11 replies to this topic

[nzervu]

Hi,
I am a beginner on game development, I know c++, java, python and object oriented programming and I want to create a FPS for educational reasons with an open source game engine. And I don’t want to spend the rest of life making it... 6-12 months of hard work is ok.

Which open source game engine should I use?

Ease of use, community's support, documentation, and examples are important for me.

Thank you for your answers!!:yes:

[fireside]

You don't mention if you have modeling experience. Irrlicht is a good engine for first person shooters in c++. It has a default camera model that works well with it and the demo is a first person shooter.

APOCALYX Engine is kind of set up for that also and is open source.

If you're not a modeler, you're best bet might be to use Blender and the Blender Game Engine, which recently has been picked up and started working on again. With it you have automatic import to the game engine. The logic brick system with python scripts isn't too tidy, but it works. Great for beginning because you can do a lot of things with logic bricks alone.

Lastly, jumping into 3d is generally not a good idea. It's better to get an understanding of how a game works with 2d programming and then do 3d. Also, what is your big rush? Most game companies don't put out a game in that amount of time. You're trying to do everything as one person in quite a bit less time. Result = Garbage. It's actually all right if you design a small project rather than a large one. First person shooters require knowledge of skeletal animation and some other things that take a while to learn.

[nzervu]

I have a little modeling experience with 3DS max, and just went through the basic tutorials of blender... I will try to use quake2/3 models and maps, for skipping some modeling. The game doesn’t have to be really good. I try to learn some basics of game development, before I start my project.

Apocalyx looks nice, but I haven’t heard of it before.. Should I trust a more popular engine? Do Orge, Irrlich and Crystal Space deserve their popularity?

BlenderGE is a possibility... However I don’t know why, my instinct says I should use an engine like Irrlich or Crystal Space. I would like more opinions about BGE…

[fireside]

Quote

Do Orge, Irrlich and Crystal Space deserve their popularity?

Yes. They've been around for a long time. Apocalyx was written with a non c++ language, I forget the name right now, but it uses lua for scripting and may be the only one that loads map files. Crystal space and Apocalyx are full engines that include sound, etc. Crystal space is a nice engine but put together a little strange so it's somewhat hard to learn. Ogre is the most object oriented but graphics only and maybe too object oriented if you want to get up and running fast, but probably the best general purpose engine. Blender game engine doesn't load map files and is a fairly slow engine which is just beginning to be worked on again so that might change. Panda3d is another general purpose engine that is very good but I don't think it loads map files. It uses python for scripting. Apocalyx has been around for quite a few years and does the job well, so there's no reason not to use it that I can think of. If you would have asked for best general purpose engine I would have said Panda3d because it has an easy scripting language, is fast, and includes sound. It also has a really nice manual with tutorials, which most open source engines scrimp on quite a bit.

[alphadog]

nzervu said:

Which open source game engine should I use? Ease of use, community's support, documentation, and examples are important for me.

OGRE, Irrlicht and Panda3D are more like 3D render engines, so you'll have to write a fair amount of other code. They give you render, animation and scene management. You can also hunt down more libraries for things like physics, networking and audio.

Other engines offer more, but usually at some cost to flexibility. NeoAxis, for example, is pretty decent, but ties you down to .NET. Gamestudio is another, but I've never used it and can't comment to its quality.

It depends what you want to learn exactly...

[ldrrn]

If you only has 6 months for a fps game, i would say Apocalyx is the right engine for you. This engine is written in C++ (but only compilable in borland c++) but you can write a game in lua entirely without writing 1 line of c++ code.

And Apocalyx is a complete GAME engine (not just graphics engine), it has audio, network, gui, physics, scene manager and 3d graphics all implemented. if you choose other graphics engine, I'm afraid it'll take months before you could get all this components up and run together.

Apocalyx already had a fps demo, called urban tactic (http://apocalyx.sour...e.net/demos.php), you can use that as your starting point.

[nzervu]

Nice...
Despite I had in mind that I should write c++ code, Apocalyx seems ok.


Lua is used for the game context only? Can powerfull games be created with just scripting(Sorry I m noob.....)?

[kariem2k]

Take a look at panda3d and you will not regret.I am not using it as my engine now because i want to make my own game framework on top of OGRE3D.

[fireside]

Quote

Can powerfull games be created with just scripting(Sorry I m noob.....)?

It mainly depends on how many useful functions for the engine have a scripted connection. Because it's been around for a while, I would say you can do most anything you want in a shooter type game.

[kariem2k]

Engine like Apocalyx is not using lua for high level scripting like AI and game logic.
It uses lua for wrapping all C/C++ apis so what you can make with C++ (Which i still refer :)) can be done in lua with that engine.

[nzervu]

Thank you all for your answers! :yes:

However I have to say that I'm a bit confused :wacko: , so I will start with simple tutorials and articles on game development for begginers and I will make my decision later about which engine to use.

[fireside]

It's really best to start with 2d.