3 replies to this topic

[Wizard]

Hi

This may seem as an odd question to many of you, but go along with me and if you can, then please answer the question.

Let's say that I had one of the gameengines from DevMaster's engine database and that this game engine had a graphical user interface (gui) I didn't like.

Would it be feasible to change the gui or would it be better to start from scratch and make a new engine with a the gui I want ?

That was my "simple" question, I hope someone inhere will share their views on this subject.

[Reedbeta]

Depends entirely on the engine in question. Some engines might make it very easy to change around the GUI and some might make it difficult or impossible. In particular, if you have full source code it will certainly be possible to alter the GUI with a lot less work than building a whole engine from scratch.

[Stainless]

In the general case, GUI's supplied with engines are designed to be modified.

Usually it's just a case of supplying your own graphics and a configuration file.

Having said that, there are a lot of ways of coding GUI's and if it doesn't work in a way you like it's a nightmare to change.

Some GUI's work by callbacks, some work using signals, some use message pumps.
Some use hard coded coordinates, some use layouts, some scale well, some don't

It's a matter of taste

[Wizard]

Hi

Thank you both for your good answers - I'm very pleased to see that none of you start your reply with a WTF-do-you-wanna-do-that-for-?

I had to ask this because my dream project (which is an editor where users can make RPG games) would be a whole lot easier to make money wise if I could use an already existing game engine and thereby not having to re-invent the wheel, but only changing the gui (and add a few custom feature if they are not already there !) so it looked and behaved like I wanted it to.

This would really be something which would cut a a big chunk off the development cost.