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I am just getting into game development and I would like to know which engine would be best to learn first.
In terms of my current skills, I know a good deal of javascript, but not much beyond that. This is all a learning experience for me (I am an extremely fast learner).
I am using HTML5 canvas right now as that's mostly what I was hinting at when i said javascript. I probably should have made it a bit more clear.
Definitely Unity. Its really kind to beginners, and has a really nice, "just-works" API. Also, It'll give you good experience in working with proprietary game engines, which will help if you ever think of getting into the game industry. It also supports more freedom in game design than UDK which (as much as they claim to the contrary,) is geared (no pun intended :P) completely towards FPS style games.
However like what Twitchy said, eventually you will want to use custom libraries like XNA, or MOGRE; it is the natural next step in game development (in my opinion).
Good luck, and have fun :)
Based on my experience.. Neither.
The reason for this, is that when learning game development I find it alot better to be looking at the back end of the code, and learn from the ground up.
I started back in the day with Game Maker, and while some people may disregard that, it allowed me to learn how programming languages work, and gave me a simple look at OOP.
About a year ago, I started to learn C#, and soon after started to mess around with XNA. The great thing about XNA is that is managed code, and takes out most of the really hard stuff, but at the same time, you can develop games really quickly without having to learn how engines like UDK and Unity work. From what I hear Unity and UDK are mostly 3D, and personally that is not a good place to start for a new game developer.
With XNA you have SpriteBatch and the Content Pipeline, which makes drawing sprites to the screen really simple. You have the Draw and Update method, which are handled by the backend of XNA to keep timing values, and the rest can be designed by you.
Once you understand how DirectX works on a very simple level, you could try looking at using Unity or UDK. But, by then, I think you would find it gives you much more control to use a framework, and much more enjoyable too.
Why don't you try HTML 5 canvas? It is much more like Javascript and will enable you to develop some cool 2D videogames playable in a web browser.
UDK and Unity are better if you don't want to write your own 3D graphical engine: I would suggest UDK to start because it is well documented and easier to start with. Visit this link: http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitProgramming.html.
Since you already know javascript and you're at a beginner level, I'd certainly recommend Unity. In Unity you can write you're scripts in javascript and it is a bit easier than Unreal.
i would also recommend Unity but only for beginning. The good thing about Unity is that you get allot of free cool stuff you can build from their website, defenently check that out.
have fun!
