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stingray vs Unity difference and similarities

aristocratic3d

By aristocratic3d,
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Scott Schroeder Contributor

Scott Schroeder

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You should choose Unreal right now. Have you seen many good arch-viz done with stingray and unity? :-P

 

I've seen just about as many crap-tastic architecture scenes done with UE4 as I've seen with Unity. Have you need seen the Adam demo from this years GDC done in Unity? So aside from blind UE4 fanboy comments, here's a start to actually comparing the platforms.

 

Stingray

Stingray's big advantage is that it supposedly works within the Autodesk workflow. The less software you have to jump though, the easier it is to make changes. However, it should be noted that even Autodesk screws their own workflows up, FBX linking in Max 2016 and the empty Revit link bug in 2016 I'm looking at you. So while it may work, you can count on Autodesk to figure out how to mess it up. The collaboration tools look pretty slick as well.

 

The big disadvantage, other than being under the Autodesk development umbrella, is that you have to pay for it. It's not necessarily cheap either, about $240 US per year.

 

UE4:

Too many advantages to list. Huge advantage goes to their development, their track history, it's 100% free for architecure, and the community resources.

 

A negative to UE4 is that it can be resource intensive to run and install onto 3rd party systems. You generally need newer hardware to run UE4 apps.

 

Unity:

Again, quite a few advantages. A huge plus is that Unity will run on anything and has very low system requirements. Of course, the requirements increase as you push the quality, but base Unity scenes will run on even older hardware and mobile devices. Unity also has better (for the moment) web deployment tools. Unity excels in the mobile side due to the mentioned low requirements to run. Their GDC showreel and Adam short film is highly impressive and is starting to give UE4 a run for their money.

 

A negative is that Unity can be hard to start initially. It is very bare bones and you are left to yourself to write a lot of the initial code. The good news is that on the Unity store there is a ton of pre-made resources and the community is incredibly helpful. For the pro version of Unity, you have to pay for it. The standard edition, however, is totally free. You have to do some research on which one is best for you. Unity does have an AEC side that you can contact, maybe they do deals?

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philippelamoureux Newbie

philippelamoureux

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I didn't say there are no crappy ue4 archviz... I said there are no outstanding unity/stingray viz imo. Well, not to the level of the current best ue4 viz at least! Can you find me the equivalent, made with unity, of what the guys at ue4arch are doing ? also, Adam demo is superb but it's not architecture. I'm strictly talking about architectural visualisation when I compare the engines. I think all engines can do stellar games/cinematics but arch-viz is a different beast!

 

But I do agree I may be a bit of a fanboy. :-)

 

Now we can add Cry engine to the list, it just went 100% free!

It's an exciting time for real-time graphics imo!!!

Edited by philippelamoureux
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philippelamoureux Newbie

philippelamoureux

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I believe every software has its adv and disadv. Otherwise why would Autodesk market their software if the software is no where close to EU4?

 

You need to tell us more about what you want to do if you want us to give you a more detailed answer.

 

Interior viz, exetrior viz, large scale, small scale, just a movie? a playable game? do you need interactivity? do you know how to code? do you need it photoreal? 100% dynamic lighting or baked? Of course different apps can be better in certain situations but I still think ue4 is one of the most well-rounded engine!

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sevencgi Newbie

sevencgi

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You need to tell us more about what you want to do if you want us to give you a more detailed answer.

 

Interior viz, exetrior viz, large scale, small scale, just a movie? a playable game? do you need interactivity? do you know how to code? do you need it photoreal? 100% dynamic lighting or baked? Of course different apps can be better in certain situations but I still think ue4 is one of the most well-rounded engine!

 

To be honest I dont know what I want at this moment. I was just feeling that it could be the right time to practice some real time stuff.

So I am a 3ds max and vray user. I use some time zbrash/mudbox to a limited extend only for my furniture modeling (where needed).

 

So if any of my clients come in to produce some real time stuff do you have any idea what type of requirement they may come up with? And what could be the best choice for me in that case?

 

I will also need to create furniture compatible with real time engine. what should be the best tool to use in that case?

 

I dont want to go beyond what I am doing now. Arch viz. And I am completely happy with it.

Just thinking about the future. (had a look at CGA survey and some demos of different tools including Adam demo)

 

Here is what I am doing currently - http://www.7cgi.com/

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philippelamoureux Newbie

philippelamoureux

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It's always a good idea to stay informed about multiple softwares and technologies :-)

 

Now, if you want to start learning I think you are better off with Ue4 or Unity because they have the biggest communities and the most learning ressources available right now! No matter what engine you use, in the end your skills will be transferable between each engines. You should download both ue4 and unity, play with them a little bit and see which one feels the best! But trying to learn with Stingray or Cry/Lumberyard will be much harder I think.

 

I never checked the Unity asset store but in ue4 marketplace you have a ton of free scenes/games to download and reverse-engineer. I even learned stuff from the unreal tournament editor and it's free maps!!!

 

And for your furniture, any 3d modeling package will do. Not sure what are the needs right now tho, if there are any hehe! Just make sure you master uvmapping/uv unwrapping because we always want the most realistic stuff even if it's for a game engine!

Good luck!

Edited by philippelamoureux
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beestee Newbie

beestee

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stingray is redundant and will be a dead product with no users in 2 years. id put money on that

 

 

unity and ue will continue to develop and be great software.

 

As excited as I am at the possibilities that could become of an 'integrated' real time engine in Autodesk's pipeline, the fact is that 3rd parties seem to have a better handle on producing reliable workflows from Autodesk's file formats than Autodesk has themselves, UE and Unity being no exception.

 

Autodesk really needs to get control over their interop and workflows. They should be performing flawlessly in this day and age considering the resources dumped into the tools, yet every one I deal with feels like some pre-beta hack job.

 

And even the reverse being true in some cases, where Autodesk provides better workflows for 3rd party formats over their own. The new PDF import for AutoCAD 2017 as an example, a very welcome addition to AutoCAD, but why on earth should that support ever be better than what can be done with a DWF in AutoCAD?

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ericgardiner Newbie

ericgardiner

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We've been using Unity for arch viz for 2 years now. It's easy to pick up and start using and overall looks good however it does currently have some stability issues and light bakes can take a very long time. We've started looking into Lumberyard and its looking very promising. Its a fork of Cryengine that Amazon acquired some time ago. Amazon seems to be on the right direction for making it user friendly. They've recently introduced an fbx importer that they are expanding on and have been active in the forums taking requests for new features. I can't speak for ether Stingray or UE4 becuase I've never used either. Cryengine V looks great but the EULA restricts usage for anything except games.

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ericgardiner Newbie

ericgardiner

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According to their eula, could you sell an architectural visualisation at all? If not, that's bullshit lol!

 

If you are talking about Cryengine V, from what I understand no you can't use it for anything other than games.

 

From the EULA

 

https://www.cryengine.com/ce-terms

 

2.4. Restrictions on Use: Crytek reserves all rights not expressively granted in this Agreement. Without limitation, Licensee shall not:

 

distribute, sublicense or exploit in any other form:

the CryEngine (except for the Redistributables), e.g. as a stand-alone development engine;

the CryEngine Documentation;

the CryEngine Tools;

 

use the CryEngine for the development of any product other than Games, including without limitation:

military projects

gambling;

simulation (technical, scientific, other);

science;

architecture;

pornography;

Serious Games.

 

EDIT: Ill add that with Lumberyard you are free to use it for whatever.

Edited by ericgardiner
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