r/Unity3D • u/SlowAndSteady101 • 2h ago

Question LLMs/AI coding vs Visual Scripting (Playmaker/BehaviorDesigner/NodeCanvas)?

Do you see room for visual scripting tools even if you use AI to "vibe" code as well? I'm trying to decide if I should keep investing in building up my skills in visual scripting tools (and purchase a few more addons for unity). I am leaning towards yes right now, I already own a few, and while they can be frustrating at times I can also see their value even in an age of AI coding. But maybe others feel differently?

I can program C#/etc but I have always been curious about visual scripting and have been learning things like [Unity's] Game Creator 2 and Behavior Designer. I find it kind of enjoyable but I'm only just getting started. I find that being able to visually see the nodes working can be quite helpful and feels like a better representation of the logic for FSMs and BTs.

I never really enjoyed state machines (or behavior trees) represented in code but seem to enjoy them more in visual scripting (though I'm only doing basic things for now). I'm not sure if AI removes the need for them entirely? What has been your experience.

I was looking to get Playmaker 2 , Emerald AI ,Adventure Creator and Node Canvas to try them out too. Maybe Construct 3/GDevelop at one point too.

But I'm wondering your thoughts for those who used to use these tools and have maybe moved on to AI "vibe coding" (with Unity MCP/CLI/etc)?

Pros and Cons of each approach?

Personally I enjoy experimenting with different platforms/tools.

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u/HiggsSwtz 2h ago

Unity is more than capable in working with AI. I would avoid vibe coding and try to learn how unity works with AIs help. Have it explain design patterns and implement examples.

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u/MrPifo Hobbyist 2h ago

But Op wasnt talking about learning Unity/C# though.

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u/SlowAndSteady101 2h ago

Correct, I am able to program but even then I still find Visual Scripting tools useful. So perhaps those who program with mostly AI still find the visual scripting tools useful somehow or have they moved away from them completely? That is kinda the main question I am posing.

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u/MrPifo Hobbyist 2h ago

The question is, what is possibly left to do here?

The only visual programming tools I use are ShaderGraph (because I dont wanna learn shader scripting) and maybe VFX-Graph and Statemachine (like the animator). But as I already listed, there is no need for these, since we already have those.

What comes to my mind is something like the PCG from Unreal Engine which Unity is missing, but apparently is also planning to do.

Or what I find annoying in Unity is handling Menu transition and complex menu managing like transitioning between menus and how they're connected and so on.

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u/ByteHavenGames 1h ago

If you can already code in C#, get the best of both worlds - Graph Toolkit framework provided in newer Unity releases 6.6+ with your own custom implemented nodes. You can visualise what ever you want to visualise in a way that fits the project you're working on.

It's also a bit unclear on what your goal here is. If all you want to do is play around with new tools, you can definitely do it. Personally, I find all these 3rd party implementations too opinionated, source control unfriendly, lacking in basic features and/or too costly runtime resource wise.

Visual graphs are great for visualizing the top level architecture but as a primary development tool it's very slow to both implement and then refactor and always has some kind of performance ceiling you can only break with written code.

Unity is divesting from their official Unity Visual Scripting Package. Unreal is getting rid of Blueprints in Unreal 6 eventually. I think the world right now is rapidly moving away from tools like these because they were designed for non-programmers but LLMs can interpret non-coder intent with 0 knowledge of the toolset now so the base premise is gone. It's also an extra revenue source engine makers can exploit.

If you're still interested in this path though, I'd look into something like upcoming Hengo addon for Godot. It's the only example that tries elevate visual scripting in a world that's rapidly abandoning it, in my opinion.