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Is it possible to get same level of photorealism with SceneKit as Unreal Engine 4? What are some examples of photorealism on SceneKit or Metal2?

Mane Manero
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  • It depends on and is obviously subjective to what YOU want to or would achieve in Unreal Engine. Imo your question is way too broad. Instead, post an example of what you would like to achieve and ask if it can be done in SceneKit (which uses metal by default). – Xartec Dec 30 '17 at 20:24
  • To the second part of your question: I'm not aware of any publicly acclaimed results with SceneKit. It was barely used before ARKit was announced and is only beginning to be discovered because of ARKit, in which its usage is not really about or connected to attempting any kind of photorealism. If you want ANYTHING similar to the youtube demos of Unreal, use Unreal. Nothing else achieves results as well as it does with the ease it does. This is a result of both deliberate design and determined users interacting with some of the best game engine developers IN.THE.WORLD! – Confused Dec 30 '17 at 22:29

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Is it possible to get same level of photorealism with SceneKit as Unreal Engine 4?

No.

Some will say this is subjective. No. Photorealism and its degrees aren't subjective.

Some will say "it depends" and list off many criteria that favour the idea that this might be the case. It's not. Pound for pound, cycle for cycle, Unreal engine is in an entirely different league of 3D rendering quality, functionality, performance and features.

When it comes to the volume of users, shader support and experimentation, pace of development, exploration of rendering technologies and all other contributing factors, Unreal engine is an order of magnitude better off.

More importantly, Unreal engine is open source, and those above users and their specialists have defined, refined and iterated upon what the engine can do, and will continue improving it. This continuous cycle of improvement will never be caught by Scene Kit.

Confused
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  • I had to vote this down. Comparing photorealism 20 years ago till now shows clearly there are certainly different levels of what is considered photorealism. Any of the many factors that contribute to photorealistic results can be at a certain level, simply put from bad to great results. Post your photorealistic renderings at a major Cgi site and you will see many subjective opinions about your degree of photorealism. That all said, the question is not if the best possible results in Unreal Engine can be repeated in Scenekit. – Xartec Dec 30 '17 at 20:31
  • Please take a look at the question's wording. "Is it possible to get the same level..." etc. This completely nullifies your _That all said, the question is not if the best possible results in Unreal Engine can be repeated in Scenekit._ This is EXACTLY what he's asking. To which the answer is a categorical "NO", for many objective reasons, and almost as many subjective reasons. – Confused Dec 30 '17 at 20:49
  • You can post your scientific findings on vaccinations all over websites focused on healthy living and get VERY different opinions fired back at you about the validity (or otherwise) of vaccinations of all sorts. A lot of differing opinions don't alter facts and don't make the objective into something subjective. – Confused Dec 30 '17 at 20:53
  • That’s exactly the point, a “level” of photorealistic rendering is not as exact a science as medicine. – Xartec Dec 30 '17 at 21:28
  • And no, I continue to disagree. The answer is “it depends on what level”. Not every level I agree, but many of the levels of photorealism produced in reality in unreal engine can be achieved in Scenekit as well. He is asking also for examples, yet you assume he a. Knows what the highest level of photorealism achievable in unreal engine is, and b. He actually wants the highest possible level of photorealism without knowing what that is. I doubt either is the case. Depending on the level of photorealism he wants to achieve, the answer could very well be yes. – Xartec Dec 30 '17 at 21:33
  • The answer is never going to be "Yes" because he's not asking about his perceptions of levels of photorealism compared to SceneKit. He's asking for a comparison with the levels (PLURAL) of photorealism **possible** (again, outside any perspective of his own) within Unreal Engine. As said in my answer, Unreal will keep improving with the help of fields of users and contributors. – Confused Dec 30 '17 at 22:23
  • Scenekit will continue to improve too, your argument that open source is better is highly debatable. Sure, Unreal Engine is ahead. Besides that argument and dismissing, without supporting arguments, what “some will say” you are essentially saying it’s more mature, which it is, but that doesn’t answer his question. – Xartec Dec 30 '17 at 22:32
  • “He's asking for a comparison with the levels (PLURAL) of photorealism possible (again, outside any perspective of his own) within Unreal Engine”. You assume only two levels, unreal engine and scenekit level. There are many levels of photorealism, of which many are both achievable in scenekit and in unreal engine. If the question was “which can achieve the best level of photorealism” it would be obviously unreal engine, but that is not what he asked. – Xartec Dec 30 '17 at 22:40
  • You've so mangled and misconstrued what I'm saying (which I think is reasonably clear) that you must be deliberately doing so. I didn't say it's better because it's open source. I used that as a factorial of the benefits provided by talented, demanding users. Unreal has more of than any other game engine. Even if it wasn't open source, that enormous and deep well of insane talent would continue pushing Unreal far ahead of all others. The fact that it is, and the way they've gone about being open source, further assist. In this case! I'm not leaning on any myopic open source utopian daydreams. – Confused Dec 31 '17 at 01:12
  • Let me put it to you another way: Anything possible (in terms of rendering) with SceneKit is possible in Unreal. The inverse is nowhere near true. So far mismatched are these two renderers that anyone considering the quality of rendering as any kind of prerequisite should simply choose Unreal and deal with C++. – Confused Dec 31 '17 at 01:16