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Story lads,
I am currently doing an MSc in Abertay in Scotland and one of our projects is to create a game with six others over the course of a year. We’re looking to create an RTS game and are looking at engines at the moment. Some suggested engines so far have been TrueVision3D,Ogre and using Source.
Ogre is out as it is rendering engine only and we need more than that.
TrueVision seems to be quite good and has got good reviews but there haven’t been many games developed for it so far.
Obviously Source looks incredible and has excellent features but how suitable for RTS games does anyone know of any RTS titles developed with it? Looked at the Source and wow there is an incredible amount of it!! What are peoples experience of using it?
Just looking for suggestions/comments on your experiences!
Cheers,
EdPS. we can only use engines that are either relatively cheap or open-source. Game isn’t going to be a commercial product only used as a prototype for portfolio purposes!
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Theres always the Torque Game Engine. It even has an RTS pack addon to get you started. :D
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Look into the Ogre Frameworks that are availble. GOOF, Yake and a few others are available. They all extend Ogre to be more of a game engine. Obviously this adds more complexity.
Never Tried TrueVision3D first hand but I have heard good things about it. Other options would be C4, Beyond Virtual, Torque (I feel dirty just mentioning it…. but seeing as how it has an RTS component, if you have good programmers it should work well)
Source on the other hand is more than limited. Level sizes are limited, too many lights and it begins to slow down drastically. Too much visibility and it begins to crawl. That said the empires mod has done fairly well with it, but they have suffered from performance issues.
Personally if it was me, and I knew I had a good team of programmers, I would go with Ogre, grab a good framework, and utilize the community and the huge number of available plugins.
If I didn’t have a strong programming team, but had a relatively savy team I would go with Torque with the RTS component. and try to work within the bounds of what Torque offers out of the box. Perhaps adding some community code.
Do what you know will be easiest in the long run. Your course has set you the task of doing a game, there is no point going into the demostrations with a few spinning boxes, and some nice graphical features. They want a game, so figure out the strengths of your team and work on that.
Some words of caution, evaluate the engines workflow before you commit, and ensure you know what tools you are going to use. In the long run it will get you there faster. Pre-production is key here. If you take on Source or Torque, and realise that 1 month from your deadline, X tool does not support Y and this means your game will not come together. You will be kicking yourself.
[Edit] Damn you gizmo :P
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Great minds thinks alike eh? Although I will admit I didn’t feel one bit dirty with the recommendation. :lol:
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I thought Torque wasn’t supposed to be very good?
Why not try write the engine yourself?
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Thanks for that! The first thing our lecturer did this year was warn us about Torque so thats a little worrying but if it is catered towards RTS then it obviously has to be a viable option.
We don’t have time to create our own engine – this is going to be just one of the four games we make this year(not including Dare!). This was the reason why we were thinking Ogre wouldn’t be a good option as it isn’t an engine as such just a graphics engine and doesn’t really provide much in the way of audio, physics and I think no help with AI. It does have a lot of community help however so thats definitely a major plus.
From what ye said about Source I’m definitely very wary of it now!
Will check out those other engines mentioned ^^^^, cheers!
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We don’t have time to create our own engine – this is going to be just one of the four games we make this year(not including Dare!). [/quote:33026416a6]
Was in the same boat 3 years ago…get people to write the individual sections, you can reuse them across all games and have them some what refined for Dare. -
Yeah thats an idea I guess will say it to the lads and see what they say!
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Thanks for that! The first thing our lecturer did this year was warn us about Torque so thats a little worrying but if it is catered towards RTS then it obviously has to be a viable option.
We don’t have time to create our own engine – this is going to be just one of the four games we make this year(not including Dare!). This was the reason why we were thinking Ogre wouldn’t be a good option as it isn’t an engine as such just a graphics engine and doesn’t really provide much in the way of audio, physics and I think no help with AI. It does have a lot of community help however so thats definitely a major plus.
From what ye said about Source I’m definitely very wary of it now!
Will check out those other engines mentioned ^^^^, cheers![/quote:6cc7cf9e1e]
Seriously consider researching Ogre, I can tell you now that the frameworks like Yake, Goof and others do support Audio, Physics, Networking etc it’s all personal preference.
I would recommend against Torque as I personally found it to be really shit. Not that the engine is bad, but the art workflow is crap, and the code is so hacked together at this point it is very very difficult to get good results. This is my personal view and I know many teams doing good work with Torque.
Ogre in the long run (full commercial game) is probably not the most viable option, but for short term projects you need to look beyond the initial setup and focus more on the huge community base and source that is available. There is such an extensive workflow available with Ogre that you can get your content into the engine in around 2 hours. All major physics engines are supported, most audio engines are supported and networking support. Just look into the additional addons
If you want a far more long term viable option look into Nebula Device 2. It’s well structured code wise, has an established community and has games actively developed with it. Be warned the initial learning curve is tough and unless your programmers are use to the style they may find it tough to get to grips with.
I’ll have a think of other options but given that you are making 4 small games and potentially Dare, I would recommend taking Ogre, on of it’s frameworks and evolving your own system from it. If you are smart with your design you can cover all 5 projects with great ease.
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plus points for torque though, its only a hundred quid, has a large user community and has a pulished game based on its technology (tribes)
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In 2006 having tribes published on the tech is not really a plus. What is a plus is well documented and well laid out code. I know it’s only $100 but it can cause a bucket load of headaches.
Plus it’s $100 per programmer on the team. The RTS is another $50 and Torque Shader is another $150. So before you are done, you could have spent $300 easy. Not too mention other elements.
If you look at Torques track record in respect to community released projects you will see a far less success rate than with other engines. The main reason for this is shoddy code, and crap documentation. Granted it’s network code is still good, but you really need to be careful about your engine selection.
Let’s tale Nebula Device 2 (http://nebuladevice.cubik.org/) This is developed by Radon Labs, who are also using this for their current projects (http://www.drakensang.com). There code is well laid out, well documented and very powerful. The tools are not as easy to use as other engines but if you buy the Maya toolkit it makes things far easier.
The engine itself is free and apart from the initial learning curve you will find far less headaches caused because of the engine than you would with torque.
If you want to take Ogre as another example, fine it’s only a graphics engine but if you look into: http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=70
Also check out
http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?set_albumName=album07&option=com_gallery&Itemid=55&include=view_album.phpThe most notable one is FragFist which was developed by a group of German Students doing a similar course to yourself it was achieved within 6 months and is a pretty impressive demonstration of what Ogre can do quickly. I would not personally recommend it for commercial projects but if you use it right and have the correct expectations you will find far more than what Torque offers.
You have roughly 6 months to develop this game, and I would assume that by January you will be over your first major hurdle which is getting the design sorted and having a test in engine. Which really leaves you with 2 – 3 months development depending on the end of year. Your time is limited and you don’t need to be fighting against the tool set.
Take your time in settling for an engine, as pre-production is everything for turning around these small projects without hitting too many stumbling blocks.
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Thats great Ronan covered most of the angles there!We’ve decided to definitely have a much closer look at Ogre again with frameworks and definitely going to take our time to come to our conclusion.
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Here are my findings on the Tools for Ogre:
http://www.freeworld3d.org/features.html
and we combine it with:
http://www.world-machine.com/gallery.html
Here is another potential candidate that can work alongside all the other Ogre editors.
http://www.tucan-entertainment.com/index2.html.en
Using Sketchup and Google World
http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=36241
Realtime Ogre Viewport in Max
http://www.ofusiontechnologies.com/index.html
Hammer Style Editor.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am by no means an Ogre Fanatic, I have never even made anything more than a quick little demo with it. But I just want you to be clear on what you are getting into. I invested time heavily into Torque, Torque Shader, Cipher Engine, Reality Engine, Unreal 2, Unreal3, HL2, BF2 and other similar engines.
My conclusion from this is rather simple. Productivity over performance. If you cannot get your art in the game you will not have a game. So pick an engine that will give you that ability. I know that Torque’s workflow is horrible and some find HL2 has too many steps. Unreal3 has it’s flaws as well… so just find what works for your poject. Just don’t assume that Torque is a viable option because it shipped Tribes, Nebula Device 2 shipped Project Nomad and 25 other commercial titles….
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If you would like to try something different with your team, how about this…
Use the Blender GE.
Here are a few advantages…
– your 3D modelling tool is Blender itself, the GE is integrated – just press P to enter game mode.
This screenshot shows an example of a game playing in the top corner within Blender, with modelling and sound windows placed around it – the code/scripting windows could also be on-screen, the UI can be easily customised.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/1369/instantnea16lj8.jpg– the current CVS build has VERSE built in – this allows your team to work on the same environment at the same time – even on the same model! This is fairly unique, and could be a great way to prototype game levels.
In fact, VERSE could be used as the underlying technology for your RTS game – it’s focused on sharing 3D data in real-time between remote computers!
– The GE currently is pretty powerful, if you have the right team – check out this game…
Driving game
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=79382
Third person game
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=74158&page=2– OGRE is currently being integrated to replace the current game engine – this is something that your team could help with
– it’s the top open source 3D modelling app ( with game engine ) – it could help build your teams rep outside of college
– excellent physics system ( Bullet – also open source )
– cross platform – it is already on PC, Mac, all flavours of Unix – it should be easy to port to XBox/PS/Wii – if you’re sceptical, check this out – someone has actually ported it to a PocketPC!!!
http://russose.free.fr/BlenderPocket/galerie/browserlb2.php?first=NO&int_nb_photos=25&int_nb_pages=1&int_no_page=1&directory=Screenshoots&lng=en– Blender has a great community, so your team will get a lot of support and help.
– Cost of all of the tools, including source code – $0 :)
I’d seriously consider this – your artists can get up and running right away with the app ( it has a bit of a learning curve, but not so much more than the other 3D apps ), and your regular coders can be implementing gameplay scripts right away ( using Python – every game engine will have their own scripting language, with Blender you’re getting a pretty popular one, so lots of tutorials online etc ). Your hardcore coders can then download the source code and implement the more complex features that you require for your end of year game project.
If you want to evaluate Blender and it’s GE, check out this basic ( 30 minute ) tutorial out…
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_the_Game_EngineMain Blender website…
http://www.blender.orgRegards…
Mal -
your artists can get up and running right away with the app[/quote:3fca1209b1]
You have to remember he’s in Abertay on a programmer course, artists are hard to come by (even though there is an computer arts course there too :) )
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