Unreal Engine Test Version - Current State

It's almost done! Just a few more small bugs to fix and other things to improve and then I will make it available to Patrons in the coming days.

Please note, that you will not be able to do much more than what is shown in the video. That's because it's still just a test version!

It doesn't even look much different compared to the video from one month ago, on the surface. But there has been a lot of work in the back. This version is based on the so called Lyra starter project. I thought it might be a good idea to start with something like that. However, it isn't the ideal project for Unreal Engines beginners, because on top of all the weird UE stuff, you now get lots of additional systems as this Lyra starter project has a huge amount of modularity built in.  So most of the time in the last month I have spent to understand all the systems in Lyra and how to use and modify them, while learning the basic UE stuff at the same time.

So while there is not much new to see right now, the Lyra framework might enable things like a mobile version or multiplayer. In fact, I want to investigate this now  for the next test version update, before I start to add more content. 

In the meantime, I have made the Unigine test version public. So you have at least something new to play with until the UE version is out. It could take a while though until there is a public UE version...

It's pretty safe to say, that I will continue with UE. There isn't really anything you can't do with it and there are a lot of things you can do which you can't do with Unigine as easily or at all. The only real plus points for Unigine are the terrain, sky and water. Much easier to set this up there and better looking at the same time! Also, I like the C# programming there more than C++ in UE. Luckily it doesn't look like you have to do that much C++ in UE. Blueprints are ok. I haven't looked yet, if there is some AI stuff for it available. Because Github Copilot is pretty useless for me right now, if I can't use it for blueprints. I can probably cancel my subscription for it^^

For UE people who want to check out Lyra and modify it, I can recommend the videos and documentation of Xist. He has done a great job, digging into Lyra and explaining how things work and can be adjusted to your needs, right where the UE devs left off. Because with UE almost everything related to documentation and tutorials is delegated to the community :D

I might make a tech discussion post later as well comparing the three U-Engines.