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The biggest problem with custom engines is really the tools -- it isn't that hard (relatively) to build a modern feature-rich 3D gaming engine. OTOH, it is ver

The biggest problem with custom engines is really the tools -- it isn't that hard (relatively) to build a modern feature-rich 3D gaming engine. OTOH, it is very difficult to build a full tool pipeline that supports that engine. Most of the value of Unreal or Unity is that the tools are already there and they more or less Just Work and a lot of people know how to use them.

Keyframe 7y ago
Is the format of those tools open? One could, in theory, use their tools, but with custom engine.
- gridspy 7y ago
  Just go and use Godot if you want an open / custom engine and good tools. https://godotengine.org/ https://godotengine.org/
  - fartcannon 7y ago
    Godot is a fantastic engine. And it's fully open source so if you want to have a hack at it, you definitely can. And the guys who dev it are cool as.
- gmueckl 7y ago
  The format is somewhat open. Unity stores a lot in plain YAML files. Unreal has a wild serialization framework that is part of the freely accessible source cide (but tons of strings attached - so be careful!). So you might get some reuse out of these editors, but the catch is that they are extremely engine specific (with UE, I can't quite tell if the editor is built for the engine or the engine for the editor). So you'd just set yourself up to replicate the same engine design because it makes handling the output of these editors easier.
- Bootwizard 7y ago
  Yes. The tools source code is here: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/UnityCsReference?files=1 https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/UnityCsReference?files...
- Jasper_ 7y ago
  Formats tend to be tied in some strong nature to the way the engine works. Think of it this way: you could create your own engine, but then every difference between your engine and Unity is a bug from the artist's perspective (thing works correctly in Unity but does not in your engine). There's no sense in using the same format for your engine if you don't implement every single last checkbox and dropdown.
appstorelottery 7y ago
>Most of the value of Unreal or Unity is that the tools are already there and they more or less Just Work and a lot of people know how to use them This is a very good point I missed above - people - the fact that lots of developers and artists are already experts with the tools lets you hit the ground running and focus on the game. With a custom engine you've got all the training involved to use your custom toolset.
gmueckl 7y ago
This is something I generally miss in game engine discussions. Good tooling for an engine feature is two or three times the effort of the feature itself on average. So ypu can probably bould an amazing engine runtime in your spare time, but doing anything interesting with it is painful because creating the tools is incredibly fiddly.

Keyframe 7y ago

Is the format of those tools open? One could, in theory, use their tools, but with custom engine.

gridspy 7y ago
Just go and use Godot if you want an open / custom engine and good tools. https://godotengine.org/ https://godotengine.org/
- fartcannon 7y ago
  Godot is a fantastic engine. And it's fully open source so if you want to have a hack at it, you definitely can. And the guys who dev it are cool as.
gmueckl 7y ago
The format is somewhat open. Unity stores a lot in plain YAML files. Unreal has a wild serialization framework that is part of the freely accessible source cide (but tons of strings attached - so be careful!). So you might get some reuse out of these editors, but the catch is that they are extremely engine specific (with UE, I can't quite tell if the editor is built for the engine or the engine for the editor). So you'd just set yourself up to replicate the same engine design because it makes handling the output of these editors easier.
Bootwizard 7y ago
Yes. The tools source code is here: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/UnityCsReference?files=1 https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/UnityCsReference?files...
Jasper_ 7y ago
Formats tend to be tied in some strong nature to the way the engine works. Think of it this way: you could create your own engine, but then every difference between your engine and Unity is a bug from the artist's perspective (thing works correctly in Unity but does not in your engine). There's no sense in using the same format for your engine if you don't implement every single last checkbox and dropdown.

appstorelottery 7y ago

>Most of the value of Unreal or Unity is that the tools are already there and they more or less Just Work and a lot of people know how to use them This is a very good point I missed above - people - the fact that lots of developers and artists are already experts with the tools lets you hit the ground running and focus on the game. With a custom engine you've got all the training involved to use your custom toolset.

gmueckl 7y ago

This is something I generally miss in game engine discussions. Good tooling for an engine feature is two or three times the effort of the feature itself on average. So ypu can probably bould an amazing engine runtime in your spare time, but doing anything interesting with it is painful because creating the tools is incredibly fiddly.