A Peek into Major Mobile App Game Development Tools

If you are into gaming, even a bit, you must have heard of the Batman series? Batman: Arkham Origins, Batman: Arkham City Lockdown etc. have been the best and most enduring Batman games every played in this time and age. The interactive gaming technology developed for this game series was built using one of the major tools named Unreal Engine. If you have slight interest in the gaming world, you would know of this tool. This is one of the most hyped and most prevalent gaming engines that helps build interactive and heavy games that most gamers are addicted to.

The other major tool that has helped built infinite interesting games for the mobile world would be Unity Engine. Remember having played Max: The Curse of Brotherhood on your mobile, or better still Angry Birds Epic? If yes then you have most certainly played games built using this Engine. Most of the games built using this tool are considered heavy and interesting. In fact, this engine has built games for all ages! The best game built by Unity that till date attracts people would be Temple Run. Yes, you would immediately remember this game if not the others.

Here we will take a peek preview of the new version releases made by these two major mobile game app development tools. The Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 4 have been released by their respective creators, and here is a preview on each of these machines that are all set to create new interactive games.

Unreal Engine 4: Peek Preview

The Unreal Engine, mobile game app development tool, has been developed by Epic Games. You would have seen a mention of this while playing a game built using this tool. Recently, Epic released the version 4 of Unreal Engine publicly through videos. The video followed by presentation was aimed at providing a complete demo of the new engine version to the public. In fact, there is also a video that shows Alan Willard talking about the technical details of the engine to the public.

History of the Unreal

Interestingly there is a sound history to Unreal Engine before it came up with this version 4. Unreal Engine had unveiled its first version way back in 1998. At that time it had a 3D renderer, Open GL and Direct 3D acting as supporting software. A sound engine and animation system completed the unreal engine dynamics then. The unreal 2 and 3 were simply rewrites of key engine features which were integrated into gaming consoles. A visual scripting engine known as Kismet was launched with version 3. This was the first version to be fully integrated with Xbox 360 and PS3. The overall cost of engaging hardware for UE3 was very expensive. The hardware concept built here was completely new, and unique but very expensive making it a drawback for UE3.

Unreal Engine 4: What’s New?

The Scripting language Kismet has definitely evolved in this version along with the introduction of a new concept called dynamic global illumination. This new version has also introduced a GPU augmented particle system. Let’s take a look at each of the new features being introduced here.

• Dynamic Global Illumination: Ok! So here’s an engine that promises to make all the lighting involved in the game dynamic. This means all the lights; shadows etc. that would play an important role in the game would be dynamic. So, now developers do not need to wait to rebuild the whole lighting or even fine tune the lighting as it is dynamic. This is pretty impressive, but as of now it has been incorporated in the demo version only. It would definitely mean taking the hardware to another level altogether, but a promising level for sure.
• Kismet: An Evolution: We saw the introduction of Kismet with the UE version 3. Now, with this version the makers are planning to evolve and build it into a whole new system. A mod can be created using this updated visual scripting system. You can script object behavior as well as functionality of the different levels using this scripting language. You can introduce visual debugging using this evolved system. Don’t know if this is the best or the worst part, but the unreal script is finally removed with the introduction and evolution of the Kismet script. You can even edit the C++ code present in the property you wish to customize using the Kismet script. Explore and you will see many features.
• The GPU Particles: As a game developer, you know for sure how particle systems tends to be an integral part of your game. It is the particle system that gives the defining look and appeal to your game. The particles are responsible for the frame rate and thus the speed that induces a game. Unreal Engine 4 has introduced the GPU augmented particle system with an amazing difference. With this particle system in line, the makers of a game can introduce real time interaction and vector fields within the game. Developers, are you listening?

Pros and Cons of UE4

Till date engine tools used to make the developers wait for long hours before they could introduce a productive concept to the game. But, that is not needed now with UE4. It aims at preventing the wastage of hours. With UE4, game app developers will not need to spend a lot of money on hardware or electricity.

The only disadvantage that can be seen in UE4 is that the way it has been designed some real serious hardware requirements can be seen. This means cost which can be added to the game buying costs for customer.

Unity 4: Peek Preview

Unity Engine, developed by the Unity Technologies, has seen massive upgrades in the years since its inception. It is basically a cross platform game app development system which has given to the world interesting and phenomenal games.

Unity has finally unveiled the Unity 4, which unlike Unreal Engine, has brought in major improvements for the existing hardware system. They have not gone futuristic in the hardware part, like Unreal Engine, but have devised a system that will integrate and create games for the existing systems.

The New System Mecanim

As mentioned before, Unity has devised a new system for game creation with the release of its version 4. This new system named Mecanim has been introduced to ensure that the animation of the characters within the game is done properly, and the graphics are real classy. Mecanim promises to be the tool that dynamically integrates the various key tools required for animation and the state of the art machine that Unity is. The different animation tools that would easily blend into this system include State Machine Editor, Blend Trees, IK Rigs, and Animation Auto Retargeting.

Cross Platform Improved

As most of you are aware, Unity Engine is one of the leading cross platform engines. With Unity 4, they have prescribed themselves to more platforms. One of the significant additions to the platforms existent on Unity would be Linux. Though gaming has become next to nonexistent on desktop, still a lot of people who tend to game using desktop will be in for some fun moments with introduction of Linux. This feature was requested by a lot of game developers, and finally with Unity 4 it is in! Another major improvement with Unity 4 is that you can directly publish using Unity UI.

Unity 4: What’s New?

Some features have been improved, while there are some others that have been introduced to the Unity 4 Engine system. Here is a preview on all such features that have been either introduced or have been improved in Unity.

• Grand Visual Entry: Visuals are important to any game! There have been interesting improvements placed with Unity 4 for the rendered and other related software that tend to improve the visuals of the game. This new version also supports DirectX11 a major improvement for gaming engine. This new version also lends support to 3D texture, HTML like markup language and dynamic fonts for all platforms. It is indeed an interesting development.
• Particle System: Shuriken: As we have already discussed in case of Unreal Engine, Particle System is quite important to any gaming engine. This version of unity will see a dynamic particle system with newer physical interaction courses and performance related features. There will be major external forces, bent normal and automatic particle culling.
• User Interface: An iterative system for lighting has been introduced. In the version three, the most time consuming affair used to be the rebaking of light. This is probably why they have introduced the iterative system in the version 4. They are also claiming a workflow environment which they have called improved project window workflows. The makers have not shed a single light on this. Only when the actual version is released will we know what exactly this means. There will be component based workflows which will make the gaming technology all interesting and interactive. There will be some extensible inspectors within this version which will specifically work for the custom classes.
• Navigation: Another major improvement for Unity 4 lies in the Navigation introduced with this gaming system. One of the improvements being talked about is the dynamic obstacles. When a pathing system does not deal well with non stationary objects it poses an issue within the game as far as navigation is concerned. This would be sorted out with the navigation system called dynamic obstacles. It is necessary to assign weights to a navigation system, and now it is possible in Unity 4 with the introduction of Avoidance Priority.

Interestingly these improvements in the demo version appear to be classy. Let’s see how they feature in the real version that is soon to be released.

IndianAppDevelopers Company has team of top notch game application developers who design, program and develop engaging mobile games apps on all major platforms using Unity4 and Unreal Engine game development tools. Feel free to contact us today or visit IndianAppDevelopers’s portfolio to know how effectively we utilize these game app development tools.