Notch & game engines

How does “game engine XYZ” compare to Notch? #

One of our users said it best: “When you arrive in a game engine, you (re)build a known outcome. When you arrive in Notch, you start with the idea and discover the outcome.”

Notch was built from the ground up to be artist accessible. In Notch, you create your content (be it video, interactive, VR or camera-based) using easy to understand nodes. There is no programming, external compiling/building or other game engine-like pipeline work involved.

What about rendering performance or visual fidelity? #

Game engines use the same rendering techniques and APIs as Notch, and the only major difference between a game engine and Notch is that Notch is not focused around game-like mechanics and features that are required to build games. Notch is built to make real-time non-game rendering easy and accessible for everyone, especially those with a motion graphics background, and comes bundled with effects and examples made specifically for real-time VFX.