Blender/ 3DS Max VS. Unreal Engine 4 / Unity

If you feel like you're up to the challenge of building your own Ages in Blender or 3ds Max, this is the place for you!

Blender/ 3DS Max VS. Unreal Engine 4 / Unity

Postby TrapperDave » Mon Sep 29, 2014 5:45 pm

Blender / 3DS Max VS. Unreal Engine 4 / Unity3D ?
I've read about game creation with Blender or 3DS Max in this forum.
My question is : Will the Unreal Engine 4 and/or Unity file formats be compatible with DI,
or are the file formats completely different? If I made a game/age in Unreal Engine would I
be able to upload it to Deep Island ?

--
I am a Newbie at game creation or age creation, but am thinking about trying it.
Feel free to laugh at me and any comments are welcome & appreciated :)
--
I have made 1,000's individual items from clothing, rocks, vases, landscape backdrops, animated
objects in Second Life. I have filled an entire sim for others and terra formed, made plants,
trees, etc. I have used Blender a little for collada ( .Dae ) files. In SL I have some
knowledge of scripts, I built the Space Shuttle Enterprise to scale that flies and other vehicles. I
use Adobe Photoshop for textures, probably my best experience since I use it for RL work.
I have a MP store in SL and sell steady. I do know SL is entirely different and has it's
in-world building tools. But I have made most things outside of SL, or portions of them.
--
The whole point is I have a little experience at just about all the angles.
But I have not mastered Blender very well yet. Which comes to my main question; in that: instead
of learning Blender any further; I am leaning towards learning Unreal Engine 4.
--
So if I made a game in Unreal Engine could it be uploaded to Deep Island ?
Or could it be exported or converted to the proper file formats for DI ?
So for a Newbie that wants to expand his horizons. What would be recommended to pursue?
Blender or Unreal Engine 4 ?
Thanks in advance :) TrapperDave
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Re: Blender/ 3DS Max VS. Unreal Engine 4 / Unity

Postby Luna » Mon Sep 29, 2014 10:54 pm

Okay, you're confusing various concepts with each other in this question, so I'll explain those so it'll be somewhat clearer to you :)

Game engine: A game engine basically runs the game. It understands how to read a certain format of model and scripts(and possible a certain script language like SL understands LSL) and creates the level based on those. For example when you give a element physics in Unity3D, the engine will start applying the gravity you have defined. Shamefully enough they don't understand each other formats.
Examples of game engine are:Plasma/CWE*, Unity3d engine, Unreal 4 engine.

3d model program: 3ds Max and Blender are primarily 3d model programs in this context.When using something like Unity3D or Unreal you usually make separate 3d model files for everything in your age and combine them in their level editor(the graphical front end to unity3d and unreal you have been using ;) ). For Plasma however you build your age entirely in one file using one of these programs, using possible separate programs to write scripts. The exporters translate the model and all settings to the Plasma file format so the engine understands it. This is all quite a bit more complex to set up than you're probably used to with Unity3D and Unreal 4.


So while technically you can upload ages made in Unreal to DI, the engine won't be able to understand them.
Blender or Unreal isn't really a valid question(unless you want to use blender's game engine but that was probably not what you meant).
The answer depends on what you want to do;
Do you want to find a job as an artist in the game industry? In that case you should probably learn 3ds Max to create models and Unreal or Unity by making your own games** and make loads of (game-related) art/concept art etc. And you can use 3d Max (up to 2012 iirc and no 64 bit) to make uru ages.
Do you want to model and make ages as a hobby? Use Blender. You can currently make ages for DI using blender 2.49 (32 bit!!)


* It was called Plasma by the fans but when it was released as opensource we learned it's actually called CWE(CyanWorlds Engine). Everyone uses now both words, interchangeable.
**possible less import for artists, but it'll look good in your portofolio
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Re: Blender/ 3DS Max VS. Unreal Engine 4 / Unity

Postby TrapperDave » Tue Sep 30, 2014 6:20 am

@ Luna :) Thank you!
You have cleared a lot up for me in my foggy mind.
I am sure glad you mentioned Blender 2.49 (32 bit), because I am using 64 bit.
So did Cyan write/ create CWE(CyanWorlds Engine)(plasma)? Plasma does not seem to
be the wave of the future to me, except for use here in DI ? That is why I thought
the Unreal 4 Engine would be more versatile and have more use in the future in other
applications other than DI. I see we are tied into the old Cyan games here with 32 bit.
I do it strictly as a hobby, other than using Photoshop for my work in RL. It is a shame
that the engines are not compatible or I should say,( can not be converted from one to the other).

I've been using Blender 2.69 (64 bit). So as a hobby you would recommend using
Blender 2.49 (32 bit)? I guess a good place to start for a amateur would be with
Blender :) And DI provides a server :) All the costs are right.
In answer to you: " Do I look like I care?" :) > Yes you do look like you care !
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Re: Blender/ 3DS Max VS. Unreal Engine 4 / Unity

Postby Deledrius » Tue Sep 30, 2014 7:54 am

I think a possible reason for your confusion (which Luna addressed very well) is your experience in SecondLife. SecondLife is both an engine and a modeling-program, in that it allows you to build things while in-world. This is atypical. As Luna explained, the task of making content for an engine is generally done in a separate, dedicated application such as Blender or 3DS Max, or dedicated tools which are not in-game made for a specific engine such as the Unreal Development Kit.

TrapperDave wrote:So did Cyan write/ create CWE(CyanWorlds Engine)(plasma)? Plasma does not seem to be the wave of the future to me, except for use here in DI ? That is why I thought the Unreal 4 Engine would be more versatile and have more use in the future in other applications other than DI.

Headspin originally wrote what became Plasma, and they were acquired by Cyan who continued to develop the engine into the versions used by Uru and Myst V (and HexIsle). It is no longer used by Cyan, and is primarily of interest to us fans of Uru and related games, and specifically those of us wanting to contribute to the game's content. If you want to seek doing 3D modeling or game development as a major hobby or especially as a career, this is a dead end and I'd suggest looking at Unity or Unreal as those are very large platforms used actively in many professional studios.

TrapperDave wrote:I see we are tied into the old Cyan games here with 32 bit.

We are only tied to 32-bit for the creation tools because of the engine's current reliance on an old 32-bit version only of the physics subsystem the engine uses, PhysX. We've had plans to fix this dependency, but lack the developer-power to do so.

TrapperDave wrote:I've been using Blender 2.69 (64 bit). So as a hobby you would recommend using Blender 2.49 (32 bit)? I guess a good place to start for a amateur would be with Blender

No, I would most certainly recommend using Blender 2.7+ for hobbyist learning of 3D modeling. The only reason to use Blender 2.49 is if you intend to export your work to Uru on Deep Island (or other fan-run servers). The tools for making Ages are currently only available for Blender 2.49 or certain versions of 3D Studio Max, but Blender 2.5 and up are a huge improvement for interface and workflow. It's an unfortunate division.
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Re: Blender/ 3DS Max VS. Unreal Engine 4 / Unity

Postby Sirius » Tue Sep 30, 2014 9:09 am

TrapperDave wrote:Plasma does not seem to be the wave of the future to me, except for use here in DI ? That is why I thought the Unreal 4 Engine would be more versatile and have more use in the future in other applications other than DI
Actually, there are no Ages (or tutorials to create some) on Unreal (also, no simple way to redistribute Ages or explore them together). So Plasma is the future of Myst. Even though you could say Unreal is the future of gaming in general.

Yes, you can create content for Myst in Blender or 3dsMax, and then export it to Uru's engine. It's a bit really more tedious in Blender because of the way the export plugin works, but both can do it.

As for making stuff for Unreal, you can use 3dsMax and Blender too (but again, using Blender is a lot more tedious). However, an Age that can be exported for Uru must be totally reworked before being exported on Unreal (to change things like scale, or incompatible lights...).

About which Blender version to use, well... The old 2.49 is the only one that can really export Ages right now. Versions 2.6 and above are totally reworked, so they are better and faster, but can't do Myst stuff (and modeling stuff in 2.6 for use in 2.49 is, again, a real pain).

TrapperDave wrote:It is a shame that the engines are not compatible or I should say,( can not be converted from one to the other).
Yup. They are simply too different.
Although as a rule, when someone tells you something is impossible in Uru, they only ever mean "really very very hard and long and annoying"... Check this out (especially on page 7).
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Re: Blender/ 3DS Max VS. Unreal Engine 4 / Unity

Postby Luna » Tue Sep 30, 2014 11:56 am

Sirius wrote:Although as a rule, when someone tells you something is impossible in Uru, they only ever mean "really very very hard and long and annoying"... Check this out (especially on page 7).


Except that in this case it would mean either writing some kind of converter from prp to <whatever format the other engine uses> or importing the models somehow in blender/3ds max and reexporting them. Considering importing ages is just barely working really and we don't have any kind of license on the data files anyway so the legality of taking them and putting them in another engine is rather questionable, I would say that in this case "impossible" means impossible or at least "Don't expect this to happen in the next decade" ;)
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Re: Blender/ 3DS Max VS. Unreal Engine 4 / Unity

Postby TrapperDave » Tue Sep 30, 2014 3:03 pm

Thanks much! : Deledrius, Sirius, and Luna
I believe I have my answer. I do admit I was thinking of a Myst URU Age for DI.
But also I was trying to kill two birds with one stone :)
I was completely aware of SL's in-world building tools, but had made mesh trees and what they call
sculpties off line and imported to SL. I have used Blender for this, but very little.
I liked what I saw in the Unreal engine! I knew the engines were different, but I wasn't sure if the
different programs had export features that converted for others. So I thought I would hone my skills
in one program and learn it thoroughly. So I guess blender is it ! It will suit my purposes for other areas
outside of DI for now :) Now all I need to do is learn how to use Blender hahhehe.
I am sure that some of the techniques and tools are similar in all the programs, so that time won't be wasted.
I appreciate all the help and information you have given me.
Sirius, I like your rule: "really very very hard and long and annoying" :)
Luna,"Building an age is a far more technical process than making a 3d Model. ": I do realize there is a lot of work
involved !!! ;) (from modeling > to textures > to scripting > storyline > and whatever)
It will be a long time coming along with exploring :)
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