23 replies to this topic

[jeffmorris]

Is there an easy-to-use 3D game engine for beginners? It should support vehicle physics and huge terrains. I wish to create some kind of a game in which I drive a car through a city.

[TheNut]

For something that simple, have a look at blender. It's a modeler, editor, and game engine rolled into one. It would be fairly simple to make your city with it.

[Sean H.]

I highly recommend the A7(3dGameStudio) engine. it's really easy to use, targetted at beginners, and has vehicle physics.

[jeffmorris]

Blender has a confusing user interface and there's three versions of 3D Game Studio A7 engine. I think that vehicle physics is available in Pro version which costs $900. I think that I have A6 Commercial version. I don't know how to upgrade from A6 Commercial to A7 Pro.

[phildart]

try the ShiVa Game Development Kit,

it includes physics with ODE, so you will be free to create great car physics (realistic or cartoon) behaviour.
and the price is quite low.

Perhaps it's just quite expert interface oriented... but there is some video tutorial to help you to take in hand.

[bronxbomber92]

Try Unity. It has a terrain engine, and builtin car physics.

Sounds like it's just what you want :)

[Frank Skilton]

bronxbomber92 said:

Try Unity. It has a terrain engine, and builtin car physics.

Sounds like it's just what you want :)

True, as long as you're developing on Mac.

[phildart]

And with the indy version, it miss a lot of functionalities...

[Enlight]

Mac? what is that....?

[Reedbeta]

That must be a joke, right? You can't have not heard of Apple Mac computers?

[fireside]

On the Blender interface, it's not as hard as it looks at first. I use Blender and it seems so easy for me. It's free and constantly updated. It takes a little while to get used to anything but the forums are great for answering questions. The exports are getting better but the game engine is slow and outdated and buggy. Crystal Space has a special exporter for Blender and it's really looking nice lately. Check out the celstart binaries and the castle demo. Irrlicht has a nice world editor that does light maps and the engine is pretty easy to use. Stick with a free engine and you won't be constantly paying for updates every year.

[Enlight]

Reedbeta said:

That must be a joke, right? You can't have not heard of Apple Mac computers?

yep, was a joke... I am a PC fan ... :D

[Kenneth Gorking]

Frank Skilton said:

True, as long as you're developing on Mac.

Just remembered this link :) : http://unity3d.com/u...ures/deployment
You can try it for yourself at http://unity3d.com/g...opical-paradise

[carlj]

Can't go wrong with DX Studio. Fantastic engine and very easy to use. Dx Studio

[ldrrn]

DX Studio supports vehicle physics? to me DX Studio is more like a multimedia application

[carlj]

ldrrn said:

DX Studio supports vehicle physics? to me DX Studio is more like a multimedia application

Strange, What makes you think that?

[ldrrn]

by comparing official demos from torque, neoaxis, c4 and dxstudio, think most people will agree with me

[Zard]

jeffmorris said:

Blender has a confusing user interface and there's three versions of 3D Game Studio A7 engine. I think that vehicle physics is available in Pro version which costs $900. I think that I have A6 Commercial version. I don't know how to upgrade from A6 Commercial to A7 Pro.

Vehicle physics is available in the free version of 3D Game Studio. I have just downloaded it and it works very well. Another option would be Torque, but the approach is more difficult.

[phildart]

just to inform that the ShiVa 1.5.2 is released.

the community is fastly growing up and the new features are really great.
Ambient Occlusion, DirectX/openGL, web or installer publishing.

and the PLE is still completely free.

I'm still believing that is THE solution for indy developer as me!

[TMichael]

Shiva looks great, but the forums are almost entirely in French right now. Being unable to read the comments and concerns of current users has made me wary.