Is it too late to learn Unity now?
written in front
The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, followed by now. "There are two important parts in this sentence:
Plant a tree : A tree is a growing creature, so as long as you are in an industry that can continue to grow, it is worth investing in. The
best time was ten years ago, Second is now : Of course, the sooner you get into an industry the better, and if you didn’t plant the tree ten years ago, the best time to plant the tree is now.”
"In fact, sooner or later is relative. As long as the Unity engine is still developing, as long as the game industry is still developing, as long as the virtual reality and augmented reality industries are still developing, now is the best time to learn Unity."
Why choose Unity?
Question: "I have another question. I learned that besides Unity, there are many other game engines, such as Unreal Engine 4, Cocos, Layabox, etc. Why choose Unity?"
Answer: "Although I use Unity a lot, and I plan to teach you to learn Unity, we also need to understand some other well-known engines, know their advantages and disadvantages, and know in which scenarios they are more suitable for use. 20 kinds of 
The figure above shows 20 kinds of game engines. The following is a brief introduction to Unreal, Cocos, and LayaAir, which are more popular at home and abroad.
Unreal Engine
Unreal 4 engine logo
Unreal Engine is a complete set of creative, design tools that can meet the ambitions and visions of artists, but also flexible enough to meet the needs of development teams of different sizes. Currently Unreal Engine has been developed to Unreal 4.
Unreal 4 is known for its artistic effects, and many PC masterpieces are developed using Unreal 4. Unreal 4 is more suitable for developing large-scale games that require very high graphics effects.
Scope of application: 3D, VR, AR
Representative works:
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds PC games and mobile games
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds game poster
Cocos2d
Cocos2d-x is an open source cross-platform game development framework. The core of the engine is written in C++ and provides three programming language interfaces: C++, Lua and JavaScript. The engine provides rich functions such as graphics rendering, GUI, audio, network, physics, and user input. Cocos2d-x is compatible with iOS, Android, HTML5, PC Windows and macOS X systems. Its functions focus on the two fields of mobile phone native and HTML5, and actively extend to the 3D field.
Scope of use: 2D games
There are some reasons for the popularity of Cocos in recent years. First of all, Cocos is developed by Chinese people. The Chinese language support is good, and the learning cost is relatively much lower. Therefore, there are more developers using Cocos for 2D mobile games than Unity. Secondly, mobile games, especially in the early days of mobile games, are mainly 2D games tend to favor Cocos in technology selection.
But in fact, Cocos2d can only be called an SDK or framework. Although Cocos Creator was launched later, it is relatively weak in terms of tools.
Masterpiece: Fishing Master
Screenshot of Fishing Master game
LayaAir
LayaAir is an engine for Html5 and small game development, similar engines include egret and cocos.
LayaAir, the second-generation engine of Layabox, is an open source engine based on the HTML5 protocol. Performance and 3D are the core competitiveness of the engine. At the same time, it supports ActionScript3, JavaScript, and TypeScript three development languages, and develops and releases game engines for multiple platforms such as APP (Android and iOS), HTML5, WeChat mini-games, and QQ Wanyiwan at the same time. In addition to supporting 2D\3D\VR\AR game development, the engine can also be used in application software, advertising, marketing, education and other fields.
It also has development tool chains such as LayaAirIDE, which supports developers to visually edit UI, animation, code writing, packaging, multi-platform release, etc., and provides developers with rich development and support tools.
Representative works: "Tencent Billiards" and other WeChat mini-games
Engines don't quite compare
| Unity | Unreal | Cocos2d | LayaAir | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| scope of application | 3D，2D，VR，AR | 3D，VR，AR | 2D mobile games | Html5, small games |
| charging mode | The personal version is free, and the commercial version is charged according to the license | 5% of income | free | The basic engine is free, and value-added services (training, technical support, etc.) are charged |
| advantage | Full-featured, easy to use | Powerful rendering, built-in visual programming | Abundant Chinese resources | Currently it is a better choice for Html5 and small game development engines |
| shortcoming | Rendering is not as good as Unreal | difficult to learn | Only for 2D development, the tools are relatively weak | The engine is very young, there will be more pits |
market trend
The movie "Ready Player One" is one of the hottest movies in the first half of 2018. This sci-fi movie not only reminds us of the development of the game over the years, but also describes what the future game will look like.
Ready Player One Poster
The film tells about:
In 2045, the real world is declining and dilapidated, and people are addicted to the virtual world of the VR (Virtual Reality) game "OASIS" to seek solace. Before his death, the founder of "Oasis" played by Mark Rylance announced that he would leave all his billions of dollars to gamers who found his hidden easter eggs. The largest treasure hunting adventure in history began. Played by Tye Sheridan Lead actor Wade Watts (Wade Watts/Parzival) embarks on a magical and perilous journey with billions of competitors.
So what is the state of gaming today?
According to the data in the 2017 China Mobile Game Industry Research Report released by iResearch on August 23, 2017 , mobile games will enter a period of steady development, and the mobile game market is expected to reach 221.84 billion yuan by 2020. The demographic dividend is gradually fading, and quality improvement has become a new direction for the game industry.
Not only games, but also VR/AR applications should be developed based on 3D engines. At present, VR has been applied to many fields such as military, industry, education, etc. The development of these applications can greatly speed up the development speed with the help of a 3D engine.
According to the data in the China Virtual Reality (VR) Industry Research Report - Market Data released by iResearch on June 27, 2017 , the growth rate of China's VR market is accelerating. In the next five years, the annual growth rate of the VR market will The compound growth rate exceeds 80%. It is estimated that by 2021, China will become the largest VR market in the world, and the overall size of the industry will reach 79.02 billion yuan, of which the market size of VR games will reach 9.62 billion yuan in 2021. However, besides the game field, VR can also play a huge role in many other fields. It is estimated that by 2021, the market size of VR enterprises and content will reach 8.78 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 350%. In other aspects, such as VR panoramic advertising, VR auto shows and other marketing fields, it is estimated that by 2021, the VR marketing market will reach 1.98 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 120%.
Comparison of mainstream engine trends
After reading the market trends, we know that the game market will grow rapidly in the future, and another bigger market is VR/AR. Then you may ask: Is there a better choice than Unity among game engines and VR/AR engines?
In this market, since Cocos, Egret, and LayaAir are mainly for 2D and Html games, we will not make too many comparisons. At present, the Unity and Unreal engines are both engines with a large market share. Below we speak with data.
market share comparison
According to statistics, Unity has a market share of 45%, while the closest competitor has only 17%.
Global game engine market share
The figure below shows the market share of various game solutions around the world. The red part represents the proportion that uses this solution, and the green part represents the proportion that mainly uses this solution. For example, using Unity to develop mobile games mainly uses Unity technology, and also uses some native technologies.
Global Gaming Solutions Market Share
Market share of development engines used by top mobile games
Data source: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Unity-Game-Engine-so-successful
Google Trends
As can be seen from the figure, the data of Unity and Unreal on Google Trends are very different. In the past year, the popularity of Unity has been almost an order of magnitude higher than that of Unreal.
baidu index
It can be seen from the figure that the growth rate of Unity is significantly higher than that of Unreal, and the current popularity is also overwhelming Unreal.
summary
The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, followed by now. Learn Unity from now on!
Virtual reality and augmented reality are very fast growing industries.
Objective data proves that learning Unity must not be a wrong decision.