Experiences with freeware engines

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    • Experiences with freeware engines

      Who has used what freeware/low cost, PC Direct X, game engines and what problems an issues have you had?

      I've got ideas for a simple game, sort of like the looter games and what not that Bart plays on the Simpsons.

      You run around a city like maze thing avoiding the cops and and doing snatch and grabs in store windows mugging and so forth. This is not even trying to be grand theif auto or anything. this is a cartoony comedy thing.

      If it turns out to be any kind of fun I may do a shareware thing at most or as a demo to get myself in the door some where

      gb
    • RE: Experiences with freeware engines

      A few I've looked at (but not really done much with):

      Wild Tangent
      Torque (Tribes2)
      Auran Jet

      A few notes:

      All of these are available for next to nothing, but you have to pay additional licence fees if you go commercial (although I'm not certain about the Torque engine - need to read the docs better).

      Wild Tangent's exporter only works with 3DS Max 3 and Maya 4 (maybe 4.5). Optionally, it accepts X format files in the DX7 format (need Conv3DS from the DX7 SDK).

      Auran Jet won't compile under VC++ 7+, only VC++6, due to some interesting dependencies on Microsoft's name mangling.

      I'm still looking at Torque, haven't seen any gotcha's yet.

      Wild Tangent is free to download and work with, but your licence fee is due on commercial release (or shortly before) at $5,000 (or 2%($5,000 minimum) for fee based products).

      Auran Jet is $100 US for the non-commercial SDK which has Auran branding built into the render engine. Before commercial release a license must be purchased ($35,000 last I checked).

      Torque has a free demo that is downloadable, and it appears that the $100 fee for the SDK is pretty much it. I haven't delved very deeply into the docs yet.

      For stand-alone products any of these will do admirably. For web-based products I'm going to say Wild Tangent - it is designed to run as a web-browser plug-in.

      There are other engines out there (Crystal3D is all I can really pull off the top of my head). Check Gamasutra and Gamedev, they're sure to have in-depth info or at least links....

      Rich
      "Your job is not to die for your country. Your job is to make some other poor sod die for his."
    • Thanks for the input, I think I'm going to try Torque, it seems seems fairly good and priced at a level that I can work with. Torgue is able to work with gameSpace too, so that helps.

      Now all I need is to get enough free time to start work

      Thanks

      gb
    • One good game engine is irrlicht...(irrlicht.sourceforge.net)...its torque but free. It dosn't have sound AI or networking, but has Software, OpenGL and DirectX support, aswell as a large user base.
      It has functions Such as 'AddFPSCamera' and stuff...with a Heirarchial Scene graph. The keys and collision is all taken care of unless you want to go into more detail.
      The tutorials will tell you how to add physics, sound and networking with outside libraries and there is an AI class under construction by several forum members. Personally I wouldn't mind torque...but untill I leave school irrlicht is the next bes thing...and its free!!!!
      JPulham
    • I think Irrlicht is a pretty good engine. I have played around with it but not done anything serious. Mostly just disected the code.

      I have Torque but it just wasn't what I was looking for after I got it so haven't done much with it. It has a large community though.

      I have been interested in checking out TV3d when the new version comes out but seems like it might be in closed beta forever.

      But after looking into these and several others, I ended up decidiing to build my own, although lately I have taken a break from that to play with the Realm Crafter game creation tool (mmorpg game maker).
    • Some things and opinions.

      NOTE: These are only my opinions on engines we have worked with extensively.

      Auran Jet:
      Pros: Hands down one of the best engines on the market today. The sheer depth of that engine and it's absolutely complete nature makes it one of the best engines we've ever worked with. It's options and benenfits are far too numerous to even try to label here, but let me throw this out there... it could be switched from Direct X to Open GL just by changing an option in a text file. ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING!

      Cons: The only thing ( and biggest problem with the engine ) is the fact that it's severly outdated at this point. Auran Jet 1.1 is still running on DX 8.1 and hasn't been updated for more then a year now. There is an Auran Jet 2.0, but as of right now there has been no "indy" release of it. Unfortunately, gamers demand for eye candy makes this engine almost unusable at this point. Another con at this point is lack of help from the community and developers. The community has pretty much died and the developers are too tied up with AJ 2.0.

      Torque
      Pros: If you are looking at making a FPS, especially one like tribes that comes complete with scripting and networking right out of the gate I don't believe you can beat Torque for ease of use, FPS pre-packaging, and community size.

      Cons: If you are looking at every making anything beside a FPS, torque is WORTHLESS! You have to mangle, wreck, and completely tear apart the Torque to get it to even remotely be able to do anything else... and then at that it's hard pressed to do it worth even messing with.

      TrueVision ( Our Choice )
      Pros: There are many pros to Truevision 3d.
      - The first and biggest in my opinion is the ability via email, forum, and IRQ to speak directly with the developers. You can bugs, problems, and help immedietely via these avenues. The support from the TV team is the best we've ever seen! If you have a question about how the engine works or how to do something they can help. If they are not around there are many ( about 20 - 30 ) people in the channel that are willing to help you solve your problem.
      - Second is the community size ( The largest community ). There are about 30 - 50 new posts a day at the forum and most are answered rapidly.
      - Third is ease of use, there are many things the engine does that are done with single function calls.
      - Fourth, not so big for us, but the engine is written and usable by 4 different programming languages ( written in C++ ). VB, C++, Delphi, and C#.

      Cons: The biggest con for us at this point, and one that is relatively small is the fact that it has to be compatable with 4 different languages. This has led to some things that are a little awkward. Such as a few global functions and functions that could easily been overloaded in C++ have redundancy due to other language limitations. Other then that there are really no other cons at this point.

      These are just a few of the engines we have experience with. There are some others, but we haven't explored them enough to give them a fair critique.

      Also, check out this link:
      devmaster.net/engines/

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Alien_Attack ().

    • Another thumb-up for Truevision -- and I heard the next verison will come stock full of new tools, such as a scene editor. One thing that it has going for me is the ability to roll out code in C#, which is very helpful for a newbie like me coming to term with 3d stuff.

      There's also Panda3D (panda3d.org), a Python-driven freeware (at least for non-commerical use). The Pros? Getting an application going is faster than anything I have known. The cons? It's still pretty unstable, and support for it is still lacking. It's still pretty new though, and a few regulars at the forum have been really helpful.
    • RE: Experiences with freeware engines

      Ogre3D is probably the best 3D rendering API available. It also has a huge, active and supportive community that is more than willing to offer help. Granted, it's only a 3D API but as such it does that rather well -- better than many commercial options in fact. It's LGPL so you can distribute its binaries without making your app open-source (several commercial titles are based on Ogre).

      Several physics and audio adapter projects are available that work directly with Ogre. It has comprehensive direct support for Max, XSI and Blender, as well as community support for Maya, LW, TrueSpace and so on. Many inexpensive or free software projects such as Freeworld3D and MAGE are available for creating level and map content directly for Ogre. In short, it's relatively simple getting content into Ogre.

      Again, it's not a full engine. By design, it focusses on 3D rendering and that's it. Several game engine/framework projects such as Yake and GOOF are based on Ogre if you want a single engine solution.
    • RE: Experiences with freeware engines

      Originally posted by xavier
      Ogre3D is probably the best 3D rendering API available. It also has a huge, active and supportive community that is more than willing to offer help. Granted, it's only a 3D API but as such it does that rather well -- better than many commercial options in fact. It's LGPL so you can distribute its binaries without making your app open-source (several commercial titles are based on Ogre).

      Several physics and audio adapter projects are available that work directly with Ogre. It has comprehensive direct support for Max, XSI and Blender, as well as community support for Maya, LW, TrueSpace and so on. Many inexpensive or free software projects such as Freeworld3D and MAGE are available for creating level and map content directly for Ogre. In short, it's relatively simple getting content into Ogre.

      Again, it's not a full engine. By design, it focusses on 3D rendering and that's it. Several game engine/framework projects such as Yake and GOOF are based on Ogre if you want a single engine solution.


      I'll challange that any day of the week. Ogre is good, but is weak compared to True Vision 3D 6.5!!! I've checked out just about every avialable engine to date (that is less then $10,000 USD for a license) and True Vision BY FAR the best!!! BAR NONE! With that said, they are creating both a media engine and a media (that is audio) engine that is completely integrated with the rendering pipline presented by TV3D 6.5. Already integrated into the current TV3D 6.5 app is the Newton Physics engine! I GUARANTEE that it takes me less coding time and effort to achieve the same effect that it that it takes you to create in OGRE. TV3D can be programmed in C++, C#, VB, and delphi which allows for MANY more programmers searching for and finding solutions to common problems!

      This is not "bad mouthing", "undermining", or otherwise to the OGRE engine. OGRE is a great open source engine, but IMO can't even come close to the power of True Vision 3D 6.5 engine in terms of ease of use, graphical effects, or power PLAIN AND SIMPLE!

      In terms of community I've never found a bigger or more helpful community then the TV3D community!!! Try and figure it out yourself, and if you can't the TV3d community will help you figure it out! If you want to be lazy and want code handed to you then OGRE may be a better community, as TV3d community will not stand for it.

      In the end, the best I can suggest is to test both of them! I'll bet in the end you'll find that TV3D is better.

      Again, this is not a flame war, just one regular's opinions.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Alien_Attack ().

    • Well, I can say that you've really not spent that much time in the Ogre community if you think that we just hand people code. Quite the contrary. I'll tell someone where to find their answers (120k posts in the forums is always a good place to start, for example), but I don't hand anyone anything.

      I don't need to test them both because I am more than satisified with Ogre. I have the benefit of the experience of those who have used Irrlicht, and TV3D, and B3D, and Panda, and even Torque, Unreal and anything that Carmack has worked on, and invariably Ogre is regarded equivalent to most of the commercial 3D packages, and superior to nearly all of the open-source ones.

      I'll go further and say that incorporating systems such as audio and physics into TV3D might be great if they are looking to make it a full engine instead of simply 3D rendering. There is nothing wrong with that at all, and if productivity is the overriding factor, I would suggest nothing less than a fully integrated solution. Since Ogre is solely a 3D rendering engine (and I did mention that at the outset), and just that, it can do just that rather well. And does.

      Finally, you might ask ShawnG there why they switched from TV3D to Ogre if TV3D is the be-all-end-all.
    • As a long-time TrueVision3D user who has actually TRIED DarkBasic, BlitzBasic3D, Torque, Ogre, Revolution3D, State3D, (to name a few) and always ended up coming back to TrueVision3D, I can say that you simply can't go wrong with TV. As for this comment:

      Finally, you might ask ShawnG there why they switched from TV3D to Ogre if TV3D is the be-all-end-all.


      Do you REALLY want to associate yourself with ShawnG? He was nothing but trouble when he came to the TV forums.

      -Javin

    • Do you REALLY want to associate yourself with ShawnG? He was nothing but trouble when he came to the TV forums.

      -Javin


      I didn't know I was associating myself with anyone but myself. We only have your word/opinion about what may or may not have happened on other forums; I only know from talking to him and others on their project that they spent gobs of hours with TV3D on their project and recently switched to Ogre for various reasons I will not go into here; if Shawn cares to explain then that's up to him. Hence the reason I suggested asking him.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by xavier ().