52 replies to this topic

[cybereality]

Batman, I was in a similar position to you with regards to the 3d engines your team was using. I originally went with Torque, but lord knows that was like the biggest mistake of my life. I can't even begin to explain what a serious piece of work that engine is. The code in that engine is such a complete mess of hacks its unbelievable it even works. Needless to say I understand your aversion to anything Torque related. That being said I've recently dropped Torque and am moving over to Ogre right now. But you seem to have had some issues with Ogre. Can you explain?

I've done a lot of research on 3d engines, and so far, Ogre appears to be performing nicely. Ogre has something absent in many engines and that is accurate documentation. It is actively supported unlike a good 90% of the engines on the list. Of course Ogre is just a rendering engine so there are still a lot of work to do on the game framework, libraries, etc. But it seems pretty solid to me. What issues did you face with Ogre that would make you drop it and contemplate spending almost $20k on another solution?

There are a few other engines that caught my eye, Unity being one of them (why is it only for Mac?). Honestly, if Unity had an IDE for PC I would have licensed multiple seats, no problem. Sadly working on Macs in not really an option for me or my team. If you want to make money selling licenses, try targeting the good 90% of the PC market that don't use Macs.

Another engine that look promising was Unigine (http://unigine.com), however the license is pretty steep. They make it out on the website like they support indie developers, but they don't. They are targeting the full commercial license, so don't even bother unless you have the cash to pony up.

I've looked at Panda3D for years, when was the last time they updated their website? The features sound decent, but show me a nice looking demo. Sure theres Disney's MMO, but what else? Seriously. If I go to an engines website and the frontpage hasn't been updated in like a year, when do you think the last time they updated the actual engine was? It isn't exactly a hard sell.

To be honest, I don't think there is *any* engine in the open-source/low-cost/indie market that supports everything you need. If you want a serious 3d engine its either going to cost you in the 5 figures and up, or you have to code it yourself. I've been looking for a suitable 3d engine for years and this is the conclusion I came to.

//cybereality

[lstockman]

cybereality said:

To be honest, I don't think there is *any* engine in the open-source/low-cost/indie market that supports everything you need. If you want a serious 3d engine its either going to cost you in the 5 figures and up, or you have to code it yourself. I've been looking for a suitable 3d engine for years and this is the conclusion I came to.

//cybereality

You hit the nail on the head. No matter what engine is used, there will still be things that will be needed that the engine wont do. It's really hard to find one that does everything for an MMO. I only chose two which had promise and fit "most" of the needs. Each of the problems could be overcome with coding in C++ and some time.

I use Ogre3D myself and to be honest, if you buy the book at Amazon, it does make it easier. Especially for the CEGUI methods and classes.

[Riya]

1.Jupiter or JupiterEX
http://www.lithtech.com

2.The Nebula Device 2
http://nebuladevice.cubik.org

3.Lawmaker
http://www.darkroomstudios.com

4.PowerRender6
http://www.powerrender.com

[mr_yeahman]

dont spend money on a gameengine if u not want any special from it and target to a fancypantsgame, otherwise pick up the best free engine that fits ur devteam and project. I would..

[TMichael]

Take a hard look at Lawmaker, C4 (brilliant design), Unigine, and Jupiter. They are all very FPS capable.

Lawmaker has an incredibly nice toolset/art pipleline and C4 is very fast and is probably the most flexible/customizable. I only know Jupiter and Unigine from their webpage feature listings, so I have no info one way or the other about them.

Good luck,
Tim

[furiouso]

I'm in the same situation with a small dev team, we are currently evaluating game engine options. I've recently came across C4 which has peaked my interests. The code is clean and efficient, the developer is readily available to answer questions, and he seems responsive to the enhancement requests of his community. I'd say it's worth your consideration.

http://www.terathon.com/c4engine

Let me know how you fair. I'd probably be worth while to compare notes. Maybe the research both of our teams do can help us decide on the right game engine for our individual projects.

we're at www.ithink-online.com

[furiouso]

Since reading this thread I have looked at unigine.... very compelling.

[Errornix]

I've recently been messing with Crystal Space. For a free engine, it's about as good as you'll get.

[DenDiesel]

furiouso said:

Since reading this thread I have looked at unigine.... very compelling.

If you're still interested in Unigine, take a look at updated screenshots gallery: http://unigine.com/screenshots/

[marciano]

Hello,

if you want you can have a look at Horde3D. It is a pure graphics engine but very suitable for displaying large terrains and a plenty of characters as required for a MMO, since it is heavily optimized for polygon throughput (crowd simulation is the main focus).

Batman said:

1. Large Open Terrain (Seamless if possible, but we can programme that if we have the source.). Important to be able to place buildings on the terrain (I would assume a good scenemanager)

2. Shader Model 3 support, with strong shader support

3. Physics (Preferably Physx, but we can add that)

4. Clean Code Base with good design (Hence why we want to avoid Torque)

5. Good Toolset, where artists can just get up and running, the programmers can handle most code changes if the code base is good.

1.) Horde does everything to optimize polygon throughput. Geometry data is optimized for GPU cache, linear array access and so on. Furthermore the animation system is heavily optimized.

2.) Horde is entirely based on shaders. Both SM 2.0 and 3.0 are supported. You can use all modern rendering techniques like deferred shading and all other sorts of post processing effects (HDR, DOF, Motion Blur)

3.) We are currently working on a physics integration as a proof of concept. Everything works well so far, since you get easily access to all the required data.

4.) Clean and simple code and a good OO design is one of the major design goals. Horde has just some thousand lines of well readable code which makes it pretty easy to extend and adapt the engie.

5.) By using Collada, Horde has very good compatibility with Max and Maya. We have tested it with all sorts of data modelled in Max and have no problems with morph targets and multiple skin modifiers. Unfortunately there are currently no engine specific tools available.


Probably you want a more battle proven engine but having a look doesn't cost anything :)

[TMichael]

Horde looks very nice to me, but similar to Ogre, it is just a rendering engine and other functionality would have to be added. One thing I couldn't quite figure out was the best methodology for adding that functionality. Unlike Ogre, there seem to be no clear examples of how to do this. Also, I think the poster was looking for functionality already built in.

Based on what he asked, I still think C4, Lawmaker, or Unigine come close. C4 does especially because of its clean design.

[bobsterling]

http://www.dxstudio.com/

They also provide bespoke engine mods if required!

[monkeypit]

With all these small developers starting games its a shame we don't all get together and make one game. Then again that could be a nightmare. :)

Anyways have you looked in the Torque engine. My friends and I have been looking at the demo and it has all the standard tools and has been around the longest that I know of, just may not have all the bells and whistles you are looking for, but not sure. It all depends on what you need and the style you are going for.

[Drago]

What of these programms is the best for non-coder? What programm has the best editor(s)?

[bobsterling]

I don't think you will be able to get very far in making a game without any coding. DX Studio uses JavaScript which is about as simple as it gets and allows you to achieve a lot with a relatively small amount of code.

For 'best editor' it's really down to personal preference so I would just try the freeware or demo versions of suggested products and see which you like using.

[Drago]

Okay thanks, but I heard that Lawmaker would have the most comfortable and "best" editor... C4 would have a clean design (whatever that means) and Unigine has many editors, which get a good work flow... I dont know...

[ulaoulao]

Same boat here. I have reviewed for a few years for my own project and my company as well. We are starting production on a fps game using an engine called kjapi. Only thing I can say is they support the rendering we need and they answer posts on the forum. They are actively designing and seem to be very helpfull. IMO its not the greatest engine..

I also agree with the torque comments. I read a post on here few years back about how great it was. This one fellow kept post "you will regret it in the end", and he was questioned left and right. All he said was take my word for it. Well he was right. It is not an engine its a hack... Just had to comment...

Lawmaker seems very impressive, I hope to use this for the full development of the game. I have not used C4 but I here its amazing. Stay way from power render. It is an amazing engine with 0 support. I mean they never answer questions. I'm told that if you buy it they will help, but come now. At these prices?? let us at least review it huh? I also like quest3d, pricey but good.

As other engines..

http://www.neoaxisgroup.com/

this is built on OGRE3d. Still in the works.


http://irrlicht.sour.../downloads.html

I like this engine, has a level editor but its a bit limited for "game" functions.


I used Crystal space. A bit confusing as they have so much stuff.

Panda is horribly out of date.

3impact is a game engine. It really does have a lot of game behaver, but lacks in the rendering/shader department. version 4 is out but I have not tried it. No level editor.

http://www.trinigy.net/

is another good engine if you have the cash..

Quote

With all these small developers starting games its a shame we don't all get together and make one game.

- I agree... We could use OGER3d or irrlicht as they are OS and build from them. I would be game.

[DenDiesel]

Drago said:

Okay thanks, but I heard that Lawmaker would have the most comfortable and "best" editor... C4 would have a clean design (whatever that means) and Unigine has many editors, which get a good work flow... I dont know...

Some little corrections: we suppose that killer-features of Unigine are very clean internal design, great picture quality, built-in physics and fast scripting. Frankly speaking our weakest sides are artist-friendly tools and detailed documentation for artists, some other engines have more easy to use tools than our ones. We are doing our best to make our engine more artist-friendly, but for now things are as they are.

By the way, you can see Unigine v0.4 picture quality in our new demo: http://unigine.com/download/

[Drago]

Yes but I think that Unigine is "a bit" too expensive... I think C4 or Lawmaker will do the race... Just my opinion. I need good graphics, ease of use tools and editors, a powerful and FLEXIBLE Engine... I dont know how flexible C4 is? More than the Lawmaker? How are the physics of C4? I dont understand this "graphic scripting"... Is it ease to use? Can I make something like a RPG? Please help me... I have to do a choice, but I dont know...

[Frank Skilton]

I own a license to C4 and given the fact that ALL the source code is included, which includes the engine, sample game modules and tools I would say it's a lot more flexible than LawMaker. I don't own a license to LawMaker nor have I ever used it however looking at their pricing structure $1499.99 is the minimum you'll pay for what you need to release a product, and that still doesn't give you access to the source code. From what I can tell and from what I've heard from others, LawMaker is great for making an fps - anything else is going to be a difficult task.

C4 is a steal at only $200 with all source included with free lifetime updates and support. The demo now includes all the tools for your evaluation. The tools recently received an overhaul and the world editor is quite nice. C4 is cross platform (Win, Mac, and PS3) whereas LawMaker appears to be Windows only, something to keep in mind.

Both engines have evaluation kits available, at the end of the day you're the only one whom can judge which engine works best for you.