Why isn't there a serious, modern Adventure Games engine?

[Theme]

"How come such an engine is not there?"
I don't know.
But if you find a easy to use 3d adventure game engine with state of art rendering, let me know. I need it too.
o/

[Monsieur OUXX]

the graphics are simply not up to much compared with recent 3D adventures.

+1
More generally, it's OK to camouflage technical limitations by using some specific tricks (like the choice of a peculiar graphic style, e.g. cartoony) but it can't be the solution to everything.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

That's being extremely naive, and that can bring only failure.

How does reinventing the wheel bring only failure?  You look extremely opinionated without actually backing up any of these statements.

Many of these engines have some (in some cases a lot) of the heavy lifting done by the modding community, and I'm sure if you look you'll find plugins for most of these engines that do most things you want to some degree.  Inventory, pathfinding, stuff like this is requested all the time.

If something you want is missing, though, you could certainly do what so many other people do and ask for assistance in that engine's thread.  Or you can just buckle down and learn how to do it yourself, which saves endless trouble in the long run (and posts like this).

Bottom line:  you're never going to find an engine that does everything you want or need without doing some modification on your part, and for the foreseeable future that means learning how to code/scripting language of the editor.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Your post contains only thruths.

I think I've started on the wrong foot, and everybody believes I'm arrogantly making random statements out of the blue.

So, here are is the result of my searchings for the last week :
- DAGE is not mature enough (heavy scripting needed, even for basic actions)
- Crystal3D is said (by reviews) to be heavily patched and to have a steep learning curve
- Ogre3D is only a rendering engine (I've found many of the so-called "easy" integration woth other libraries for scripts, sound and physics to be detailed in tutorials that turned out to be obsolete)
- Irrlicht is very performance-oriented but seems to be more for nerdy coders. Also, the rendering system seems to be ageing.
- Unity 3D Pro is too expensive
- Unity 3D basic doesn't allow plugins or shaders -- that's my main objection so far
- Panda 3D: I hadn't found it before : I'm currently having a look
- YoYo Game maker : I hadn't found it yet -- I'm having a look. So far it looks like it' more render-orietned and the support for sound is not great.
- Wintermute 2 won't be free
- Most of other engines I've come accross don't have GUI's that allow a fast processing of the game's material. It forbids artists from using them -- I'd be on my own, as a scripter.

How does reinventing the wheel bring only failure?

That's my opinion. But I'll never be able to convince someone with the oposite opinion, so let's stop on that topic.


So far, the best challengers are :
- Panda3D
- Unity 3D basic

[Sslaxx]

It's not free (at least right now), but NeoAxis uses OGRE. http://www.neoaxisgroup.com/ It's .NET based. Whether or not they will (or can) translate it to Mono is another matter. So in terms of integration that might be an option.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I think you should be prepared to pay for a high-end 3d engine, then.  Considering all the features you're looking for, you've very unlikely to find them in a 100% free engine without license fees because, quite frankly, whoever made that super mega engine put a SHITLOAD of work into it.  Paying for applications has quite a few benefits, though, like being able to reasonably recommend features, patches, and updates.  The two primary apps I've paid for that I use for game making (Pro Motion and Renoise) have allowed me to beta test and offer feature enhancements that went beyond simple tweaks. 

People like CJ who devote a decade or more to a piece of software for free are, I stress, extremely rare; it's far more likely to see freeware software out there that has very little (if any) developer support and are kept alive largely by the community.  That said, if you do happen to find a super impressive, mega robust 3d engine and editor being developed for free by a guy who routinely adds requested features and fixes from forum members then do let me know!

[LimpingFish]

The FPS Creator, though lacking, shows that a user-friendly creative product that takes advantage of more modern systems is possible. It's not enormously flexible, but it's a start.

I don't see why a similar program for adventures couldn't be made in the same style. Not that it ever will be.

[Monsieur OUXX]

It's not free (at least right now), but NeoAxis (...)

WOW!
Last time I checked (a few years ago), NeoAxis was very clumsy, heavy and bugged. And there was close to no community.
Now it has taken off!
That page is very encouraging.

A serious challenger for Unity!
Also, it's virtually free for non-commercial games (see the licensing comparison)

I'll have a look et FPS Creator. It's true I 've discarded all the so-called "FPS creator" and "RPG creators" because usually, over-oriented engines are not very good at doing something else than the thing they were designed for. But it was silly of me, because the Point-n-click genre is pretty much the lower limit in terms of requirements, so it shouldn't cause any problems.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

NeoAxis looks good but their licensing options are pretty atrocious.  I mean seriously, $395 for the privilege of using the engine to release (1) commercial game?  That's really shitty and applies even to their full commercial license.

[Anian]

How about Leadwerks? It's connected over the FPS creator page and there's a comparison on Neoaxis forums (btw it's been upgraded since those comments). It looks like it might be good for adventure games, cause the scripting seems easy to get into, with Lua for example, and it's focused on lighting so it's perfect for atmosphere. http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/page/products/_/tools/leadwerks-engine-r3 ...it does cost a bit ($200 plus $50 for the World editor).
http://www.thegamecreators.com/?m=view_product&id=2031&page=movies

[Monsieur OUXX]

NeoAxis looks good but their licensing options are pretty atrocious.  I mean seriously, $395 for the privilege of using the engine to release (1) commercial game?  That's really shitty and applies even to their full commercial license.

I agree with you, but on the other hand they're the only ones that don't block  some major feature from the basic (free) license.
For all other engines, there's a catch with the free license (crappy shader, etc.). Not with them (except for the watermark, but I can live with it).

I'll have a look at leadwerks.

It seems like the only serious 100% open-source solutiosn are DAGE and CrystalSpace

-- but I wonder why the DAGE guy introduced some limitations to the rendering engine, whereas it's based on Ogre3D? (he probbaly had a good reason for that, but I wonder why he didn't just add a layer to Ogre 3D instead of "masking" it, thus having to manually maintain state-of-the-art rendering forever and ever).

[Sslaxx]

NeoAxis looks good but their licensing options are pretty atrocious.  I mean seriously, $395 for the privilege of using the engine to release (1) commercial game?  That's really shitty and applies even to their full commercial license.

You know, I've looked at other products, and they all had 1-product commercial licenses too. So don't blame NeoAxis for doing what others have done.

[InCreator]

Being closely watching NeoAxis for a year by now.

While there's incredible amount of power in it, it's still broken and loose pretty much. Serious problems are:

* Devs not reacting to actual issues.

Bugs are fixed, but for a feature, standard answer is "buy-shit-expensive-commercial-license and implement yourself". If I could implement something complex such as animation system for just a single project, I'd be better off writing my own wrapper to the Ogre3D engine, right?

* No solid animation system.

For an engine with such vision and scope, smooth way to manage and blend animations is a must.
Not for Neoaxis, yet.

* Lack of background loading
Word around is this'll be added. Still, loading times are slow right now. Playing Divinity II right now... basic loading takes around 6 seconds. NA has about same graphics capabilities, but loading same map would be over 5 minutes, at least.

* Lack of any documentation

* C#

Even some kind of basic scripting system would be friendlier than this crap.

  And my biggest gripe:

* Whole thing feels basically like unfinished fps game. Or tbh, it IS one.

And badly planned game at that: Simply adding a weapon to existing set takes insane amount of things to do. Not to mention making totally new mapobject type with custom function or anything else that isn't part of broken fps.

Also, there's no "start a new game" button. It's all basically an editable fps and for every project, you have to reinstall whole engine and start sraping out default stuff you don't need. Result is a horrid mess.

--
Looks, which I admit are unbeatable, isn't everything yet!

[Ali]

It seems like the only serious 100% open-source solutiosn are DAGE and CrystalSpace

-- but I wonder why the DAGE guy introduced some limitations to the rendering engine, whereas it's based on Ogre3D? (he probbaly had a good reason for that, but I wonder why he didn't just add a layer to Ogre 3D instead of "masking" it, thus having to manually maintain state-of-the-art rendering forever and ever).

DAGE is freeware, but not open source. I wasn't aware that it was based on Ogre3D, at least that's not the impression given in this thread:

http://www.dageport.com/forum/index.php?topic=235.msg958#new

[Sslaxx]

It seems like the only serious 100% open-source solutiosn are DAGE and CrystalSpace

-- but I wonder why the DAGE guy introduced some limitations to the rendering engine, whereas it's based on Ogre3D? (he probbaly had a good reason for that, but I wonder why he didn't just add a layer to Ogre 3D instead of "masking" it, thus having to manually maintain state-of-the-art rendering forever and ever).

DAGE is freeware, but not open source. I wasn't aware that it was based on Ogre3D, at least that's not the impression given in this thread:

http://www.dageport.com/forum/index.php?topic=235.msg958#new

Jeancallisti is Monsieur OUXX, to clarify.

[Ali]

I suspected as much, but I don't see any indication that it's built on Ogre3D. Of course I know nothing about how a game engine gets made!

[Sslaxx]

I suspected as much, but I don't see any indication that it's built on Ogre3D. Of course I know nothing about how a game engine gets made!

Well, this is what it uses. http://glscene.sourceforge.net/ - GLScene.

[Monsieur OUXX]

I suspected as much, but I don't see any indication that it's built on Ogre3D. Of course I know nothing about how a game engine gets made!

No it's not based on Ogre3D at all. It's me having hallucinations :-) I've reviewed so many game engines that I start confusing them :-)
And indeed, I'm jeancallisti on the DAGE forum. The DAGE developer is very nice, by the way, and your answers over there were useful, Ali.

I've come across "Ogitor", which is a World Editor for Ogre3D. That's a BIG step forward using Ogre. But it's still in a very early state, Also, that's still only the visual rendering. It  misses sound, physics, scripting. As I said before, last time I tried, I failed integrating some essential features because some tutorials were obsolete (mainly, Lua). So I don't know what to think of it.

I'm so tempted to use the Blender Game Engine. Seriously. For a gorgeous-looking point-n-click game, that would just be the "appropriate technology", wouldn't it?

[Ali]

I started making a not-very-impressive tech-demo for a direct-control adventure in Blender:



I got as far as basic interactions, camera control and an inventory system but this was a huge headache for me, and I had no idea how to approach a dialogue system. Then I heard Pauli announce the first version of DAGE and I gave up.

[Monsieur OUXX]

I started making a not-very-impressive tech-demo for a direct-control adventure in Blender:

I got as far as basic interactions, camera control and an inventory system but this was a huge headache for me, and I had no idea how to approach a dialogue system. Then I heard Pauli announce the first version of DAGE and I gave up.

Yeah, that seems to me the main objection to the Blender Game Engine -- it's complicated to script. And it would still need an Editor for all non-3D items. For the adeventure engine per say, I'm so tempted to control AGS with Lua -- that would be one less problem! Actually, that would also control the sound, the events and potentially the pathfinding.

EDIT: Ali, is there any way you'd share your tech demo's source code?