Engines

[WillzZz]

Sorry, I haven't. We've got a good team and partners at this point so we're fairly locked into our tech. Looks interesting for the price, but without a test drive it's hard to know anything about an engine. I find it's difficult to sit down by myself and 'test' an editor - it requires a team with a project to really understand the features and limitations. However, it is nice to see someone making a product in the sub-$500 price range for teams who can't afford some of the pricier options, but has outgrown the free engines of the world.

[yalammar]

Ok, i also looked into the HeroEngine, as it looks awesome! but be warned this is NOT for the amature dev.

here is the info i got on HERO when i investigated it, it aint for those without DEEP pockets.... so i quickly abandoned this plan, but i will share my findings

the contact is Elizabeth Harris"
License Plan License Fee Royalty Annual Support Term
Basic Small Team $250,000 20% $75,000 Single title Perpetual
Basic Large Team $500,000 10% $150,000 Single title Perpetual
Source Code Upgrade to B +250,000 +2.5% +$100,000 Single title Perpetual
Prototype $25,000/quarter plus $2,000 per seat beyond 10 n/a n/a 3 quarters max

Royalty buy-down is available. Increase the license fee by $50,000 for each 1% reduction in the royalty rate.

[Big W Powah!]

Originally Posted by yalammar

Ok, i also looked into the HeroEngine, as it looks awesome! but be warned this is NOT for the amature dev.

here is the info i got on HERO when i investigated it, it aint for those without DEEP pockets.... so i quickly abandoned this plan, but i will share my findings

the contact is Elizabeth Harris"
License Plan License Fee Royalty Annual Support Term
Basic Small Team $250,000 20% $75,000 Single title Perpetual
Basic Large Team $500,000 10% $150,000 Single title Perpetual
Source Code Upgrade to B +250,000 +2.5% +$100,000 Single title Perpetual
Prototype $25,000/quarter plus $2,000 per seat beyond 10 n/a n/a 3 quarters max

Royalty buy-down is available. Increase the license fee by $50,000 for each 1% reduction in the royalty rate.

Well fuck. I seriously doubt I can convince the bank to up my line of credit by 225,000 for a weekend hobby project. =P

[niteflyx]

Blade3D was just released a few weeks ago.

A slick IDE for XNA, we've been using this engine for the last year or so, and in even in prerelease form, was a solid engine. We could give it to the art and design guys, and they could see their work in real-time, as it's mostly a WYSIWYG interface, at the same time not limiting the programmers ability to code.

The devs are all top notch and their pricing plan is on a month to month basis ($14.99 for the casual developer, lifetime 15% off if you get a subscription before end of the year) rather than sinking a ton of cash from the get-go. All throughout beta, the developers at Digini were answering our emails and IMs, helping us use their engine, and they really wanted to make a badass interface.

I sound like a total shill right now, but whatever. This is a sick next-gen engine, easy to use for a guy who knows some code and can make models to crank out a prototype in a week, and robust enough to support a full game.

[Jenison]

Crytek's CryEngine 3 to Debut at GDC - Shacknews - PC Games, PlayStation, Xbox 360 and Wii video game news, previews and downloads

cant wait to see what they have

[Alarion]

Originally Posted by niteflyx

Blade3D was just released a few weeks ago. ...etc..

Do you think this is an engine someone like me (programmer, dabbled very briefly in 3dsmax) could use to tinker around with and get some ideas developed in his spare time?

basically, I have ideas and would love to get a prototype up. Something I could probably use for a few months? It would be awesome if they had some sort of demo/trial.

[niteflyx]

Originally Posted by Alarion

Do you think this is an engine someone like me (programmer, dabbled very briefly in 3dsmax) could use to tinker around with and get some ideas developed in his spare time?

basically, I have ideas and would love to get a prototype up. Something I could probably use for a few months? It would be awesome if they had some sort of demo/trial.

Now, I believe you have to rent a license (indie license is $15/month) to try it. There's a lot of WYSIWYG functionality so you don't have to hand-code everything to save you some time, and I believe their tutorials have some models you can use with built in animations and such.

When I used it about a year ago, the asset pipeline of getting models with animations in it was a bit of a hassle, but this is coming from Maya. I heard it's much easier with 3DS Max (DX) and especially now, but haven't tried it personally. But if you have the models, you can easily import them in, slap on some textures, put on some pre-made "components"* and get rollin'.

*The components they have out of the box are like, "character controller" (just drop this on an object, and you can control it with AWSD), camera following, animation components, I think they have like a projectile component, things like that. These things won't work for everything, but for a quick game design concept, they're not that bad with some tweaking. You can also make your own custom components and pop them on objects (pretty similar to a class in C#)

[Zarcath]

anyone recommend a game editor/engine that uses python files?

[splok]

There's pygame - python game development, though this isn't so much a recommendation as a pointer to its existence since I've never used it.

[Zarcath]

Originally Posted by splok

There's pygame - python game development, though this isn't so much a recommendation as a pointer to its existence since I've never used it.

thanks. took a cursory look, seems to be using python 2.0.

[Krag]

There's a Python interface to OGRE, though I don't know what version or the like as I've never really done anything with python.