Video Game Engines

[deanb]

They could have every single one of the 12 trees be different and full of unlimited detail and maintain a nice 60fpm. No typo.

[TheMightyEthan]

Why would that drop frames? Having the trees be different would just take more memory, it shouldn't be any harder to render quickly.

[deanb]

Because when instancing you only need to compute the object once and apply most of that computation to the duplicate item. It's a bit like muscle memory in doing a repetitive task.

 

http://pixelpaton.com/?p=5591 - A neat write up on using Unity, a 3D SDK, in making 2D games and the whys n why nots.

 

Also plans for PXOD this year include me starting back up again with the "Game Maker" series again. And Unity is on the cards.

[TheMightyEthan]

What kind of stuff would it be able to reuse that would lessen the CPU/GPU load, other than not having to store more stuff in memory? Honest question.

[deanb]

It'd be able to re-use whole assets. GPU loads in treeA_01.obj, renders it out branch by branch, leaf by leaf, then moves onto the next file which is treeA_02.obj. Well it's already done the computation for treeA, so it just copy pasts that effort over to treeA_01.obj. Thus saving on the whole effort or making a tree branch by branch, leaf by leaf. Now in comes treeB_01.obj, and it's s conifer, the GPU must now build this up branch by branch, leaf by leaf into a new tree model.

 

You have twenty essays to write about Genghis Khan, it's much simpler to write one essay and copy-paste it with minor changes 19 times than it is to fully write out 20 different essays about Genghis Khan.

 

Here's Microsoft write-up of it, but after the first paragraph it dips right into D3D coding since it is on MSDN:

Given a scene that contains many objects that use the same geometry, you can draw many instances of that geometry at different orientations, sizes, colors, and so on with dramatically better performance by reducing the amount of data you need to supply to the renderer.

[deanb]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/185894/Its_official_XNA_is_dead.php

 

XNA is to be phased out. Writing was on the wall with Windows 8 and WinRT, it does make future frameworks from MS look shakey, and also gives some insight into Next Xbox too (you wouldn't phase out the framework for making XBLIG games before next console release if you intended to support them on your next console). I guess on the upside there's plenty of other frameworks and tools out there competing for developers attention.

[deanb]

http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/2013/04/interview-cary-walkin-man-who-made-rpg.html

 

So a guy made a roguelike inside Excel. The spreadsheeting program. I've seen some impressive things in Excel, but a game certainly tops it out. I might give it a spin later.

[deanb]

 

Cryteks pitch for third party CryEngine use. They've never seemed to make much of a huge effort in marketing the engine to external studios. It's obviously ended up a in a few games, but never seemed to be much of an engine studio as Epic have been.

[deanb]

 

Some more of the CryEngine stuff. This one a bit more "hey here's what it does" than "here's what it's used in".  First time Ryse has looked compelling.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Disappearing puddles= GOAT engine

[Mr. GOH!]

What about this impressive video game engine?

[Pojodin]

^

[deanb]

So a lot of engine news with it being GDC. Mainly going the SaaS route:

 

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/03/18/unity-5/ - Unity 5 - $75/month

http://www.cryengine.com/news/crytek-announces-its-cryengine-as-a-service-program  - Cryengine - $9.90/month

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-03-19-unreal-4-open-to-all-for-a-USD19-month-fee - UE4 - $19/month

For everything else, there's Mastercard.

 

From reading reactions it's highly mixed. Mainly cos getting access to the engines at these prices seems too good to be true, and I know especially with the UE4 one folks have noted it's 5% of gross not 5% of income, so Epic could theoretically make more on your game than you do.

 

 

edit:

A video looking at Ubisofts engine that powers The Division (and likely other Ubisoft 8th Gen games)

I'll be honest it seems like most other big 3-D engines but I guess Ubi will be wanting to show it off.

[deanb]

 

Short video on "Hairworks", bit of a snippet of Witcher 3 wolves in action (and maybe a horse, but that wasn't clarified)

[TheMightyEthan]

That is a seriously deformed wolf...

[deanb]

The thumbnail isn't the wolf in question.

[deanb]

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

 

Unreal Engine 4 going free. Makes sense I guess given UE5 is the new toy on the market and Unity seems to be providing pretty strong competition (looks like UE4 will have same model in having an asset marketplace which is likely where Epic will make their pennies from).

[MetalCaveman]

Autodesk is joining the game of engines, releasing their own engine, called Stingray, it'll be available for  £30 a month with a 30-day trial. You also get access to the full Maya LT for that subscription fee.

http://www.develop-online.net/tools-and-tech/a-new-game-engine-in-town-under-the-hood-of-autodesk-s-stingray/0212893

[MetalCaveman]

http://www.godotengine.org/

 

A free to use engine, it has some cool features, seems mostly focused on 2D though it can also handle some 3D stuff.

[MetalCaveman]

CRYENGINE now available in a pay-what-you-want model:

 

https://www.cryengine.com/get-cryengine

[MetalCaveman]

https://godotengine.org/

 

3.0 Has released, and it has some pretty cool features:

 

 

[deanb]

*adds into my bookmark folder where I'll no doubt never touch it*

 

Still bummed I didn't keep up on Game Maker.

[MetalCaveman]

I remember you shared some stuff on twitter, didn't know you had stopped/dropped it.

[deanb]

Yeah I hit a point where the game kind of stopped working and I couldn't for the life of me figure out where I'd gone wrong which heavily derailed me. I mull about going back now n then but tbh I'm quite happy at the moment to play games.

[MetalCaveman]

Cryengine has now switched to a similar model to what Unreal uses, first $5k are royalty free, afterwards, there's a 5% fee.