>>105944564
>how to use unreal engine without epic launcher?
unless you are planning to ship a game, its not worth it. I stopped using unreal every since 5 came out because my GPU got obsoleted for the engine. UE 4.26 used to take 100 GB to build from source. I used to disable unnecessary shit live VR but the runtime performance wasn't much different from the release builds you get from launcher so I'd say don't bother with it.
>i'm pivoting from touchdesigner to unreal engine for realtime 3d visuals
unreal engine is only good for visuals. Using both is also an option, generate audio in touchdesigner and visualize in unreal, best of both worlds. You can do that with OSC blueprint plugin that literally takes care of everything for you. Just setup an OSC port in touch designer or any DAW(almost all DAWs support OSC) and you should be good to go. Here is one video where a guy creates tracks in Ableton and use Max to send those track data to unreal via OSC and visualized that data unreal engine in real time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QdOqG0BBAI&t=240s
>should i just go down that route?
my personal openion is yes. Niagara does some sick shit with ease that will be very hard to achieve with godot or even unity. You can create very cool visuals for your music with niagara. Not 2d but actual breathtaking 3D visuals where objects, lights and textures react to your 808s
https://www.youtube.com/@shimlaDnB/videos