Unreal vs Source.

Commandline tools are necessary and useful, but a GUI extension wouldn't go amiss. It helps newbies no ends, plus there are certain things that are just really monotonous to do by hand. E.g. writing qcs is really, really goddamn annoying. Once you have them done, fine, it's easy to compile them again and again using commandline tools (I personally set up a batch file to compile it and pause before exiting), but it'd be so much easier for people to just open a GUI, choose "new model compile", browse to the appropriate destination folder, select the smd, choose the options they want (staticprop etc), whether to create LODs, whether it has multiple textures, animations, whether to convert the smd's source textures to vtf and so on. Even two+ years on, I still find it a real chore to create a new QC, create a batch file etc.

There's room for both ways. I personally like GUIs when setting stuff up and then commandline tools once everything is set up and I don't need to change anything, just recompile repeatedly.

Hmm GUI is always best. That quick repeat build functionality could be built into a GUI too.

I seriously thought Valve were kidding with a lot of their SDK tools, or they were temporary and going to be replaced, such a pile of balls, and I have to be logged into Steam to use them... (GRR!)

Tools aside, Hammer still has graphical glitches I have not experienced in any other game or 3D application. My card isn't shit (6600gt) and I have updated my graphics card drivers several times and no luck...

Apropos Patches in Source: http://www.violator.eclipse.co.uk/disped/

I tried that application, but I found it awkward to control and difficult to make any kind of shape beyond simple curves

When lighting preview gets turned on in hammer i'll pretty much giggle like a school girl.

how can you have a lighting preview that is anywhere near the final version? It's just not how it works..

If the lighting preview will be anything like lights in the 3D viewport of MAX.

I'll be happy with it.

I've worked with both, Source and UE3 for a few years now. Here are my thoughts about one and the other, in short.

+ Positive.

| Neutral.

- Negative.

UE3

+ Material editor. You can easily achieve stunning material effects, just after a few days playing with it.

+ UnrealScript. A Java/C# like programming language, easy to learn, good IDE, safe sand-box compiling. You can create/change almost every aspect of the game/mod. It's here where you create or modify entities, their behavior/communication, etc. The code itself is not documented well, so it's up to you to go down to the roots to learn what does what.

+ Fast and reliable engine. Good actor architecture. Good support for AI (very solid base to build upon).

+ Instancing, archetyping, prefabs. This is a very useful thing, but currently quite unstable. We all believe it will work some day.

+ Package system.

+ On-the-fly playtesting. You can run your map directly from the editor. No need for compiling.

| Kismet. Kismet is a scripting system for high-level level-object based scripting. While in HL2 all your logic making objects like triggers lie directly in the map, in UE3 you control the objects via Kismet, which is a big canvas where you place references to the objects. You have many boxes with inputs/outputs/variables that you connect with cables. This is very simple and useful for beginners or games with very light scripting. The problem is that the canvas gets utterly littered when heavy scripting comes in, and the 'code' is unreadable. I personally prefer clasiccal coding style before this visualization style.

| Epic support. Sometimes, you get a fast and useful response, sometimes, you get nothing of a use.

- Editor. Interface is really terrible in some aspects. Weird key shortcuts.

- Engine undone. Many of the engine's features are undone or currently in reworking progress. The frequent changes in the engine source code can cause many troubles to your project.

- CSG/BSP. If you are familiar with Quake/Half like static-world building/editing, you will get annoyed in a minute using this. Even freeware editors have better user interface for building primitive blocks of your geometry. CSG in UE3 is becoming more and more obsolete and unsupported, thus unstable and generally not usable. So you have to build your worlds in tools like 3DS Max, which we pretty good understand is a suffering.

- Physics. Forget the ease of creating physical puzzles in HL2. If you are familiar with HL2, this is a nightmare. Even though, with a hard work, you can achieve some results, but it really needs a full-time focus/learning.

- Accessibility. As far as I know, you have no chance to get a glimpse of what UE3 is and how it works for free.

Source

+ Support. The best support of all the engines out there, best community, best tutorials, etc.

+ Hammer. Do I need to say more?

+ Direct in-tools support for creating mods.

+ Clean code base.

+ Graphics. Many people say UE3 is an engine capable of rendering the best looking scenes. I don't quite agree. Look for yourselves.

- Need for compiling maps before run, slower tweaking, etc.

- No scripting language built in. You cannot change behaviors or create entities with ease.

I hope this will be useful at least a bit.

Quote from Zajoman

I've worked with both, Source and UE3 for a few years now. Here are my thoughts about one and the other, in short.+ Positive.

| Neutral.

- Negative.

UE3

+ Material editor. You can easily achieve stunning material effects, just after a few days playing with it.

+ UnrealScript. A Java/C# like programming language, easy to learn, good IDE, safe sand-box compiling. You can create/change almost every aspect of the game/mod. It's here where you create or modify entities, their behavior/communication, etc. The code itself is not documented well, so it's up to you to go down to the roots to learn what does what.

+ Fast and reliable engine. Good actor architecture. Good support for AI (very solid base to build upon).

+ Instancing, archetyping, prefabs. This is a very useful thing, but currently quite unstable. We all believe it will work some day.

+ Package system.

+ On-the-fly playtesting. You can run your map directly from the editor. No need for compiling.

| Kismet. Kismet is a scripting system for high-level level-object based scripting. While in HL2 all your logic making objects like triggers lie directly in the map, in UE3 you control the objects via Kismet, which is a big canvas where you place references to the objects. You have many boxes with inputs/outputs/variables that you connect with cables. This is very simple and useful for beginners or games with very light scripting. The problem is that the canvas gets utterly littered when heavy scripting comes in, and the 'code' is unreadable. I personally prefer clasiccal coding style before this visualization style.

| Epic support. Sometimes, you get a fast and useful response, sometimes, you get nothing of a use.

- Editor. Interface is really terrible in some aspects. Weird key shortcuts.

- Engine undone. Many of the engine's features are undone or currently in reworking progress. The frequent changes in the engine source code can cause many troubles to your project.

- CSG/BSP. If you are familiar with Quake/Half like static-world building/editing, you will get annoyed in a minute using this. Even freeware editors have better user interface for building primitive blocks of your geometry. CSG in UE3 is becoming more and more obsolete and unsupported, thus unstable and generally not usable. So you have to build your worlds in tools like 3DS Max, which we pretty good understand is a suffering.

- Physics. Forget the ease of creating physical puzzles in HL2. If you are familiar with HL2, this is a nightmare. Even though, with a hard work, you can achieve some results, but it really needs a full-time focus/learning.

- Accessibility. As far as I know, you have no chance to get a glimpse of what UE3 is and how it works for free.

Source

+ Support. The best support of all the engines out there, best community, best tutorials, etc.

+ Hammer. Do I need to say more?

+ Direct in-tools support for creating mods.

+ Clean code base.

+ Graphics. Many people say UE3 is an engine capable of rendering the best looking scenes. I don't quite agree. Look for yourselves.

- Need for compiling maps before run, slower tweaking, etc.

- No scripting language built in. You cannot change behaviors or create entities with ease.

I hope this will be useful at least a bit.

Display More

fascinating post, where are you working with UE3?

Quote from FMPONE

fascinating post, where are you working with UE3?

Sorry, I won't say.

Your correct on most things but:

-BSP: If used to the BSP system in UE it is by far faster than anything else. This is purely subjective and you are clearly not used to it. Others are.

-Accessibility: People can get Roboblitz. UT3 and GOW will be released in just months time. This is an unfair comparison. The public didnt had access to HL2 and source when it was still in development either right? Oh wait, it got leaked:P

-Source support and community: Again, you cant compare. Source' community is years old. UE3 community doesnt even exist yet because the games havent been released yet. If you want to compare these two at all, you should compare them in 3 years time.

And UE had a system similar to Source' entities at first, but was later replaced with Kismet because entities are nice, but you will seriously lose the overview, just as much as Kismet. Both approaches can result in an utter mess, only Kismet handles it a little better.

Quote from Hourences

-Source support and community: Again, you cant compare. Source' community is years old. UE3 community doesnt even exist yet because the games havent been released yet. If you want to compare these two at all, you should compare them in 3 years time.

I agree with your post, with the exception of this.

The sheer numbers involved preclude UE ever having a community to rival Source, CS alone has more players than UE3 and GoW PC combined will ever have, and its mapping community alone will tower over what UE3 manages. Not to mention Source is the simplest modern 3d engine around, no matter how familiar you are with UE I think you can agree Hammer is about as simple as editors get.

UE3 may have a nice, welcoming and very helpful community, but Source will have the best (most information, most rescources, most tools, most content) simply because of the numbers involved

Like Hourences mentioned, I think it would be best to revisit this whole debate this time next year, when the engine (UE3) and communities (UT3, GoW, whatever else) have matured to the point Source is at...

(although tbh I'll still think source is shit)

Quote from Slainchild

Like Hourences mentioned, I think it would be best to revisit this whole debate this time next year, when the engine (UE3) and communities (UT3, GoW, whatever else) have matured to the point Source is at... (although tbh I'll still think source is shit)

Some great work on your site, I'll say that much

As simple as it gets? Typing stuff in notepad to make materials is regard "simple" and "modern" ?

We've discussed that before anyhow. As far as the numbers, sure, but of all those players only a few actually mod. Do you have any exact numbers on how many? Or on how many HL1 and HL2 maps there have ever been released?

Source may have a huge community, it may very well be larger than Unreal, but the Unreal community is generally at a different level. For us it is not the community tutorial efforts that makes or breaks the modding. For source I believe it is.

-Unreal has huge contests with a milion dollar in prices, that attracts people.

-Unreal is used by a huge amount of schools now, that also expands the community.

-Unreal has had a number of thick books written for it, again expands the community and speeds up peoples progress.

-Unreal has over 4000 professionals who are working with the engine every single day. Those 4000 are suppose to have a high level understanding of the engine. That group of people who fully understand everything that happens (or hopefully they do) is far larger than Source, which only has a handful of professionals working with the engine. Their skills flows on to the community, one way or another and in a way they in turn attract people.

Source relies on its community, Unreal primarily relies on other things and only then the community. Kind of.

Quote from Hourences

Your correct on most things but:-BSP: If used to the BSP system in UE it is by far faster than anything else. This is purely subjective and you are clearly not used to it. Others are.

-Accessibility: People can get Roboblitz. UT3 and GOW will be released in just months time. This is an unfair comparison. The public didnt had access to HL2 and source when it was still in development either right? Oh wait, it got leaked:P

-Source support and community: Again, you cant compare. Source' community is years old. UE3 community doesnt even exist yet because the games havent been released yet. If you want to compare these two at all, you should compare them in 3 years time.

And UE had a system similar to Source' entities at first, but was later replaced with Kismet because entities are nice, but you will seriously lose the overview, just as much as Kismet. Both approaches can result in an utter mess, only Kismet handles it a little better.

CSG (BSP)

I worked with UnrealEd for 3 years, 1 and a half profesionally. I definitely am used to it. I stand my opinion - Hammer is much faster, much smarter, much simpler and much more stable.

Accessibility/Support

You say that the Source community is years old. Very true. But I'm talking about now. People need to know the comparison as it is now, not what it will be in years to come. And of course my opinions ARE subjective. I don't represent a community or a company of people that share the same thoughts.

Scripting

Scripting is not ideal in both engines. I said that I prefer classical code-scripting to visual coding, not that Source scripting is better than Kismet. Level-object based scripting (HL1, HL2, U1, U2) is there just because these games don't rely so heavily on scripting.

So youre saying that having to construct a single room of 6 seperate brushes is "much smarter and faster" ?

If you ask me, itd be far simple to just add a cube, and substract a smaller cube out of it. Done.

I also heard of leaks in Quake/HL? BSP stuff not closing in well. Doesn't sound very user friendly to me...

The actual tools aside, the entire additive system is just slow if you ask me and overly complex for simple actions.

How long have you worked with Source/HL BSP ?

And mind you, I have only encountered a BSP error just once in Unreal Engine 3, and that was because some other guy found it funny to substract 60 sided cylinders of bigger clinders and all off the grid.

Quote from Hourences

As simple as it gets? Typing stuff in notepad to make materials is regard "simple" and "modern" ?We've discussed that before anyhow. As far as the numbers, sure, but of all those players only a few actually mod. Do you have any exact numbers on how many? Or on how many HL1 and HL2 maps there have ever been released?

Source may have a huge community, it may very well be larger than Unreal, but the Unreal community is generally at a different level. For us it is not the community tutorial efforts that makes or breaks the modding. For source I believe it is.

-Unreal has huge contests with a milion dollar in prices, that attracts people.

-Unreal is used by a huge amount of schools now, that also expands the community.

-Unreal has had a number of thick books written for it, again expands the community and speeds up peoples progress.

-Unreal has over 4000 professionals who are working with the engine every single day. Those 4000 are suppose to have a high level understanding of the engine. That group of people who fully understand everything that happens (or hopefully they do) is far larger than Source, which only has a handful of professionals working with the engine. Their skills flows on to the community, one way or another and in a way they in turn attract people.

Source relies on its community, Unreal primarily relies on other things and only then the community. Kind of.

Display More

Typing Stuff In Notepad

This has nothing to do with being modern or not. This is just one of many approaches. UE3 approach is more visual and more accessible to beginner/casual people.

4000

Where did you get that number? I don't believe it a bit. It takes one's life to fully understand the engine. Most of the engine developers surely do, but only very few lincensees do.

Source Relies On Community

How do you mean this? I believe Source relies on itself and its child games that are rated as the all time best for PC (http://%7boption%7d).

So youre saying that having to construct a single room of 6 seperate brushes is "much smarter and faster" ?

> What are you talking about? Be more specific, please.

If you ask me, itd be far simple to just add a cube, and substract a smaller cube out of it. Done.

> Or just draw a box and press Ctrl+H.

I also heard of leaks in Quake/HL? BSP stuff not closing in well. Doesn't sound very user friendly to me...

> This is a human error, not CSG itself. You should make your maps right, not leaky.

The actual tools aside, the entire additive system is just slow if you ask me and overly complex for simple actions.

> UE3 have both approaches, subtractive and additive. Take a guess which one is preferred nowadays... Additive, you got it.

How long have you worked with Source/HL BSP ?

> 7 years.

And mind you, I have only encountered a BSP error just once in Unreal Engine 3, and that was because some other guy found it funny to substract 60 sided cylinders of bigger clinders and all off the grid.

> Working with UE3, I suppose you have the access to the UDN. So log in and look for CSG topics. You'll find that Epic discourages from using it at all.

Quote from Hourences

So youre saying that having to construct a single room of 6 seperate brushes is "much smarter and faster" ?

well then create a house from outside with one box in unreal!

man this argument fails so heavily

carving a room is 1 click in unreal

making a house from the outside is (close to) 1 click in source

you know that substractive vs. additive geometry thing