@BPR: If I understand correctly, it is in the title as a joke directed at Ace Dragon’s melodramatic posting style. The fact remains that the thread is not about how to improve the BGE or proving to you that the BGE is nowhere near as functional, flexible, or powerful as UE4. There are other threads for that nonsense.

@Duion: Not interested in a “free software vs proprietary” debate, especially one starting with melodramatic claims about slavery to big companies. I happen to write proprietary software for a living. I am not a big company. So it is unlikely we’re going to see eye-to-eye when the discussion practically began with the FSF equivalent to a Godwin.

Thing is, whether or not we agree on the morality of proprietary software doesn’t change the fact that the BGE is subpar even compared to other open source engines and that learning how to utilise UE4 has better job prospects and easier path to being paid for one’s work than can be said of the BGE. These tend to be more important for people seeking to make a living for their work than Stallman’s ideology. Sorry.

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Thing is, whether or not we agree on the morality of proprietary software doesn’t change the fact that the BGE is subpar even compared to other open source engines and that learning how to utilise UE4 has better job prospects and easier path to being paid for one’s work than can be said of the BGE. These tend to be more important for people seeking to make a living for their work than Stallman’s ideology. Sorry.

I agree you could make money with UE4, only if they could fix the constant compile thing.

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Btolputt; From what I know, any thread that is even about game development will continue to see BPR pushing the idea that the BGE is the best solution available (with the obligatory videos on Wrectified stuff) until…

A). We see a commit that formally removes the BGE in its entirety or…
B). He is banned

He has pretty much handcuffed himself to the BGE and is about at the point where he will turn down any idea of trying something else.

44

So I downloaded UE4 and gave it a very quick spin. Basic examples run great on my 100 y.o. PC, but I haven’t tried any current gen / next gen examples.

I’ve heard 2 opinions from seasoned game engine programmers, one is more of a “new school” guy and one is “old school” guy. The “new school” says the engine is great from the programmer’s perspective, the “old school” says it’s pretty horrible to work with (compare to id Tech 4 / D3 BFG engines). Tools for artists are superb and unmatched in the industry, which I agree with.

My personal gripe is with Blueprints. I do not understand it. It’s easier for me, even though I am not a programmer, to sift through script / C++ game code in id Tech engine (any of them, except maybe Quake 3) and understand where certain functionality begins and how it flows. Looking into Blueprint noodles I don’t understand a thing, I am lost. Not quite sure how it suppose to be easier than code (clean code). So it’s something I need to dig into using training materials available :confused:

It’s hard to argue choosing UE4 from business perspective. Even puzzle games with bunch of shaders thrown at visuals will run on XBOne and PS4. As Steam profitability declines every month, indies should be looking to several other platforms. Mobiles / HTML5 and consoles are viable sources of income. Simultaneous release is a reality now with engines like Unity and UE4. Except that UE4 is a way more powerful and has no upfront costs now.

What we will do next is test performance on Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4. If it’s on par with Unity, then I am certain that UE4 is better than Unity. For once Unity has issues with touch controls and new UI (4.6.x). It has no multiplayer capability out of the box, no ads out of the box, no Google Play system. UE4 already has it built in and has a sample on how to use all that. So in this area (if performance will be good) UE4 beats Unity for us.

I am still debating whether drop our FOSS engine and go 100% UE4, or still finish using it for at least current project and then see about UE4 (for PC at least). So tempting :evilgrin:

I am not going to even waste thread’s screen space for BGE :no:

45

Except that almost every game engine is written entirely differently than BGE. There is no practical reason to learn how to make games with BGE, when you can’t apply the same workflow to any other engine. Many people learn Unity / UE4 / CE to get a job in one of the established game companies (or make a commercial indie game). So it’s very counter productive to learn BGE to “learn” how to make games, and then re-learn everything to be able to make games using Unity / UE4 / CE.

46

So make your game quick, get the money and run, before they change the rules. Invest into several software developers, and pimp out one of the prominent FOSS engines to be like UE4 or better. Although it will be bound only to PC/Mac and Android.

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actually, When I get my new gpu and 4 more gigs of ram, I will give ue4 a spin.

I am on older hardware.

I love the bge for what it is,

If you don’t see its charm then go ahead and use another engine,

I dont spam wrectified to get attention, I am trying to demonstrate
someone who could not code python 1.5 years ago can do anything he
wants almost gameplay wise… and I am only getting faster.

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Needless to say that in 1.5 years one can learn C++ sufficiently enough to code gameplay for idTech 4/5, UE4 and CE. Or C# and code for Unity.

It would sound a bit more convincing if you picked up BGE and 1.5 month later you made a complete game with it, released and earned some cash / recognition.

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I’m not that impressed with Godot, to be honest. There’s nothing about gdscript (or their api) that strikes me as immensely powerful, and I think Blender is a better editing environment. Not that BDX is better, but given some time, and an active community, I think BDX v1.x would probably have significant advantages.

UE, on the other hand, is a highly advanced game development tool, used by professionals, and fully supported by a world-class company, comprised of truly phenomenal A-class hackers - I’m not trying to put down Okam people, and whatever community they managed to build around Godot, but really, as UE itself, Epic engineers are in a completely different league.

Continuing support, from top-tier industry talent, is what gives UE such incredibly high investment value, and it seems pretty clear that most new entrants will look to invest their time there.

So, while I still want to work on BDX (finish the docs, and release the beta, at least), I am less motivated to push it much further beyond its existing capabilities, because it’s already basically good enough for the kind of games I want to make in the near future, and, given this new UE development, I probably won’t have a significantly large community to serve/support.

It wouldn’t be in their interest to mistreat the community/customers.

If they do, however, both the market, and the open source community will have reason to find/develop alternatives.

50

They already did once, with UDK. 25% royalties, no source code, and no support whatsoever still yielded several award winning games built with UDK, and no viable FOSS alternative was developed. Food for thoughts.

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I could have made a 100 small games,

I chose a different path, because I have a idea I am maintaining, and want to accomplish it.

I can make a game overnite if I just want money, I have for other people. I have written and sold bge code.

to date, I have made abuot 500$ working for others, while I work for me,

I also have a day job.

I learned, and now am using a skill.

I have been full time employed, raising a autistic daughter, caring for a disabled girl friend, and learning coding and the bge. now I am back to trying to model for a bit, then back to coding again.

all while working over over time.

most days I work over 10 hours, and then have to pick up, and then I can code.

52

It’s also a question of value vs cost - Even at 25% royalties, it could be argued that Unreal technology is worth the price, especially if it enables the developer to create a product that would otherwise be too expensive to develop.

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@motorsep: It is always refreshing when someone actually bothers trying the engine before commenting about it. Thanks for restoring a little faith in humanity for me :slight_smile:

Just a reply on a few of the things you said:

  • Old School vs New School: I think I can understand where this is coming from. Depending on just how “old school” your programmer friend is, he/she is probably used to the modular code design that was prevalent prior to universities teaching object-oriented code design as a development foundation. In fact, Tim Sweeney jumped aboard the object-oriented design train quite early (Unreal Script was quite revolutionary for it’s day); whereas John Carmack took quite sometime to properly adopt it. Both are (were?) fantastic coders, but there is a notable difference in design style between the idSoft & Unreal engines, even at the script level.
    That said, an interesting counterpoint is that they removed UnrealScript from the engine, at Sweeney’s insistence!

  • Blueprints: I 100% agree with you. I think they are Epic’s attempt to get artists and creative types who balk at / refuse to learn “code” a chance of getting into the engine. There will be those that swear such visual logic things are easier/more efficient when prototyping but I’m still far more comfortable coding it (in script or C++).

  • Android: I think Unity will have a slight edge on this right now… but not for long. UE4 has made leaps and bounds in terms of Android capability/performance since it first came out and if it isn’t already on par, it’s only a matter of time. The only possible reason I can see for Epic letting that drag out too long would be if they see no profit in it (and given they have live streamed tutorials for using Blender with UE4, I highly doubt it).

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The API can already do a number of things that the BGE can’t (create custom geometry and a large number of material values for instance). Also, Team Okam is fully aware that they have a ways to go yet (the roadmap they put together should give a good indication).

Regardless, it’s already gone quite a ways in its first year (and release 1.1 will continue that with node-based shading and full support for lighting, shadow, shading, and normal mapping effects in the 2D mode).

Other things it has over the BGE is that it’s very easy to seamlessly mix 2D elements (like GUI’s) in a 3D scene and allows you to view the results of shading scripts without having to start the game. Version 1.1 will also have comprehensive code completion features adding onto what is in the first official release (Blender’s text editor is quite basic in comparison).

I agree that you can’t classify it as an AAA engine as of now, but the game I’ve started work on shows it’s already capable of making 3D games without the engine throwing bugs at you like in the BGE. People in the forum are also working on plugins for generating primitives for use in the editor (including a terrain primitive that comes complete with LOD chunking).

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EDIT: Ah, BTolputt ninja fixed his post, haha.

56

I don’t think that’s true, but maybe for packaged titles it is. If you’re a licensed Xbone/PS4 developer, the UE4 offered to you will work.

No, they can’t. What do you believe contract law was invented for? You are licensed the full source code for indefinite use, and that license can’t just be revoked for reasons added later, unless you are in breach of contract. If you break the GPL contract, your license is also revoked.

Sure, they might change the license for their next release, but so can any copyright holder publishing a GPL program. If the BF still held all the copyright to the Blender source code, they could make it proprietary again with zero effort. The GPL does absolutely nothing to “protect” you from that. Of course, many GPL programs have lots of disunited copyright holders, so a license change becomes impractical.

57

This is massive. Maybe someone can start some pool to answer the question Is BF should drop BGE and focus on game creation pipeline tools like:

  1. PBR shading templates in viewport and also in cycles (so we can in simply way be compatible with unreal engine, unity, cryengine, marmoset, and others)
  2. Painting tools to paint in PBR way, similar to Substance or Quixe. Painting with proper layers (metalic/albedo/roughness/normal and others stuff)
  3. Maybe even good kinnect2 and PS3 eye support for face and body animation like http://brekel.com/ and others.

There is so much to do, In my opinion BF should drop BGE immediately and start to focus on real tools that we all need.

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@wyslij. BF developers aren’t working on the BGE, currently its maintained by volunteers.

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@wyslij: The BF is not a company. If the BF drops the BGE, the developers working on it will simply stop working on it (or not, it’s GPL after all). They will in all likelihood not start working on other game-related tools. There’s not real way to ‘focus’ them. :stuck_out_tongue:

60

But why should they drop BGE. I am sorry but you can fulfill all those requirements 1,2 and 3 without dropping the BGE. I don’t get these call to drop the BGE not one bit. Building a successful pipeline between Blender and UE4 doesn’t require you to 86 the BGE, that is just a move that will piss of the developers that work on the BGE and the users of that engine.

If you don’t use the BGE and think it is not worth your time then good for you but put the bloody pitch fork away and let those that use it do so without you advocating for its death.