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What engines are you suggesting make it easier to create those games that compete? My experience is that UE4 and Unity are both enabling of indie developers to

What engines are you suggesting make it easier to create those games that compete? My experience is that UE4 and Unity are both enabling of indie developers to make very high quality games. The only real limitations are how much effort you put into the art. UE4, while hard to code for, is still orders of magnitude less work than coding all the rendering, animation, and hardware logic from scratch. There are of course other engines, but they are either devoid of the features you need to compete with AAA titles, or have severe performance limitations.

philipov 7y ago
Do you think Godot is either missing necessary features or has severe performance limitations?
- jayd16 7y ago
  Currently its missing necessary features. The roadmap looks good but I can't ship on a road map.
  - philipov 7y ago
    I've been looking at Godot for a hobby project. Could you please describe what features you need from it that it's missing?
    - jayd16 7y ago
      The biggest for me is the fact they're rewriting the graphics stack. The churn is enough but I also just don't like "fixed"/"simplified"/"helpful" tools that hide the underlying platform. Unity's shader language is extremely ugly but at least I can use raw GLSL if I have to. I've had to use custom pragmas to get certain acceleration features to work on Samsung hardware that doesn't seem possible in Godot. Hopefully the updates with Vulkan will have more flexibility. That said, for a hobby project it seems fine.
      - mikst 7y ago
        Hi, I'm not very proficient in graphical programming, but godot docs say this > Godot uses a shading language similar to GLSL ES 3.0. Most datatypes and functions are supported, and the few remaining ones will likely be added over time. Unlike the shader language in Godot 2.x, this implementation is much closer to the original. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.0/tutorials/shading/shading_language.html https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.0/tutorials/shading/shadin... Godot is relatively new and definitely "not there yet", but at least with its open nature you can do `git clone godot-doc.git` and no top manager can take it away from you.
Xeronate 7y ago
Also interested in this question. I recently started on my first game project after 4 years of being a professional C# dev and chose unreal because it seemed to be the quickest path to success for a small multiplayer arena battle game. Seems like coding my own networking layer, renderer, animation system, etc. would take way longer.
jeremyjh 7y ago
It doesn't provide everything that those engines have but Urho3d is a very solid engine that has been under development for many years. https://urho3d.github.io/ https://urho3d.github.io/ Someone else already mentioned Godot, which I think is fantastic and a lot of fun for making 2d games. I have not tried to use it for 3d, I understand its new renderer is making it more competitive with more advanced engines. edit: btw, I don't really agree with anything GP said. I just wanted to plug these two nice open source alternatives. I personally (as a casual hobbyist) did not really mesh with Unity or Unreal, for different reasons but I definitely understand what they offer to both beginners and serious businesses.
jokoon 7y ago
The question is more about how to compete. For example, there are few indie games that managed to get a lot of sales because they innovated in terms of technology or ideas, like factorio or minecraft. Yet those games are pretty ugly, they're not "HD", while there are too many indie games that are HD with high poly graphics. Indie devs don't have money, so they obviously cannot compete on the art and content. They have to make games nobody is making, and not hesitate to make pixel art or low poly content to concentrate on the gameplay. They cannot compete with big studios on content. It's too time-expensive. This is the most important thing that people forget about games: the content doesn't matter. 3D artists don't matter. Games are not CG movies. Unless you're Kojima or final fantasy, nobody cares about cinematics. Game developers must focus on the gameplay and stop advertising about fancy graphics. This is a never-ending problem of video games since the 3D era: too much focus on the graphics, and no efforts on the gameplay, game balance, game theory, mechanics, reward system, difficulty, game lifespan, etc. > What engines are you suggesting If you're not aiming for bleeding edges graphics, you can use an graphics engine, or make your own. For physics and other stuff, there are plenty of libraries. I'm just saying unreal and unity are not engines, they're framework/platforms. They impose too many contraints, and you can't do everything you want with them. Not to mention the IP or business side.

philipov 7y ago

Do you think Godot is either missing necessary features or has severe performance limitations?

jayd16 7y ago
Currently its missing necessary features. The roadmap looks good but I can't ship on a road map.
- philipov 7y ago
  I've been looking at Godot for a hobby project. Could you please describe what features you need from it that it's missing?
  - jayd16 7y ago
    The biggest for me is the fact they're rewriting the graphics stack. The churn is enough but I also just don't like "fixed"/"simplified"/"helpful" tools that hide the underlying platform. Unity's shader language is extremely ugly but at least I can use raw GLSL if I have to. I've had to use custom pragmas to get certain acceleration features to work on Samsung hardware that doesn't seem possible in Godot. Hopefully the updates with Vulkan will have more flexibility. That said, for a hobby project it seems fine.
    - mikst 7y ago
      Hi, I'm not very proficient in graphical programming, but godot docs say this > Godot uses a shading language similar to GLSL ES 3.0. Most datatypes and functions are supported, and the few remaining ones will likely be added over time. Unlike the shader language in Godot 2.x, this implementation is much closer to the original. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.0/tutorials/shading/shading_language.html https://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.0/tutorials/shading/shadin... Godot is relatively new and definitely "not there yet", but at least with its open nature you can do `git clone godot-doc.git` and no top manager can take it away from you.

Xeronate 7y ago

Also interested in this question. I recently started on my first game project after 4 years of being a professional C# dev and chose unreal because it seemed to be the quickest path to success for a small multiplayer arena battle game. Seems like coding my own networking layer, renderer, animation system, etc. would take way longer.

jeremyjh 7y ago

It doesn't provide everything that those engines have but Urho3d is a very solid engine that has been under development for many years. https://urho3d.github.io/ https://urho3d.github.io/ Someone else already mentioned Godot, which I think is fantastic and a lot of fun for making 2d games. I have not tried to use it for 3d, I understand its new renderer is making it more competitive with more advanced engines. edit: btw, I don't really agree with anything GP said. I just wanted to plug these two nice open source alternatives. I personally (as a casual hobbyist) did not really mesh with Unity or Unreal, for different reasons but I definitely understand what they offer to both beginners and serious businesses.

jokoon 7y ago

The question is more about how to compete. For example, there are few indie games that managed to get a lot of sales because they innovated in terms of technology or ideas, like factorio or minecraft. Yet those games are pretty ugly, they're not "HD", while there are too many indie games that are HD with high poly graphics. Indie devs don't have money, so they obviously cannot compete on the art and content. They have to make games nobody is making, and not hesitate to make pixel art or low poly content to concentrate on the gameplay. They cannot compete with big studios on content. It's too time-expensive. This is the most important thing that people forget about games: the content doesn't matter. 3D artists don't matter. Games are not CG movies. Unless you're Kojima or final fantasy, nobody cares about cinematics. Game developers must focus on the gameplay and stop advertising about fancy graphics. This is a never-ending problem of video games since the 3D era: too much focus on the graphics, and no efforts on the gameplay, game balance, game theory, mechanics, reward system, difficulty, game lifespan, etc. > What engines are you suggesting If you're not aiming for bleeding edges graphics, you can use an graphics engine, or make your own. For physics and other stuff, there are plenty of libraries. I'm just saying unreal and unity are not engines, they're framework/platforms. They impose too many contraints, and you can't do everything you want with them. Not to mention the IP or business side.