3d game engines

[InCreator]

I've been trying out some 3d-CGS's (Game Creation Systems)
and haven''t still found any good ones. What I need, is an engine that supports .3ds models, large outdoor environment areas and easy scripting. Progs that failed:

* 3D GameStudio A5 (5.2x full) -- terrible scripting and impossibility to make fine-looking skins for models. Also, has very bad sky-texturing system and works with small levels only. Despite nice level editor and good dynamic lights, It's still crap.

* 3D RadÃ,  (3.0 full) -- Good sky box and camera system, fast and large levels. But painful skinning and bad lights & interface. Script system is pretty awful too. Plus, relies on premade objects, unless you won't spend 5 years to figure out how scripts work.

* Genesis 3D - for FPS's only. Crap.

* Pie in the sky 3D - Terribly outdated

Can anyone name something GOOD? Or I just have to learn C++ and start from zero, thus making my own engine? With GCS's like that, It'll be faster.Ã, 

[HillBilly]

Try dark basic pro: http://www.thegamecreators.com/ or http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html

good luck.

[scotch]

What kind of game are you intending to make?  For adventure games I couldn't find much worth using, so I tried learning enough c++ (from knowing nothing) to make a basic 3d adventure game engine using OGRE for graphics.. I didn't manage it, but I got characters walking about and animating etc, I'm sure it's possible to make a proper game engine if you put in a few months of hard effort.
Unfortunately there aren't many simple and powerful 3d game making programs, like there are 2d ones.  Especially if like me you want to use some quite modern graphics effects.

Dark Basic is probably a good choice actually for most people, didn't have the features I wanted, but it doesn't seem too difficult to use.

[InCreator]

What I do want to make, is pretty bizarre game. It's first-person view travelling game. Has anyone played "wilderness:The Survival Adventure"? (It's available at underdogs).

Something between this and oldschool game Deus, but fully in 3D. You have Inventory with food and liquid rations, useful items to survive like compass, knife, map, money and so on and in game, you have to travel around, even maybe hitchhike.

You have to keep an eye on health, body temperature etc. levels and this is mostly what I want to do. Big project, yeah, but It would be pretty cool, If i'd ever managed to make this.

While writing this, I just realized that such thing could be done with AGS too, but without real-time moving around. 

[Damien]

I think that 3D game studio handles outdoor scenes pretty well, here's an example:


About the low texture and skin quality, it depends about the texture resolution you're using. If the texture is smaller, it will loose it's quality once it has been streched on the surface.

But I disike the 3DGS because of it's ultra high price and ridiculous limitations if you're using some cheaper versions.

[shbaz]

Well, first of all I don't know why you expect the engine to directly import 3ds models. Most of them have scripts that will convert to the games format or use more general formats like .obj or .dxf. Dark Basic looks like your engine though, because it actually does and uses basic for scripting. Only costs $50.

I don't know if you've read my Blender plugs before, but it's nice because it has a very simple logic brick programming structure where you have a column for controllers (keyboard commands, Python scripts), sensors (to determine when to activate the controller), and actuators (the things that actually activate the controller). Once you get the hang of it it's simple, I've seen a game called "The Legend of Taro" that was made by a 12-13 year old kid. It's one of those general game engines, that could be used for anything from rpg to fps.

Here are things I (and some others) don't like about Blender though, from lack of bumpmapping to real-time shadows: http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26057&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Forgot to add, there is a .3DS importer script, not sure how well it works. Blender natively supports DXF and VRML as well as its own .blend format.

[Privateer Puddin']

Torque Engine (Tribes) $100 garagegames.com i think

[Robert Eric]

I prefer Blitz Basic.

[Czar]

If I am not mistaken Blender3d can make games.

[shbaz]

If I am not mistaken Blender3d can make games.

Wow, where did you find out about that?  :o

[Czar]

2.33a


This release brings back the game engine, and creation of interactive 3D environments. Also don't miss the further improvements in rendering engine. The 2.33a version is a bug fixed upgrade of 2.33.

:PPPP


I hope you were not sarcastoc  8)

[shbaz]

I hope you were not sarcastocÃ,  8)

Sorry to say I was, if you read up a few posts... 

[Czar]

I cant believe i missed your post. 
Sorry about it, but nevermind.

[InCreator]

...I don't know if you've read my Blender plugs before, but it's nice...

No, never. Have you ever tried this?

[shbaz]

...I don't know if you've read my Blender plugs before, but it's nice...

No, never. Have you ever tried this?

Holy shit that's ridiculous. At least they're mostly threads talking about 3d anyway.

I thought the game engine could have escaped your notice, sorry.

[shbaz]

I've just found out about this one..

http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/features.html

Open source, multi-platform, and packed with features. It imports 3DS files too.

I don't see Normal Mapping in there, which is something I'd much prefer, but otherwise it looks great.

Nevermind..

http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26162

I use Irrlicht for the game I am doing right now and do the modelling with Blender. Take a look at the export scripts. The rest you'll have to do by your own. Irrlicht is a 3d game engine framework, which means it is a library that allows you to program your game. Irrlicht doesn't have game entities, it doesn't have a main loop, it doesn't have sound, it doesn't have physics and it doesn't have any builtin scripting or networking support - so writing a code generator (I supposed your question was pointing in this direction) would need to write a main loop (which would be very game dependant - think of a GUI for changing game settings and stuff like that) using Irrlicht and other libraries for sound, physics, networking and scripting (for example Angelscript or any other plugable scripting language) on the other hand and your own game entities (object properties and stuff). That'll be a lot of work because it means that you write your own game engine.

[TheDude]

So that bloomin game engine that schbaz has been going on about for ages has finally been released with the latest version. *goes to check it out*

[shbaz]

So what's the verdict Increator? Have you found anything better that escaped our notice yet?

A sidenote, you mentioned that one engine was for fps games.. most engines are actually fairly general, and you may be able to simple edit out the monsters and guns to come up with a fairly good RPG engine. With any engine I'm fairly sure you're going to have to do quite a bit of scripting to get things like hunger, Body Temp. and etc. though.

[Meowster]

InCreator; I'd be very interested to hear how this went as I'm looking for one too.

In future, Shbaz can be summoned by the use of the word '3D' or 'Blender'. Like the Sgbazsignal.

This post is lame.

[InCreator]

Actually, I still have no clue. I liked 3D-rad alot because It's full freedom and 3d gamestudio because super easy level/bsp editor  but to be honest, I have absolutely no available cash to buy an engine. They're damn expensive too. Especially due currency difference between Estonian crones and dollars- $50 is about 750 crones, which is enough here to buy an used video cam or 100 litres of Coca-cola.

I'm sure that I could make moving-around and level design (roads, cars, forest, player models, wildlife, etc) with either of 3drad or 3d gamestudio. But when it comes to scripting health/temp/inventory, I have no clue how to implement this in any of these.

3d gamestudio has a powerful tool in it's model editor, called height mapping. Something like, I draw a map of a landscape in a paint program, viewed from top and program converts it into a real landscape, making brighter points on drawing higher (hills) and darker ones as an holes. It would be useful. especially when exported into 3ds format and used in some other prog.

So, I think I just try to mix all advantages of existing GCS's together, yet, I'm still looking for something that suits my needs best.

One of my biggest problems right now is the way 3ds max 4.2 handles character models. during walking or other animations, mesh bends really badly, because of lousy biped system and low poly count. when making all body parts as independent objects, this won't happen. But then holes appear. Anyone has a clue how to fix it?

I played some lousy game yesterday, 8-wheels hard truck driving or something like this, and It's engine had all I need. Only thing I could find out about engine that it was probably something called Prism 3D. Anyone knows anything about that?

I started my eye/mental health/social life-ruining career with QBasic and mastered it, so Dark or Blitz Basic would be most easy one for me to learn...

Or maybe really, see what shbaz is always talking about and try blender.

Sorry about Blender/shbaz joke though.

So, still on the hunt!