Unreal UDK vs. JME

I’m going to try to be careful in how i word this so as not to offend anyone.

But with the Unreal UDK (now free) its very tempting to leave JME in order to put my efforts to something that is more of an “industry standard.” Looking at it also from a perspective of putting it on a resume’ there are a lot of firms who are using the unreal engine, and that experience would be a huge plus.



What are some of the advantages/disadvantages of JME vs. Unreal?

I can start with a few maybe to help get the ball rolling

The great JME community :slight_smile:

Unreal’s 25% cut of any profits (albeit on after you make $50,000) (it is a con but probably not a likely scenario for me)

JME is java based vs. a special scripting language.

JME is java based vs. a special scripting language.


I considered using the unreal sdk but came back to jME because of that. I want to be able to modify the source if neccessary and I want to do real programing and not using editors and scripts. For a game that wants to be innovativ it's probably better to have full control.
But if you want to create a game like Counterstrike or something similar to the current triple A games then you probably better use Unreal SDK.
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Funnily on the Unreal page they even say something to the extent of “UnrealScript is run on a optimized VM much like Java” ^^ All I can tell you that with UDK it will be much more work to do something that is not existing as a template with all UnrealScript bindings etc in place than it is in jME because its C++, the most evil and bloated language in the world if you step outside the UnrealScript realm (which you will probably have to at some point to go beyond the “preset” functionality). Ofc with the commercial package you get many more things readily implemented to some extent but as you pointed out, their “support” is probably not too inclined to explain you the difference between a normal and a bump map :wink:



Add.: “Performance” wise there is no difference, you can do anything with the shaders in jME3 that you could do in UDK, its (mostly) OpenGL in both cases, so its always how good your code is. jme games can look as “pretty” as UDK games, thats all in the artwork, good normal mapping etc etc.

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Since I have done no reading on Unreal, just seen some video clips… I guess I’ll ask questions to help generate thought.



What sort of networking capabilities does Unreal have? Are you boxed in to whatever they provide? Or can you write your own networking layer?

Actually… come to think of it, all my questions are going to be along the same lines as @enum pointed out.



Your final game may look pretty, but it is only going to be as innovative as they thought to make the engine… your pretty much out of luck if you want to implement something that wasn’t planned for by the Unreal team… if I understand this correctly.

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Ya so UDK really isn’t free. 25% profits is massive after you count other fees from distribution sites (Steam etc), around the 20-ish % range. So right there you are losing close to 50% of income. Now it may be worth it, really just depends on what features you want vs. flexibility.



UDK is recognizable on your resume, but really having any experience with engines is good. The type of engine is something you want to research about the company you are applying for. If a company heavily uses Havok, then you want to learn that engine.



Also keep in mind if you want to make a living off of game development, depending where you live, $50k is roughly a salary for one person. So if you aren’t making even that much, then you probably aren’t making a living making games; you will want to strive to make more than $50k, and then you will definitely be paying the royalty fee. Just something to keep in mind no matter what engine you go with.

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Nice this is good stuff…

All I can tell you that with UDK it will be much more work to do something that is not existing as a template with all UnrealScript bindings etc in place than it is in jME because its C++


And to add: As far as I know you have no access to the source unless you really license the engine for some hundreds of thousands of dollars... Which might be a bit to much for an indie^^ ;)

Its like asking whats better “assembly” or “Windoze 9000 galaxy edition automatically programming based on human language (nope still complicated) glados global mind reading software (after-all computers are smarter and humans are deterministic)”.



Obviously you choose based on the time it takes you to create a working game.

If on the one takes 3 days and the other takes 1 month, then you choose the fastest. Become the fastest way reduces the changes of giving up because it is “too hard”.

I did a bunch in UDK before I chose to move to jME. Unreal is great, tech is amazing, tools are excellent, I would definitely recommend people having a go just to expose themselves to different systems, get an idea what is out there. What I found was it was too good for me alone to handle, because of how polished the UDK is, the number of tools available within it and the fact everyone knows what a good UDK game should look like, I alone don’t have the resources to utilise all the features, and the work I was doing felt half arsed, all of sudden my simple, diffuse map only models that are normally more than adequate, were no longer cutting it… UDK is great for teams of people, tough for individuals IMHO.



The major point that made me shift was the lack of low level coding support. You code in UnrealSctipt, which is fine, I generally like scripting languages, I have no issues with UScript, but I hated being abstracted up a level. I wanted to fiddle with vertex placement, write my own path finding, I dunno, I just wanted more control over MY project, when using UDK I felt like I was I was making something cool out of Lego at my friends house: sure I’m the one making it, but it’s his Lego, in his house, and at the end of the day it stays at his house, people will see Billy’s cool new Lego, and not the sweet spaceship I made from it. Perhaps a poor analogy, I felt like I was making a mod the whole time, not a real game in it’s own right.



Oh another thing, UDK is heavily geared towards shooter games, trying to do other things can be a bit of a pain.



I think game designers / developers stand to learn a lot more from using jME because you are much more involved in the process all the way though, less using specific tools designed to optimize a process, and more of learning what the actual process is, why it is a certain way and the reasoning behind it. Knowledge and understanding gained while using jME will help you become a better UDK developer (game developer in general), but it doesn’t really go back the other way so much.



My advice would be get UDK and give it a go, it will cost you nothing, its great fun to play around in it and the you can then pop it on your resume. You should probably give CryEngine a go while your at it for exactly the same reasons. You may choose to switch to UDK, you may not, just so long as you’re making the game you want, the tech doesn’t really matter (but jME is actually better :wink: ).



…Oh and when you do get UDK, please use the referral ‘toucher’ so I get my commissions :wink:

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As we are at it you might want to give the source engine a try as well, after all its quite nice, but very outdated from my point of view (physic performance is way lower than jbullet (not to mention the native one)

However a quick towerdefence (for example) is easily scrapped togheter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM

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As far as the resume goes, if you make a name for yourself it’ll be worth a lot more than anything you could’ve done with any engine.



Ask many studios if they would hire Notch… They would. Because he made an impression. That’s what you should strive for, not “I can use this/that toolset.” Of course, it’s not a bad thing to learn new stuff, be it with CryEngine or UnrealEngine or whatnot.



Anyway, that’s my take on this.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTO_dZUvbJA

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@thetoucher:

You must be a writer in your real life, about the “lego” things … Same here bro, same here!!! :wink:

It’s kind of like saying do you want to own a Ford or rent a Ferrari?



Sure it’s clear which is the most powerful, but if you want something that you can call your own, and you want the right to tinker with the engine, paint it green and lend it to your friends, it’s no use having something where all the rights belong to someone else.

@atomix said:
@thetoucher:
You must be a writer in your real life, about the "lego" things ... Same here bro, same here!!! ;)

"Real life" Hahaha, now we're RPing game designers? Hahaha, I just leveled up my shaders skill! Now I need to power train on some of those ai scripts... Oh noes, I'm running out of free time to program, quick, use a Monster Potion so I don't have to sleep!

Terribly sorry, I just couldn't resist, hahaha....
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“I drink my cola of +2 focus and wield my Debugger of Slaying to spew logs at the bug…”

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@nomnom said:
"Real life" Hahaha, now we're RPing game designers? Hahaha, I just leveled up my shaders skill! Now I need to power train on some of those ai scripts... Oh noes, I'm running out of free time to program, quick, use a Monster Potion so I don't have to sleep!

Terribly sorry, I just couldn't resist, hahaha....


Sure,playing game titled Role playing Game of Making and Designing Game for the Gamers of our own, how confuse this term is...? Naggrrrrrrrr

I usually wear my pants of reduced sleep -10 the problem is the penalty with 5 concentration XD

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I don’t even want to think about how those pants achieve that…



(Achievement unlocked: Image you can’t unsee.)

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