OSU Capstone Blog – By Sangyun Lee

Unity VS Unreal

When I think about game development, two companies will come to my mind, Unity, and Unreal, since these are the most popular game engines. When I started to study game development, I had no idea which one I should use because I didn’t know about the two platforms. I ended up using Unity because the project I took over was developed with Unity. So, today I would like to talk about which game engine you should choose.

Programming Language

Unreal and Unity are the best game engines obviously. So, in my opinion, the first thing you have to think about is the programming language. Unreal engine is using C++ and Unity is using C#

In case of Unreal, there is blueprint which is a visual script language. So that even though you do not know how to code with C++, you can create a game with a mouse. However, this has very slow execution time. So if yoIn the case of Unreal, there is blueprint which is a visual script language. So that even though you do not know how to code with C++, you can create a game with a mouse. However, this has a very slow execution time. So if you script your game only with blueprint, it is 5 times slower than when you script with C++. So I can say c++ is inevitable for Unreal game development. But, C++ is a pretty complex programming language to learn and get used to it for people who have non-technical backgrounds. Especially when it comes to “pointer”, it is a really difficult concept to understand even for people who have programming experience.

On the other hand, C# used by Unity is a high-level language which means that it is much easier to learn and use. (C++ is an intermediate-level language, close to machine code).

If you don’t have programming experience and learn it from scratch. Unity could be the best option!

Market Places / Assets Store

When you work on game development, it would be good to create all functions from scratch, but you will find yourself using presets or resources because it makes your project much easier.
Of course, the two game engines also provide you presets and resources. You can download it from Market Place for Unreal, or Asset Store for Unity.

Market Place(Unreal): Unreal provides their users with free resource files and it is a really high-quality resource. For example, Epic games share their game sources on Market Place.

Asset Store(Unity): one of the biggest benefits of using Unity is that they have ample amount of presets and resources for their users. Even small team or individual developers check assets store before developing some function to compare the development cost whether it is cheaper when they buy or create themselves. But, unlikely, it is not free.

So, if you have a budget for buying resources, Unity will a good option. Otherwise, if you don’t have allocated budgets, then Unreal will be the best option for you.

Technical Differences

I don’t want to go deep into this topic since it is too difficult to discuss on this blog and with my knowledge. So, simply saying, the biggest differences between two engines are the way of approaching how to make a game.

In order to complete the same task, for example, let’s assume you are creating a game, and you want to change your graphic work. Unity provides you a function that you can make a change (It requires you to do some code works to put changes together). However, the Unreal engine does not provide you a function that you work on the object directly, one way you can do is to put another layer to look like you want.

In this topic, it is up to your preference about how to work on a project. So, if you are looking for a better way of expansion of your work, Unreal would not be the best option for you.

Capstone Project Tech Knowledge

How to use Nodemailer

One of my tasks for the project I am working on was to create a function that allows users to send an invitation link to their candidates. So, for this functionality, I had to implement “send email” on our web application. In order to achieve the task, I had researched. I found there are two packages: nodemailer and emailjs. Long story short, I decided to use nodemalier because it is free and there is no limit on sending emails (but emailjs, you have to pay to use it or if you are willing to use the free version, it is limited to 200 emails per month).

What is the nodemailer?

Nodemailer is a module for Node.js applications to allow sending email.

How to implement sending email function with nodemailer?

You might be able to find many video lectures online, but most videos are dealing the function when if it is in the same server(or Port). However, if you working on react, as you already know, the front-end and back-end are running on the different server ports. In my case, the front-end is running on port:3000 and the server is running on port:7000.

So I have to pass JSON data from 3000 to 7000. So, without middleware, you cannot achieve that.

In this case, Axios can be a good solution since you can send the data to the server port with Axios. And, here is the code I implemented:
Write Axios code on your front-end function where you want to evoke sending email

 axios({                               //call axios   method: "POST",
   //set url with your server port
   url:"http://localhost:7000/send",              
   data: {                            //build a data form
    name: emailSubject,               //Send send           
    email: emailAddress,
    messageHtml: emailContext
   }
 }).then((response)=>{                    // Waiting response  
    if (response.data.msg === 'success'){    //display result     
        alert("Email sent, awesome!");            
    }else if(response.data.msg === 'fail'){
        alert(`Oops, something went wrong with`)
    }
})

Server side code:

const express = require('express');         //load packages
const nodemailer = require('nodemailer');

app.use(express.json());

app.post('/send', (req, res)=>{            //catch post send
    console.log(req.body)

    const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({
        service: 'gmail',
        auth:{
            user: "from email address",
            pass: "password"
        }
    })

    const mailOptions = {
                 //build mail option
        from: "quizbanana467@gmail.com",
        to: req.body.email,       //use data from front-end
        subject: `${req.body.name}`,
        text: req.body.message

    }

    
    //send email
    transporter.sendMail(mailOptions, (error, info) =>{
         //send feedback to front-end        
         if(error){
            console.log(error);
            res.json({msg: 'fail'});     
        }else{
            console.log("good")
            res.json({msg: 'success'});

        }
    })
})

Based on the email service you are using, there would be some limitations so please refer to the official nodemailer site.

//references

mailtrap.io/blog/react-send-mail

Capstone Project

Project follow up!

As I posted before, I am working on a project for cs467 class at OSU. I t has been a few weeks since my team started. I would like to talk about project status so far including blockers.

What is project about?

Briefly saying, we are creating a web based quiz creating software that allows a user create quiz and send it to candidates, such that can replace survey monkey.

What tech has been used?

We implemented our project with MERN stack ( MongoDB, Express, React, Node Js). For the framework, we are using react-bootstrap. And, we are using Auth and Redux.

What have I done so far ?

Thanks to our teammates, I mostly focus on Front-end of the program like getting data from users and display back to users. At this stage, most to data (limited to page I created) are stored in front-end as an array. This is because, that specific page should not only be able to receive a data from user, but also be able allow user the data in real time. Once, users satisfy with their entry, then data will be save on to server.

Thanks to the our teammates, back-end server is already set. Only left thing is to hook the page with the server.

Beside those technical thing, I also created a brand logo (Check out here)

What have our teammates done?

They are doing incredible. Before start the project, we separated our task. Myself focus on front-end, one is focus on back-end and another member is like multiplayer since she is working on both sides.

They already set up server and link it with our SW. Most of simple pages were done already, and we are working on major part of our tool such as rendering quiz for candidates, sending invitation for quiz and so on. You will be heard something more about it later (stay tune)

Any blockers?

Working on React is a blocker itself, that is because our experience is limited. And, there are bunch of new packages and some of implementations are changed through the version update. But, our team is handling well those blockers so far by helping and sharing their knowledges.

It takes more time to complete each task than expected, but it seems worth when I see results after those hard working. Can’t wait to see our final result after this quarter.

Personal Interest

The future of VR

After Facebook changed its company name to Meta, Zuckerberg stated “To reflect who we are and the future we hope to build, I’m proud to share that our company is now Meta.” (Meta is a social platform based on metaverse which is 3d virtual world. Since then, VR technology is getting attention more than before.

As a person who is dreaming of becoming a game programmer, this is one of the interesting topics. So, I would like to talk about the current development stage of VR and the future of VR.

VR is a short-term of Virtual Reality. Based on my google search, surprisingly, the first vr machine was released in early-mid 1990, and it commercialized around the 2010s. The most popular machines are Oculus (Rift), HTC (Vive). The first-generation commercial product was okay but there were some drawbacks such as the weight and lack of power of cpu, memory as well as contents. So, it didn’t get popular as much as people expected. But, in late 2017, sony released Playstation with VR machine and game, and it was very successful (The next generation of Sony VR is coming out this year). Now I can say VR ear has come. Because VR machine gets lighter, and it has affordable price and variety of contents.

As you can see from the video, the quality of the graphics and render are fantastic. Powerful graphic cards, memory, and engines make this possible. And, it shows the current status of VR industry.

d VR is getting spread to many fields as well. One good example is the medical industry. They are using VR for medical training.

Now we can’t separate VR technology from our lives, it will be getting into our life. This is why many people say VR is the future of human society. Then what we can expect from the future VR?

One thing I can expect is that we might live in a borderless world not limited to physical land, we might live in the real world and virtual world at the same time, interchangeably. And, it is happening right now. Now the young generation has another themselves in a virtual world. I can take ZEPETO as an example which is a social platform based on metaverse. They have 2 billion users and they spend money to decorate their avatar and socialize with their friends.

As the thing is getting changed quickly, we might face a fully digitized world shortly and might play a game like full-dive virtual reality game like anime called sword art online. I would like to be a port of the stream as a programmer. 🙂

Capstone Project Tech Knowledge

Software mockup tools

As our first task, I and other teammates created a web-application mockup that shows the general workflow and design. Wireframes are often considered an important task of the software development process since it provides a visual understanding and workflow. So, many developers never overlook the task and get help from mock-up tools such as Balsamiq and Figma.
Today, I would like to talk about the three most popular prototype mockup tools which are Balsamiq, NinjaMock, and Figma. I prefer Figma and you will find the reason later in this post.

Balsmiq

I came to know the tool when I took CS361 class at Oregon State University because one of the tasks was creating a wireframe for a project. This tool was pretty powerful even it was free. You can create elements as much you want from various options(I believe there were limits for the free version, but I couldn’t find any disadvantages from the free version). And, you were able to link an element with a page so that you can create interaction between two or more elements. But, this time, we didn’t use Balsamiq this time. The reason because it is not free anymore, it gives you 30 days trial, but after the free trial, you can’t go back work on your work unless you sign up.

2. Figma

I often use Figma for personal projects. You can create prototypes for different platforms (Web, Phone, etc). You can also use it for free, but you can create only three projects with your free account. However, if you delete one of your works, then you can create another project. It means you can use the tool for free forever if you keep the number of projects.

or you can import preset from a library). However, once you are getting used to using Figma, it can be the most powerful tool to build your prototype. and even it looks so real. On the other hand, the other two tools provide a limited number of elements design and given elements looks cartoon-ish.

3. NinjaMock

I didn’t know about this mockup tool until this class. We were planning to work on Balsamiq, but we noticed Balsamiq is not free anymore so that we were looking for other tools including Figma. Our team didn’t want to spend extra time to learn figma, and didn’t want to spend money on Balsamiq. So, we came to this free version of NinjaMock. After created mock with this tool, I do not recommend to use NinjaMock unless your project is personal and small. Here are the couple of reasons. First, free version gives you very limited element capacity which is 200. It takes average of 25 elements to have a simple web page (it took 15 elements for the image below), it means you can make about 8 pages which is very small.

For free users, Figma is the best option since it has limit of projects you can create, but other sources are free. This is why I prefer Figma. Lastly, the contents above are very personal, you can find other tools better than I thought. And, every project has a different purpose so you can choose any tool that has the best fit for your project.

Capstone Project

Project Start-off

I had a 1-hour meeting with my team for the CS467 class. In this meeting, we had discussed the TEAM STANDARD which is about the team’s working rules and expectations has the goal of increasing team performance. Today, I would like to share some of our standards here.

1. Team Name

We have decided our team name as QuizBanana because one of the project requirements said that our application should be able to replace Survey Monkey. So one of our team members suggested this name.

2. Communication

Communication is very important when we are working as a team. There are many communication tools such as Discord, Slack, and Google hangout. Team QuizBanana agrees on using MS Teams because MS Teams is the official tool for the CS467 class.

3. Project Management Tool

Since it is a project class, we will work on project programming from scratch for the entire term. So, we have to take care of time. In order to manage this project, we are going to use the Jira. At first, we planned to use Asana, but Jira is one of the popular tools in the industry and it is free. So we change to Jira

4. Code Management

As everyone can expect, we are going to use Github for code management. It is free and powerful.

5. Conflict Management

I personally believe conflict management is really important especially working as a team. So, our team came up with two ways of handling this situation.

If the conflict is a team matter, be aware of any conflict that occurs with assignments or other group members. Takes steps to decide on how serious the conflict is and how it would affect other members of the team. If the conflict is an individual matter, please speak with the team member directly on the issue and allow discussion from both individuals

I am already excited about this project. All members respect each other and I can see we are trying hard to make things right.

Personal Interest

My First Post

This is the first blog post for the OSU Capstone Project. In this post, I would like to talk about my interest and what I like to do after graduation since this term is the last term at OSU.

It has been 3 years since I started the online OSU computer science program. Most of programming classes have a programming project and most of projects are related to simple game.

Here are some of the game projects I have done for OSU courses

-CS162 : Escape Room

-CS325 : Tetris

Those projects were good enough for me to have an interest in a game development. Since then, I took some of my time to study the game development during free time. Thanks to the YouTube, I was able to access to many free online lecture. In order to develop a game, I had to study c# and unity.

Unity is a game engine that allows you run your 2D/3D objects on screen, and C# is the main language for the engine. Now OSU provides most of all programming class with python, but I took those courses with C/C++. So It was relatively easy to learn C# since the syntax of C# is pretty similar to C/C++.

However, I never used the Unity before, so it took some time to understand how to use Unity and its library. The most difficult part of working on unity was to understand it is a frame based program which means your code is looping itself by Unity. Therefore, if you are using for/while loop in Unity you have high chance to have infinity loop error. While I was trying to be a friend with Unity, I had a chance to work on actual game development with people who I met at Networking Event.

This is the first video game I made (this is just sample version). I am getting myself into the game development, and I am actually enjoying the game programming. There are some things that I need to study to be a game programmer. So, I might do more side projects and targeting top game companies for my future career. 🙂

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