Unreal would probably be a good option. I don’t have much experience with it, but I know for a fact it can handle some nasty stuff – think like a couple thousand objects or more if I’m not mistaken. You’ll probably need to employ a bunch of tricks, given, but it can be done.
If you don’t want to owe payment to epic, there’s also a new (for now mostly experimental, I think) version of Ogre3D which is rumored to have similar capabilities. The catch is you’d have to either write a whole lot of extra code to build a game engine on top of it or maybe dig deep into libraries to see if you can use someone else’s. Probably not what you want, but it’s an option.
Finally I’m just going to repeat myself here, optimization is key. In the end it always boils down to the black magic, I tell you; whatever engine you use it’s likely you’ll need to push it’s limits at least a little in order to accomplish more ambitious goals. Open world sandbox full of destructibles is more than doable in UPBGE for instance if one has adequate hardware and yes, this is a shameless plug c:
If you are doing ue4 with blender, I would suggest the autorig pro addon as well. it opens up so many options for porting characters and animations into ue4 or unity. you will likely need to fine tune the weight painting and bone placements, but that is no huge deal
I still intend to use all 3 GE (BGE, Godot, Armory) ----------------------> But for my first 3 games, it will be made in GODOT. I reckon I can do it within a few months. Try that with Unity or Unreal
Let me put it simply -----------------> We 1-person game creators need to do all of it (graphics, assets, sound, music, logic, programming, etc).
Only with BGE, Godot, Armory can a single developer complete an entire game from start to finish, within a few months. Also, I develop on GNU OS.
(4) Performance & Compatiblity with graphics cards
Performance wise, Godot (if you know what you’re doing) can have 3-5 TIMES higher than Unity, and 2-3 TIMES higher than Unreal.
The truth is, Unity has a LOT of bugs… it uses a lot of “hacky code”, which causes a lot of headaches. And Unreal is probably the 4th choice, after BGE, Godot, Armory.
I’ve spent quite some time learning, experimenting & testing out GODOT --------------------> I am creating 8 “generic character” scripts:
Human, 4-leg animal, 6-leg insect, bird, fly, vehicle, boat, fish
For a full 3d game i don’t have the choice UE4 is my only valid option since all other engine you mention are mainly aimed at 2d game and they are not 3d feature complete like terrain tool etc.
Believe me i did my research 5 years ago and the conclusion made me go from unity to UE4 as all other options were not capable to handle the kind of game i am making.
They will eventually get there with a few years but they are far from having all the features UE4 pack for the punch!
Keep in mind that blueprint is the only way for some of us to build a good game logic.
I know UE4 is pretty much the go-to. Yet, I have been looking at a rather intriguing setup built for sandbox games. I don’t really know if it is node-based logics but it is the UNiGiNE with Coherent GT and Custom Voxel Engine.
Hey, Thienchou, I may be new to this but since my former business partners crashed our studio during production of game 1, guess who is now without employees and having to learn how to do all the work? Yup, I have had to go solo and become a developer instead of remaining a 1/3 producer.
So, GODOT and those other two should suffice? Can they be merged or do they need to be used seperately?
Avoid. More a tool for non-game real-time solutions like engineering/military simulations. Not as mature or games focused as UE4/Unity/Godot.
UE4/Unity used to be running a tight race, but UE4 has pulled way in front. Epic develop UE4 at a blistering pace and the tech is cutting edge. If you want to make an open world game with high quality graphics(personally, I think you are crazy trying to do this on your own with custom graphics and little experience. MANY people fall into this trap and spend YEARS in frustration) Aim lower for your first project.
In recent years, Unity have fallen into the SJW ‘get woke, go broke’ nonsense. They have jumped on the forced ‘diversity’ and ‘gender equality’ insanity bandwagon and the engine has greatly suffered because of it. UE4 doesn’t suffer this nonsense and Epic are 100% apolitical.
Godot is a good option too. I haven’t any experience with it directly, but it is maturing nicely since V3.0 came out.
This is funny. Watching the video of it from this years Bcon it should be avoided at all cost, unless you want to develop a PS1 style game.
While I am not sure what the exact situation is with Armory3D, it is worth looking into as it has tight integration into Blender itself.
Other than that, it is hard to go wrong with UE4 (as many others have pointed out). Its a great engine, not exactly the easiest to master depending on what you are trying to do. I believe you are stuck with either using Blueprints or straight up C++, and you have to pay royalties depending on how much your game makes every quarter.
There are some interesting “smaller” engines that might be worth looking into depending on the scope and target of your project. For example, the S2 Engine HD on steam. Its made by a small team, maybe one person, in Italy but its quite a fascinating engine they have developed. It can import .blend files directly and it uses a nodal logic system and a scripting language based off C.
I really can’t say if its good or not, but what caught my attention was .blend file compatibility and the visual fidelity of the engine itself.
Also for some reason it is completely undervalued. They are selling it for only $20 (on sale for $4 atm on STEAM). I think the creator is interested in making it as accessible as possible right now in order to increase product adoption.
Anyways, check it out at least for the sake of curiosity, at the cost of $4 its kind of weird not to. Gives them a bit of support too. =)
I dunno which video you were shown but upbge 0.3 runs on eevee, and I don’t remember any of my PS1 games making use of any pbr shaders. Well, perhaps my memory is failing me c:
Seriously now, while I’m not certain that this version of the engine is ready to take on bigger projects as it’s still on it’s early infancy, it does show a lot of promise not just in terms of graphics. A lot of bpy code can be used at game runtime even now, and it is likely that further down the road we’ll get a game engine that can virtually make full use of the blender api.
Now, as much as I love upbge I would not exactly recommend it for an open world sandbox.
Just to clarify, it is pretty much capable of pulling it off but development can get painful.
At some point I’ll fork the engine and see if anything can be done to improve on this, just don’t hold your breath. As it stands now, having a lot of light sources and objects is not so manageable.
Yeah, Dan the man, I am a fair bit crazy when it comes to any project in life. But, when you’re broke and everyone else ran off with the company $$ sometimes ya gotta learn what your hirees knew. I could start with a smaller game or do both small and large simultaneously, but I still have to learn code. I mean, I am eyeing that Buildbox 3 due to no/little coding needed, but I just don’t think it will be able to handle a large game and $300 per year just to get started is concerning. If I can grasp UE4 and learn enough coding to get by (just enough to get it to do what I need) then yeah… UE4 will be the platform on which to make the magic happen.
I don’t recommend you start learning to code with UE4. The bigger the scope of the project, the harder it will be especially if you are trying to do everything yourself and have to learn it at the same time. There is nothing wrong with starting from a visual scripting or non-coding approach.
Think clever in a smaller scope. Take for example the guy who made the hit game 5 Nights at Freddys. He kept the scope small and focused, used Click Team Fusion ( cost less than $100), and planned creatively. Click Team Fusion is so easy (non coding) that kids can use it. In fact his concept was very simple, and yet it must have raked in millions.
Small scope, thought outside of the box, used a non-coding based cheap game engine and made very successful game as a result.
Sorry, but I let the programmers worry about that. I’m just an artist and Blueprint advocate. You’re right, though. Traditionally the C++ docs have been underwhelming and this was acknowledged by the devs some years back. The disappointing thing is that the UE4 docs in general are excellent. Blueprints are well documented, but I suppose Epic don’t consider C++ docs as pressing an issue as Blueprints because anyone can go into the source and study it for themselves.
Well, sorry to hear that. Best of luck in your future endevours. You certainly are taking on a lot. I would 100% recommend smaller, more realistic projects to start. I don’t think people realise just how much work goes into modern games. We all too often see the ‘I want to make the next Assassin’s Creed on my own and build all the assets myself…’ threads, not realising that it takes teams of often 100s of the best artists in the world years to create such a game.
BuildBox is probably a more realistic approach if you have little experience, but it is very limited in what it can create. $300 a year is concerning?? The average coffee drinker spends 5 times that a year.
UE4 Blueprints will give you a Buildbox approach(albeit way more advanced) so you can get a prototype up and running without having to learn any programming, while at the same time learning how programming logic works which is a good headstart for learning to code later on.
Not only a prototype believe me, there is already many game including online multiplayer done completely on blueprint running at a silky smooth 60 fps on pc.
Try that with Unity or Unreal 
Watching the video of it from this years Bcon it should be avoided at all cost, unless you want to develop a PS1 style game.
You’re right, though. Traditionally the C++ docs have been underwhelming and this was acknowledged by the devs some years back. The disappointing thing is that the UE4 docs in general are excellent. Blueprints are well documented, but I suppose Epic don’t consider C++ docs as pressing an issue as Blueprints because anyone can go into the source and study it for themselves.