Discussions about engines.

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Jeremiah

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I believe this is my second message here, so I'm fairly new. I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before but there is some things I'd like to know and stuff I'd like to discuss about concerning some first person shooter engines. The engines I'm talking about are the Doom 3 engine, the Crytek engine and the Source engine. Anyway, on to the questions/discussion...


My first question is, in your opinion, which engine is most capable? I'm not really knowledgable when it comes to what an engine can do, when it comes to the capabilities of said engine... which is more capable? Unfortunately I have not played Half Life 2 yet, I am going to get it in the future though. Now from playing Doom 3 and Far Cry, I have to say that Far Cry "wowed" me more so than Doom 3, I loved Doom 3's lighting but Far Cry's lush tropical setting was more impressive in my opinion. Far Cry is still impressing me with it's HDR lighting, even after all this time Far Cry is still getting features that Doom 3 and Half Life 2 haven' gotten yett, this is understandable because they've had more time to work on Far Cry.Anyway, from a purely engine to engine comparison, which is the most impressive in you guy's opinion? Also, what do you think of the Unreal 3 engine? I nearly shit myself when I saw the E3 video of it.
 
personally my favorite engine is my 3.3 liter V6

seriously though, i think the source engine would be the best one out right now if they would fix all the bugs and actually make a good AI system.

however doom 3 still takes the cake when it comes to looks. the AI was shit in the game and the monsters were repetitive and predictable.
 
1) Crytek engine (Far Cry)

2) Source Engine (Half Life 2)

3) Doom 3 Engine

the Unreal 3 Engine looks like the best one of all but we won't be seeing any games from that until early 2006
 
personally, I still think the doom 3 engine. It by far is the most advanced of the 3. Source really isnt that much more impressive then HL1, simpley better graphics, and still shitty lighting. (Does physics count? i thought they just used the havok engine for physics) Doom 3 brings realistic dynamic lighting to the table, which hasnt even been cracked open yet. Doom 3 will go far, just wait for quake 4.
 
Ive not played FarCry, so cant comment there, but one engine that you missed off was the one used in UT2004. I think this game handles vehicles better than any other game Ive played, and Im sure the engine that they are working on for the next UT game will be even better.

Engine is one thing... great game play is something else entirely!

I havent seen any evidence that the Doom3 engine can cope with anything other than narrow dark corridors! So Im not too impressed so far with that one. The Halflife engine is OK, but not as responsive (speed wise) as UT. Physics are amazing though. I would love to ride a UT Scorpian into some Half Life exploding barrels!
 
lewchenko said:
and Im sure the engine that they are working on for the next UT game will be even better.!
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Ummm, I did mention the Unreal 3 engine...
 
For me:
1)Far Cry/HL-2
2) Doom3

Doom 3 engine probably is better but we will never know until they actually make decent games using it. I like to see a Far Cry type mod for Doom 3 :D
 
In my opinion, the Doom3 engine is the most advanced. HL2 has a lot of cool features such as large levels, physics etc but the lightning is BAD. The unified lightning in the Doom3 engine is the best until now. I'm just hoping that Quake4 or another incarnation of the Doom3 engine will incorporate HL2-quality physics and blurred shadows. Far Cry looks like the HL2 engine: nice features but no good lightning.

:eek:
 
Keon said:
In my opinion, the Doom3 engine is the most advanced. HL2 has a lot of cool features such as large levels, physics etc but the lightning is BAD. The unified lightning in the Doom3 engine is the best until now. I'm just hoping that Quake4 or another incarnation of the Doom3 engine will incorporate HL2-quality physics and blurred shadows. Far Cry looks like the HL2 engine: nice features but no good lightning.

:eek:
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In my opinion Far Cry appears to have better lighting than HL2, what with it's (real) HDR lighting.
 
Comparing game engines is akin to comparing apples and oranges. They all have different strengths and weaknesses. Before the first line of code has been written, it's been decided what the engine will be optimized for (indoor/outdoor environments, lighting, high/low polygon-count & few/many texture effects, etc.).

For a certain type of game, one engine will do great, whereas replacing it with another engine will completely ruin it.

Then there are the add-ons, like physics engines, which can have an even more severe effect on the resulting game.

The Source engine is quite generic, in that it isn't totally optimized for a small range of applications. The Doom 3 engine focuses more on (ab)using lighting and in-game texture modification to make things look more 'real'.

In the end, all engines can do pretty much the same things. Which one is the best depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
 
How about the developer side? I'd also like to know about engine licensing. What do you get when you license an engine? Tech support? Tools? What about engines that are made up of multiple components?

Would the process of getting a multicomponent engine from different companies (e.g. Havok/MicrosoftDX/GraphicEngine/SoundEngine) be any different from getting one with everything integrated? (e.g. Quake)

For example, how does Havok make money for its company? Does the licensee pay off in one huge chunk regardless if the game is a success or a flop, or does it get a percentage everytime a copy of the game is sold? What if it was part of another engine and that one got licensed for yet another game. Vampire Masquerade for example, does the developer pay off valve for the engine only, or does havok get a share as well? Would that add to the cost of the licensing the engine?

Microsoft DirectX SDK (Last time i checked, console game developers had to pay off the manufacturer (e.g. Sony) to be allowed to make a game on their system, does DX work the same way?)
Physics engine (This one's really popular right now :p )
Graphics engine (Quake3,Unreal2,CryEngine,Doom3,Source,Xray,etc.)
Sound engine (Not necessarily the engine. Some developers buy their audio samples as a package too)

Do these all add up to the legalities and cost? Would it be easier or cheaper to get the engine from a company that did everything inhouse?

@lewchenko
Actually, i've seen the vehicle mod, and the sample map was pretty big. I've also seen someone do water, but he had to do a few layers to get it to look right. What i'd like to see is some scaling, using the same high detail character model regardless of distance isn't really practical, 5 feet or 5 miles, you get the same framerate in Doom3 :confused:
 
I'm going for all 3. They were all cool and have something neet about each. And all 3 games looked good! I don't care what anyone says. HL2 looks really cool. Doom3 looks great too (I think the main problem with the game which people have to step away from is the game doesn't look different througout the game) and Farcry is just gorgeous.

I'm waiting for the new Blakestone engine. Where's that puppy!?
 
Netrat33 said:
I'm going for all 3. They were all cool and have something neet about each. And all 3 games looked good! I don't care what anyone says. HL2 looks really cool. Doom3 looks great too (I think the main problem with the game which people have to step away from is the game doesn't look different througout the game) and Farcry is just gorgeous.

I'm waiting for the new Blakestone engine. Where's that puppy!?
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Blakestone engine? I've never heard of that, who's making it, what game is it for?
 
(I haven't played FarCry)

The Source engine clearly beats Doom 3 in terms of physics, but loses in terms of lighting. The Valve graphics artists did a much better job that the Doom 3 ones (which may come down to the tools they had to work with, and the environments the games are set in), but I suspect we'll be seeing some better graphics from the Doom 3 engine in the future. I suspect that current latest graphics hardware could render outdoor scenes using the Doom 3 engine, but not at the resolutions we're accustomed to.

I hope the Unreal 3 engine runs on current generation hardware, because it looks amazing!
 
Jeremiah said:
Blakestone engine? I've never heard of that, who's making it, what game is it for?
Click to expand...

The Blakestone engine is a state-of-the-art modification of the original Wolfenstein engine. What about advanced sprite scaling and 286-class artificial intelligence mixed with square rooms and bright colours? :D
 
Unreal 3 engine for sure :)

Besides that each of the others have their ups ... Source engine is very versitile, yet completly outdated as far as 'on par & up-to-date' graphics. The Crytek engine is just amazing, but demands a high end pc to play good. Lastly and my favorite the Doom 3 engine. The lighting already in place is flat amazing. It supports amazing levels of texturing and can only be pushed further. Not to mention you can run the engine on a card as low as a VooDoo 2 !!! I would think most people dis-liked Doom 3 so in turn don't like the engine when in fact I believe it has the most to offer.

The only way I can prove this is by saying ... "Wait until Quake 4." Only then will people truely see the Doom 3 engine for what its worth.

Vote ... Doom 3.
 
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