Source or Unreal Engine 2

[Maisth]

Hello everybody im asking here a simple question, I want to progress further into my experience with Level Design not being always Stuck in one place , I Have two Engines to my dispossal, Source and Unreal2 , Im asking which one is the best to start with.

[Remilia Scarlet]

Unreal Engine 2 and later does best when you make your level mostly out of static meshes constructed in a 3d modeling program.  It's because of this I never got into it.  Source levels also use static meshes, but I think (THINK) it's a lot more forgiving when it comes to using brushes and CSG operations versus, and a lot more world geometry gets made with brushes/CSG for it.

 

Why is it that those two particular engines are at your disposal?

[Maisth]

1 minute ago, YukiRaven said:

Unreal Engine 2 and later does best when you make your level mostly out of static meshes constructed in a 3d modeling program.  It's because of this I never got into it.  Source levels also use static meshes, but I think (THINK) it's a lot more forgiving when it comes to using brushes and CSG operations versus, and a lot more world geometry gets made with brushes/CSG for it.

 

Why is it that those two particular engines are at your disposal?

1: Gotcha ill see what i can achieve with Unreal2

 

2: Why those two? Well One of the games that i like the most are on those two Engines , Counter Strike GO and Postal 2 With Killing Floor , Of course i coulda easily Choose another Advanced engine like Unreal 4 , but i wanted to Start with something that i like and im familiar with.

[Avoozl]

I didn't realize that the Unreal 2 engine was available, that's good to know.

Edited July 6, 2017 by Avoozl

[Agentbromsnor]

Both engines are commercial though. Unless you are looking to only release mods.

 

I would have to go for Source, because even though I typically prefer Unreal tech, I think creating levels for it is an absolute drag. Having to use a builder mesh in order to place blocks meant that it would take me ages to "sketch" out an environment and get a feel for it, where it would only take a few minutes in Hammer (Source). You could argue that the Quake method of editing (like in Source) leads to more potential BSP holes, but if you know what you're doing you should be able to avoid those common pitfalls.

[Agentbromsnor]

3 hours ago, Avoozl said:

I didn't realize that the Unreal 2 engine was available, that's good to know.

Last time I checked, only Unreal Engine 4 is open source. Unreal Engine 2 is a license nightmare according to Tim Sweeney, so I don't think they'll ever make it available for free. Unreal Engine 3 is a similar story, but that one is at least available through UDK.

[Maisth]

21 minutes ago, Agentbromsnor said:

Both engines are commercial though. Unless you are looking to only release mods.

 

I would have to go for Source, because even though I typically prefer Unreal tech, I think creating levels for it is an absolute drag. Having to use a builder mesh in order to place blocks meant that it would take me ages to "sketch" out an environment and get a feel for it, where it would only take a few minutes in Hammer (Source). You could argue that the Quake method of editing (like in Source) leads to more potential BSP holes, but if you know what you're doing you should be able to avoid those common pitfalls.

Well at the end of the day ill still look at both them , though im pretty sure i will stay in Source for a Long time

[Nevander]

I tried using Hammer once and was only able to make a square room with a fence and a light source. I'm sure I could have done a lot more if I wasn't a teenager at the time. I've never used Unreal Engine so I have no idea of which of the two is easier.

[wheresthebeef]

Learning Unreal Engine can help make the transition to later versions of it or other similar engines much much easier depending on how you are mapping (using static meshes/modelling program); engines don't use brushwork like Source does anymore and it's very outdated.

I believe Source 2 is also similar; although it has brushes, a lot of it also uses models/meshes for the levels.

Source can end up being easier to learn and make nice levels, but it's also outdated and has a lot of quirks to it, while Unreal Engine is a lot more powerful overall.

 

I think regardless of engine overall, you absolutely need to learn 3D modelling and texturing. You can make a well designed map in something like CSGO or Left 4 Dead, but you can make it stand out even more if you have some custom content in it as well.

[Maisth]

My Thoughts on Unreal2 after using it:

 

I gotta say its pretty good and has a lot of tools to work your way out depending of the game you are working with in my case i tried it with Killing Floor, and has a lot of Textures and meshes to put around there's too much to be honest.

 

Now the only thing to complain here its the creation system, its not very good its nightmare to create rooms in this editor, Though i think there's a Vertices mode to use but i haven't use it yet, overall its pretty solid and ill continue and see what i can achieve with it