[FVG]: Choosing an Engine: Final Poll

[Astronouth7303]

Since no one seems to want to debate this, I assume that's all the ideas there are. so we have:

1. Crystal Space
   Price:Open source (free)
2. Genesis 3D
   Price:Open source (free)
3. Unreal
   Price:$350,000 plus royalties; 1 platform; $50,000 for additional platforms.

   $750,000 royalty-free; 1 platform; $100,000 for additional platforms

4. Torque
   Price: $100

You have 14 days. Votes are public.

[Tytus Gerrish]

why are people Voting for unreal? do they want to donate all the $ to use it?

[Yan Wang]

Tytus, the question asked what engine SHOULD be used. It says nothing about what WILL be used or the practicality of getting any such graphics engine.

[Heretic121]

the unreal engine is FREE!!!!!!!!!!!! i mean... it comes down to wethere we want to make our own game and make it seperate, or just use the unreal engine and make a MOD for ut2k4... (i have seen a golf sim mod for ut2k4, so n e thing is possible) =D

[ngreen]

I don't have the money for unreal and like open source and think I prefer crystal space. It seems like the best option without shelling out dough. And it can be made so many people, not just thoughs with UT, can take advantage of the game. Just reading opinion this seems to be the path that those actually going to do a lot a work for this project want to go. Not just making a good hack of UT but actually building something. I think crystal space looks like a good building block.

[Denman]

Which unreal engine is this? The totally first one????

[Bcahn836]

I have no clue so i think i am going to stay out of this one. LOL

[Heretic121]

Originally Posted by Denman

Which unreal engine is this? The totally first one????

no... i would persume the 2k4 engine w/ the unreal2.5 engine... BUT... we COUld use UT99, IF it has an Unreal Editor with it... but then it wouldnt be as modern and we wouldnt be able to use high poly count objects =/

[Tristan Lall]

If you guys are really serious about this--and that means that you want to mess with the engine, rather than just making mods (which is fine too!)--Descent and Quake II (or was it Quake I?) were open-sourced, if I remember correctly. Descent is missing some proprietary sound driver code, but other than that, is complete (and runs under DOS or an emulator). Quake, I'm not sure.

But really, a modern engine like Unreal, with a well-developed modding community is probably a better choice, if it can be used without cost. You will have to consider people losing interest in the project (it always happens with mods), and will have to evaluate the technical aspects of what you want to do versus not only your abilities, but also the capabilities of the modding layer of the engine. (What do I mean? You can't mod Warcraft II into Splinter Cell--though for your purposes, a 3-D shooter engine should serve nicely).

Consider which engines or games can be used to approximate real-world physics. Unreal Tournament isn't so great out of the box, but Raven Shield (an Unreal-based game) has rather good physics.

Also consider that these open-source engines, which may not have actually been used in any products on the market, are (by and large) unsupported and unproven. Will they work? Hopefully/probably. Does Unreal (for example) work? Yes. (And can you afford to buy the source code? No. Would they even sell it to you? Probably not.)

But take a good hard look at the potential for people to back out of the project. If the only person who can handle the advanced C++ and DirectX (or whatever you're coding for) needed for a full-fledged game engine quits out of frustration (or petty bickering, or illness, or school, or life in general), what happens? You need to make sure that the project depends on no one person, or that every person will absolutely refuse to quit (which is unlikely, at best). Wouldn't it be a safer bet to mod a game, where there is comparatively little skill required, and where tasks can be assigned to just about anyone? (You probably shouldn't assume that someone who just completed AP Comp. Sci. is able to write--or even read--code to support DirectX, but maybe they'll know enough to adjust parameters in data files, or learn other skills from modding tutorials.)

In short, don't get in over your heads, and you'll be fine. (And if you still want to go ahead with tweaking the game engine itself, just keep these observations in mind.)

P.S. The link to Crystal needs an extra "e" in "sourceforge"....

[Ryan M.]

I'm still all for Crystal. I get what you're saying, but I've already stated my feeling about using less than open-source code...

[Astronouth7303]

Follow the links. The Unreal engine is just the engine; they license it to various groups. (The current version is 2) The prices posted are the normal ones, no special offers.

And if we just mod UT2k4, the cost would be to buy UT2k4 for everyone. Not real cheap, either.

One other thing: There is no sponsor. Anything that we buy is going to have to come out of our pockets. And I don't think that Epic licenses to private people, just corporations.

[Ryan M.]

Originally Posted by Astronouth7303

...
One other thing: There is no sponsor. Anything that we buy is going to have to come out of our pockets. And I don't think that Epic licenses to private people, just corporations.

Remember that, even if you aren't part of the team that works on this...

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Astronouth7303

And if we just mod UT2k4, the cost would be to buy UT2k4 for everyone. Not real cheap, either.

It really isn't that expensive, and you do get a perfectly good game out of it. (I have of course been referring to modding--it's obvious that you can't afford to buy the code for the engine, sponsor or no sponsor.)
Doing so means that you have a engine that is known to work properly. If you use something else, there is a higher probability of something beyond your control going wrong. What guarantees that it will be fixed in a timely fashion, so as not to inconvienience you greatly? And why not make use of the Unreal modding community? That's arguably better than getting an SDK and reading the documentation, and fighting with low-level code, but still ending up with a product that's based on a sub-par or dated backend.

If the price is such a big deal, why not use the old Unreal Tournament? It's exceptionally efficient, very scalable, runs on anything (of consequence), and is "known good". The techniques to mod it (note--once again, I doubt it's worth it to even think of buying the code!) are established and widely available.

Whatever you do, don't paint yourselves into a corner by choosing an engine for which you will be debugging errors totally unrelated to your project--let someone else do that for you! (Open source is ideologically nice, but do you have the time and energy to bugtest someone else's work in progress, while you simultaneously try to develop an implementation of the same thing, using ever-changing builds, and without a guarantee of stability? It's a crapshoot.)

One other thing about open source (or any source, really): once you do see the code, will you know what to do with it? Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's not exactly easy stuff to interpret, especially the first time around. If you have real expertise (high school comp. sci. probably doesn't constitute expertise), or are willing to invest significant time to learn, then it may be reasonable; but if you want to work on a FIRST video game, and not spend your (not-unlimited) time learning the nuances of a particular engine, the best route is still modding someone else's work.

It's a matter of perspective--what do you really want? To learn 3-D game design/implementation, or to produce a FIRST game? They aren't mutually exclusive, but neither are they the same thing. Another thing: if you're recruiting volunteers, make sure they know in advance your answer to this question--if they assume that you're going to have a game within a certain time period, and find that you, the leaders, are still tinkering with the intricacies of the engine when you "ought to be" working on the game itself, they may just quit out of disillusionment.

[Denman]

unrealED is free with any copy of ut, i think. I have it from my original ut and i think i have it for the latest one, but i havn't actually looked, you can probably find it for download somewhere, as games companies tend to support modders now as it makes them look good etc....

[Astronouth7303]

You can actually download the runtime for Unreal2. But you can't get to the API reference w/o registering.