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[rivon]

Up until now, I was always making engines and not games. I use Linux as my main OS and so I wanted to be able to work in it on the games and ofc to be able to release the games on Linux too. Few days ago though, I decided that it's time I REALLY make a complete game and release it commercially and so I decided to put up with not developing and not releasing on Linux. And for that I want to use one of the complete game engines with a fully-fledged editor (and not assembling all the frameworks/libraries/engines together by hand and coding my own editor).

I'm going to be developing the whole summer and by the end of it (and by the start of the next uni semester) I want to have either a complete game (which is not happening ) or at least a mostly fully-functional prototype with all the basic graphical assets and most of the gameplay so by that time, I would only have to add the rest of the (or better) assets, music, make some levels/maps and generally just polish the game.

Price is a factor for me and I gave myself a limit of approx. 200USD. (And therefore Unity Pro is a no-go.)

I have already looked in this topic and looked at all the plausible engines.
My conclusions:
- Shiva3D is too expensive with the $400 pricetag for the basic/indie version
- CryEngine/CrySDK is kinda overkill and the license isn't really clear
- C4 Engine is too expensive and doesn't seem really professional to me
- GameStart is beta and not feature-complete

NeoAxis
+ nice price ($95) for the Indie version
- not sure about the capabilities of the Indie version, Commercial ver. would be too expensive

Unity (free version)
+ seems like it has the biggest community
+ would be completely free
- somewhat crippled in this version

Torque3D
+ quite proven over the time
- $180 isn't really cheap

UDK
+ perfect feature set
- Windows only

Could anyone with experience with these engines tell me their opinion on which would be the most suitable?

A question about Unity:
What is meant by the Unity splash screen when using the free version - a splash screen like when launching Codeblocks or Photoshop etc. or a logo shown during launching of game like in most of the games (the typical - publisher intro, creator intro, engine, "nVidia, the way it's meant...", ...)?

Edit: the game is going to be 3D and Win/Mac only (would also be Linux if possible).
Edit2: it is going to be a kinda mix between overhead shooters like Shadowgrounds, tower defense games and zombie shooters like Killing Floor. (No, it's not another zombie game.)
Also, multiplayer is going to be a big part of the game.

[kamac]

A question about Unity:
What is meant by the Unity splash screen when using the free version - a splash screen like when launching Codeblocks or Photoshop etc. or a logo shown during launching of game like in most of the games (the typical - publisher intro, creator intro, engine, "nVidia, the way it's meant...", ...)?

That's how it looks at startup:



But it has no animation.


By mentioning such engines, I guess you want to make a 3d game? A 3d game for desktop computers?

Too less details I think  

@EDIT

Also, for UDK:

A team creates a game with UDK that they intend to sell. After six months of development, they release the game through digital distribution and they earn US$60,000 in the first calendar quarter after release. Their use of UDK during development requires no fee. At some point prior to the UDK Application’s release they will need to secure a royalty-bearing commercial UDK license with its US$99 license fee.  After earning US$60,000, they would be required to pay Epic US$2,500 (US$0 on the first US$50,000 in revenue, and US$2,500 on the next US$10,000 in revenue). On subsequent revenue, they are required to pay the 25% royalty.

Bleh. Royalty.


@EDIT2

The wisest choice to me is Unity. Free and has just, pfff, small splash screen.  

Also, it has the biggest userbase as it seems. And tons of tutorials.


@Last edit I hope

Or - Use Unity to get a working example of your game (demo) and then find some sponsor who'll just buy you Unity Pro & cover your expenses. It is possible, but the project has to be good.

[rivon]

UDK: I don't mind the royalties. Also, it would be a really big success for me to make the 50k USD revenue. I think that 25% after that wouldn't be too bad.

Unity: it doesn't only have a splash screen. It is missing shadows, post-processing, occlussion culling, render-to-texture effects and static-batching...

[kamac]

True, it's missing alot of things, but It'll do aslong as your game isn't super-great (And doesn't require dynamics shadows  )

Uh.


Forget.


UDK could do if you don't mind royalties & want to focus on Windows. (You could go with steam probably?)

[rivon]

Yeah and that's the problem. I will need shadows for this game.

I would really like to use UDK but the Windows only thing is quite a big drawback to me. Not like it would stop me, but it is a big shame that it doesn't support at least Mac like the other engines. Otherwise UDK would be the number one choice for me.

[kamac]

it doesn't support at least Mac like the other engines

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitBuildUpgradeNotes.html#Mac OS Support for UDK Games?

[rivon]

Well, that is surely a big plus for UDK. I would still like to hear more opinions on this though. And I would especially like opinions about the other two engines - Torque and NeoAxis.

[moi]

UDK: state of the art tech, most beautiful visuals, runs like shit on low to medium computers, needs the latest viedacard and processor.
You need to invest a lot of time to fully exploit UDK, you have to learn unrealscript (easy) and all the function and callbacks generated by th engine during a game (difficult).

my favorite 3D engine right now is
http://www.dxstudio.com/

[Richard Kain]

It's really a matter of your personal situation. For my needs, I would go with Unity. I'm not terribly concerned about complex shadows or render-to-texture. Most of the projects I want to work on wouldn't require those features. Also, I got in on the free iOS support they were having recently, so I could use Unity for iOS games without paying extra. (a big plus)

The cross-platform support for Unity has always been a big selling point in my eyes. If your project gets big enough, there is almost no system that they can't get it running on.

And the licencing for Unity is also a big draw. Not only is the free option quite generous, but the pro licencing is a one-time purchase, and does not involve Unity taking a percentage.

I don't think I'd touch Torque3D at this point. I've heard bad stories of its continuing support, and lacking documentation. UDK I would consider if I wanted to really push graphics. I actually have experience playing around with NeoAxis, but I don't think I'd pick it over Unity.

[rivon]

UDK: state of the art tech, most beautiful visuals, runs like shit on low to medium computers, needs the latest viedacard and processor.
You need to invest a lot of time to fully exploit UDK, you have to learn unrealscript (easy) and all the function and callbacks generated by th engine during a game (difficult).

my favorite 3D engine right now is
http://www.dxstudio.com/

Thanks for the info, that's what I wanted to hear... But, do you have any info/benchmarks which would show the slowness? AFAIK UT3 runs pretty good on anything nVidia 8000+ or ATI equivalent and anything today is pretty much as fast or faster than that (and my game definitely won't even have the same kind of detail as UT3). Though maybe the UnrealScript is the slow part?

About the DX Studio - how does it compare to Unity/UDK? Also, it seems that it only supports Windows...


Richard Kain: the absence of shadows is kind of a problem for me. Or at least when taking the current design of the game in mind. I wanted the game to have kinda cartoonish/non-realistic feeling but still to be dark/scary and shadows play big part in that kind of games. Maybe I could make the game even more unreal/cartoon-like (something like Warsow). Then maybe Unity could be used.

Do you think it is worth it? Is Unity really that great?

[yesfish]

A game engine is a pompous name for resource-pipeline-with-scripting. So the winning engines are the ones that are the best at...piping resources. Unity wins.

" shadows, post-processing, occlussion culling, render-to-texture effects and static-batching...".
All your concerns seem to be graphical btw, this game will go nowhere fast if this is what you're prioritizing?

[Sakar]

Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER use Torque

Worst software and biggest waste of money. Stupidly complex setup for even basic importing of models, source modifications pretty much necessary due to terrible scripting language, near total lack of documentation, etc.

Of course, that was TGE and TGEA from a few years ago, but based on my messing with the demo of T3D it looks pretty much the same.

[Richard Kain]

I wanted the game to have kinda cartoonish/non-realistic feeling but still to be dark/scary and shadows play big part in that kind of games. Maybe I could make the game even more unreal/cartoon-like (something like Warsow).

I don't know. If you are looking to push environmental effects like shadowing, than maybe UDK really is the way to go. The advanced lighting features of UDK are quite impressive, and would probably be really useful for very moody environments. The technology is there to serve the needs of the game. If you think that UDK would be the best technical option for creating the game you want to make, then go for it.

The biggest strength of Unity is that its component architecture makes it very effective for rapid prototyping. But if you already know exactly what game you want to make, prototyping isn't quite as important.

[Aloshi]

Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER use Torque

Worst software and biggest waste of money. Stupidly complex setup for even basic importing of models, source modifications pretty much necessary due to terrible scripting language, near total lack of documentation, etc.

Of course, that was TGE and TGEA from a few years ago, but based on my messing with the demo of T3D it looks pretty much the same.

Torque 3D has actually gotten way better at importing models (they use .DAE files and have auto-reimporting of models on file change) and the world editor has gotten better. But unless you're making an FPS, yeah, I'd say don't use it. The scripting language isn't awful but not enough is exposed to it. The documentation is still super lacking. Making anything not-FPS/TPS/maybe topdown is going to require a huge amount of learning.

As I've said elsewhere, the best reason to use Torque is the networking. It's pretty strong and you can add your own types of networked objects fairly easily. Very few games actually require new object types, though. The problem is that everything else in the engine takes forever to learn. The biggest blessing and curse is that you have complete access to the engine's source code - assuming you can figure out how to do what you want, you can do anything. An overhead view possible through script I believe; if not, definitely through engine modifications.

If your game isn't going to use terrain, figuring out how to insert a level is going to be a huge pain. The older versions of the engine used "interiors" (think Hammer, Quark, etc.), but T3D has moved completely away from them, instead focusing on importing Collada (.DAE) models, which means all level design has to be done in a modeling program - yuck. If you want a realistic representation of your toolset in-engine, press F11 in the demo. Congratulations. That's all you've got.

The engine's not nearly bug free and they seem to be entering a "pay per update" model, which is extremely unattractive considering how lacking the engine is at the moment. The first update fee was $20. It didn't add much and I haven't bothered updating.

Source: I've been using Torque for about 5 or 6 years. I am filled with regrets. I wish Unity had been out when I started.

tl;dr LISTEN TO SAKAR

[Nektonico]

Unity 3D. Its strenght i guess lies on the size of the community and the multiple platforms it can deploy games to. Of course you are crippled in the indie version, the main lacking feature being lack of projected shadows, but if you scour the forums youll find interesting stuff.

For 30 USD you can add realtime shadows to your games with this toolkit from the asset store.
-Shameless plug-
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/102079-Dynamic-shadows-in-Unity-Free-Pro-possibly-Mobile
http://u3d.as/content/gustav-olsson/shadow-volumes-toolkit/2gF
Its a serviceable workaround it seems.
Theres plenty of yummy addons on the asset store, some of which overcome many shortcomings the engine may have.

After much online research it seems kind of a no brainer to choose Unity, that is, if you plan on distributing your game on platforms other than pc. Im a bit of a newbie using it, but it really seems flexible and allows for rapid prototyping.

Perhaps UDK would be an alternative if you plan on making AAA level stuff with all the bells and whistles, and if you are an experienced modder of the engine go for it, but if you plan on educating yourself from scratch, i would recommend to go with Unity.