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There is a lack of free open source state of the art game engines. The best one are based on the open sourced Quake 3 engine and Cube2, though they are 10-15 ye

by frik 12y ago

There is a lack of free open source state of the art game engines. The best one are based on the open sourced Quake 3 engine and Cube2, though they are 10-15 years old. Additionally such an engines needs a good WYSIWYG editor with an inbuilt shader editor like UnrealEd, CryEngine-Editor. The Quake3/Source-Engine editors are very basic and outdated. Game engines are written in C++, with game logic in a scripting language like Lua or JavaScript. There is also a lack of web 3D engines that ate not based on ThreeJS. Every demo and tutorial is using ThreeJS, instead of WebGL. ThreeJS is an abstraction layer that made sense some years ago when WebGL wasn't around. ThreeJS is slow. One can compile C++ code via emscripten to ams.js, that's great - the downside is the JS filesize.

pjmlp 12y ago
> ThreeJS is an abstraction layer that made sense some years ago when WebGL wasn't around. So how are you loading textures, geometry, fonts, shaders, matrix calculations?
dietrichepp 12y ago
Until recently, there was a lack of free / inexpensive state of the art game engines, even considering the proprietary ones. Making a game is already hard, like writing a novel. And writing a "state of the art" game engine is like writing a web browser in scope and complexity. The best I'm hoping for is a few good open source engines targeting specific niches, and some better middleware, along with a ton of open-source tools that make it fun and painless to make small games (like Haxe). That said, I'm looking forward to see what people do with Unity 5, UE4, Source 2 in the upcoming Ludum Dare (April 17), even if I'll only be slogging along in C++ and OpenGL. (It is sad about WebGL tutorials--you're tempting me to write up a "bare WebGL" tutorial.)
zabast 12y ago
You are right with the lack of open source state of the art engines, it is a shame. But you are misinformed about the webgl part: There are other Web 3D engines. For example Babylon or CopperLicht. The latter even has a pretty solid WYSIWYG 3D editor: http://www.ambiera.com/coppercube/ http://www.ambiera.com/coppercube/
BruceM 12y ago
There's https://github.com/SonyWWS/ATF https://github.com/SonyWWS/ATF for building an editor...
maccard 12y ago
> There is a lack of free open source state of the art game engines. The best one are based on the open sourced Quake 3 engine and Cube2, though they are 10-15 years old. And most modern commercial engines are just as old. Unreal has been around since 98, and I'm sure there's at least some of the original code in there. Source is based on the quake engines too, and runs on an ancient version of Havok that valve licensed years ago. Cry engine I'm not sure about, having never looked at it. Most of the modern call of duty games run a modified quake engine. The problem doesn't just exist in open source engines. the difference is Commerical in house engines tend to start with a stock unreal engine, and rip it apart piece by piece until they're left with the same editor/base libraries, but almost entirely custom engine code underneath.
- frik 12y ago
  It's all about continuous development and not how old an engine is. Unreal 4 is great in 2015, id Tech 3 with little development since 1999 feels like yesterday. Unreal, ID Tech, CryEngine, etc. most modern game engines date back to the mid to late nineties. But where as e.g. the Unreal 4 engine has been in continuous development since 1995 and came originally with an editor coded in Visual Basic, one cannot compare the limited Unreal 1 of 1998 with Unreal 4 as of today. Sure many code lines are still unchanged and in Unreal 4 but especially the graphics and editor have changed a lot. A modern Call of Duty (e.g. Ghosts) still use a heavily modified Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.² engine (Ritual's ÜberTools) which itself was a heavily modified id Tech 3 engine with the GtkRadiant editor. Infinity Ward added texture and map streaming in Modern Warfare 2. The id Tech 3 engine is now open source, but there is a big difference in the capabilities of what you can do with Infinity Ward Call of Duty engine and what you can do with id Tech 3 that has seen little development since then - also in the tool section. GoldSource/Source/Source2(?) is one of the oldest engine still used in AAA games, based on Quake and Quake World. The Worldcraft/Hammer editor is dated in comparison to UnrealEd. Hammer editor for Source 2 engine seems to catch up.
et1337 12y ago
Just this past year GoDot went open source. Haven't delved too deep into it, but it looks professional, scriptable, and "actually open source" (i.e. they accept pull requests) https://github.com/okamstudio/godot https://github.com/okamstudio/godot
- Moter8 12y ago
  >(i.e. they accept pull requests) Well, Epic accept pull requests too for UE4, you know, but they are not actually open/libre/whatever source.
  - morbius 12y ago
    The engine he linked to is MIT licensed.
amarsahinovic 12y ago
- https://github.com/okamstudio/godot https://github.com/okamstudio/godot - https://github.com/AdamsLair/duality/ https://github.com/AdamsLair/duality/ - https://github.com/gideros/gideros https://github.com/gideros/gideros - http://www.gritengine.com/ http://www.gritengine.com/
tomjen3 12y ago
Unity is free. Yeah it isn't open source, but it is unlikely your game will be either - and if it does then just put the source on github and have your comitters download unity.
daredevildave 12y ago
Try PlayCanvas [http://github.com/playcanvas/engine http://github.com/playcanvas/engine] It's definitely state of the art. See our latest tech demo: http://seemore.playcanvas.com http://seemore.playcanvas.com
- cwyers 12y ago
  I don't think this is state of the art. It's impressive, maybe, from a technical point of view given the massive constraints it runs under. It may compete with Unity or, to a lesser extent, Unreal on the low end. But there's lots of things you can do in Unity (which isn't really state of the art -- it lags behind the AAA engines in a lot of respects, although I don't know how much Unity 5 moved the ball forward there. This isn't to denigrate PlayCanvas, but it's not an open-source replacement for Unreal in the most typical Unreal Engine use-cases.

by frik 12y ago

pjmlp 12y ago

> ThreeJS is an abstraction layer that made sense some years ago when WebGL wasn't around. So how are you loading textures, geometry, fonts, shaders, matrix calculations?

dietrichepp 12y ago

Until recently, there was a lack of free / inexpensive state of the art game engines, even considering the proprietary ones. Making a game is already hard, like writing a novel. And writing a "state of the art" game engine is like writing a web browser in scope and complexity. The best I'm hoping for is a few good open source engines targeting specific niches, and some better middleware, along with a ton of open-source tools that make it fun and painless to make small games (like Haxe). That said, I'm looking forward to see what people do with Unity 5, UE4, Source 2 in the upcoming Ludum Dare (April 17), even if I'll only be slogging along in C++ and OpenGL. (It is sad about WebGL tutorials--you're tempting me to write up a "bare WebGL" tutorial.)

zabast 12y ago

You are right with the lack of open source state of the art engines, it is a shame. But you are misinformed about the webgl part: There are other Web 3D engines. For example Babylon or CopperLicht. The latter even has a pretty solid WYSIWYG 3D editor: http://www.ambiera.com/coppercube/ http://www.ambiera.com/coppercube/

BruceM 12y ago

There's https://github.com/SonyWWS/ATF https://github.com/SonyWWS/ATF for building an editor...

maccard 12y ago

> There is a lack of free open source state of the art game engines. The best one are based on the open sourced Quake 3 engine and Cube2, though they are 10-15 years old. And most modern commercial engines are just as old. Unreal has been around since 98, and I'm sure there's at least some of the original code in there. Source is based on the quake engines too, and runs on an ancient version of Havok that valve licensed years ago. Cry engine I'm not sure about, having never looked at it. Most of the modern call of duty games run a modified quake engine. The problem doesn't just exist in open source engines. the difference is Commerical in house engines tend to start with a stock unreal engine, and rip it apart piece by piece until they're left with the same editor/base libraries, but almost entirely custom engine code underneath.

frik 12y ago
It's all about continuous development and not how old an engine is. Unreal 4 is great in 2015, id Tech 3 with little development since 1999 feels like yesterday. Unreal, ID Tech, CryEngine, etc. most modern game engines date back to the mid to late nineties. But where as e.g. the Unreal 4 engine has been in continuous development since 1995 and came originally with an editor coded in Visual Basic, one cannot compare the limited Unreal 1 of 1998 with Unreal 4 as of today. Sure many code lines are still unchanged and in Unreal 4 but especially the graphics and editor have changed a lot. A modern Call of Duty (e.g. Ghosts) still use a heavily modified Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.² engine (Ritual's ÜberTools) which itself was a heavily modified id Tech 3 engine with the GtkRadiant editor. Infinity Ward added texture and map streaming in Modern Warfare 2. The id Tech 3 engine is now open source, but there is a big difference in the capabilities of what you can do with Infinity Ward Call of Duty engine and what you can do with id Tech 3 that has seen little development since then - also in the tool section. GoldSource/Source/Source2(?) is one of the oldest engine still used in AAA games, based on Quake and Quake World. The Worldcraft/Hammer editor is dated in comparison to UnrealEd. Hammer editor for Source 2 engine seems to catch up.

et1337 12y ago

Just this past year GoDot went open source. Haven't delved too deep into it, but it looks professional, scriptable, and "actually open source" (i.e. they accept pull requests) https://github.com/okamstudio/godot https://github.com/okamstudio/godot

Moter8 12y ago
>(i.e. they accept pull requests) Well, Epic accept pull requests too for UE4, you know, but they are not actually open/libre/whatever source.
- morbius 12y ago
  The engine he linked to is MIT licensed.

amarsahinovic 12y ago

- https://github.com/okamstudio/godot https://github.com/okamstudio/godot - https://github.com/AdamsLair/duality/ https://github.com/AdamsLair/duality/ - https://github.com/gideros/gideros https://github.com/gideros/gideros - http://www.gritengine.com/ http://www.gritengine.com/

tomjen3 12y ago

Unity is free. Yeah it isn't open source, but it is unlikely your game will be either - and if it does then just put the source on github and have your comitters download unity.

daredevildave 12y ago

Try PlayCanvas [http://github.com/playcanvas/engine http://github.com/playcanvas/engine] It's definitely state of the art. See our latest tech demo: http://seemore.playcanvas.com http://seemore.playcanvas.com

cwyers 12y ago
I don't think this is state of the art. It's impressive, maybe, from a technical point of view given the massive constraints it runs under. It may compete with Unity or, to a lesser extent, Unreal on the low end. But there's lots of things you can do in Unity (which isn't really state of the art -- it lags behind the AAA engines in a lot of respects, although I don't know how much Unity 5 moved the ball forward there. This isn't to denigrate PlayCanvas, but it's not an open-source replacement for Unreal in the most typical Unreal Engine use-cases.