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Amethyst: Data-driven game engine written in Rust

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Re: Amethyst: Data-driven game engine written in Rust

#31

Post by amethyst-engine »

mattnewport wrote: post #30
amethyst-engine wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More information on what we mean by that term can be found here: https://book.amethyst.rs/stable/glossary.html If viewed as goals, we aren't quite there yet, but we're working on it. =)

Generally the mentioned tools, particularly an editor of some sort in the style of the Unity or Unreal editors, are an important component of a data driven game engine. I didn't see anything skimming over the site about an editor. Is that part of the plan?

Yup. You can find the current editor work here: https://github.com/amethyst/atelier-editor

It is in very early stages. We are developing it as a WASM app that runs in a system webview, or can be accessed via a regular web browser for a more cloud-y experience. I'll take this opportunity to promote the awesome Yew project (https://github.com/DenisKolodin/yew) which is what we use for the frontend.

Re: Amethyst: Data-driven game engine written in Rust

#32

Post by appleflaxen »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #11
pcwalton wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the gatekeeping "make games, not engines" attitude. People want to hack on projects that are interesting, and low-level game code is interesting. This isn't a case in which where people can get hurt or lose money if the project doesn't work, like Cryptocat or Mt. Gox or whatever. For a project like Amethyst, the worst thing that can happen is that we discover that certain techniques don't work well for g…

It really rubs me the wrong way when I see comments like parent telling people what they should do with their open source projects. However, as a game developer, using an engine without some substantial dogfooding (or orders of magnitude more use by third parties, ala Unity) is simply a bad idea. I have done it multiple times and each time it's burnt me. If you were trying to sell this as a commercial product, I'd be…

can you share which platforms burned you?

Re: Amethyst: Data-driven game engine written in Rust

#33

Post by pinbender »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #3

Amethyst project very badly needs to eat their own dogfood and make some non-trivial games. I have serious doubts this project will be used for anything interesting. The projects using it so far all look really really bad. I think the project is doing a lot interesting things. But I think trying to make a general purpose engine without a game is a BadIdea™. Source: have shipped multiple games on multiple custom engin…

Having been a developer of multiple custom engines (including but not limited to engines intended for external licensing in AAA game development), I can confirm that the problems that must be solved for small scale projects are dramatically different from the problems encountered at medium and large scale.

If Amethyst is intended to be a tool for single-developer, small game development, that's great. Carry on with what you are doing.

If you want it to be used for bigger projects, you won't know what you don't know until you actually try to make that big project.

(I assume that Forrest is posting here because he sees potential in your technology, and wants to encourage you to reach that potential. The internet is littered with the remains of game engines with big potential that didn't survive because they didn't take this lesson into account.)

Re: Amethyst: Data-driven game engine written in Rust

#34

Post by amethyst-engine »

pinbender wrote: post #33
forrestthewoods wrote: post #3

Amethyst project very badly needs to eat their own dogfood and make some non-trivial games. I have serious doubts this project will be used for anything interesting. The projects using it so far all look really really bad. I think the project is doing a lot interesting things. But I think trying to make a general purpose engine without a game is a BadIdea™. Source: have shipped multiple games on multiple custom engin…

Having been a developer of multiple custom engines (including but not limited to engines intended for external licensing in AAA game development), I can confirm that the problems that must be solved for small scale projects are dramatically different from the problems encountered at medium and large scale. If Amethyst is intended to be a tool for single-developer, small game development, that's great. Carry on with w…

Yup, this is true. There are a few of us on the team who work/have worked on some very well known engines (and their ecosystems) meant for AAA game development. =)

The more challenging thing at the moment is developing or improving fundamental libraries/tools in Rust, which is a fairly young language. Being able to leverage existing C/C++ libraries helps, but in general isn't what we prefer to do.

>I assume that Forrest is posting here because he sees potential in your technology, and wants to encourage you to reach that potential.

Any and all feedback is welcome, as are contributions.

Re: Amethyst: Data-driven game engine written in Rust

#35

Post by forrestthewoods »

pinbender wrote: post #33
forrestthewoods wrote: post #3

Amethyst project very badly needs to eat their own dogfood and make some non-trivial games. I have serious doubts this project will be used for anything interesting. The projects using it so far all look really really bad. I think the project is doing a lot interesting things. But I think trying to make a general purpose engine without a game is a BadIdea™. Source: have shipped multiple games on multiple custom engin…

Having been a developer of multiple custom engines (including but not limited to engines intended for external licensing in AAA game development), I can confirm that the problems that must be solved for small scale projects are dramatically different from the problems encountered at medium and large scale. If Amethyst is intended to be a tool for single-developer, small game development, that's great. Carry on with w…

Life is all about trade-offs. There’s no such thing as average. (https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2016/01/16/when-us-air-...) If you try to build an engine for the general use case then you’re likely to make an engine that isn’t good enough for anyone.

My fear with Amethyst is that in 5 years it still won’t be good enough to make a commercial game of any genre. That’s the trajectory I see.

But I don’t think it has to be that way! And I think dogfooding would go a long ways towards building an engine that is both useable and extendable.

Re: Amethyst: Data-driven game engine written in Rust

#36

Post by amethyst-engine »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #3

Amethyst project very badly needs to eat their own dogfood and make some non-trivial games. I have serious doubts this project will be used for anything interesting. The projects using it so far all look really really bad. I think the project is doing a lot interesting things. But I think trying to make a general purpose engine without a game is a BadIdea™. Source: have shipped multiple games on multiple custom engin…

A more definitive statement regarding projects using Amethyst:

We have several so-called showcase games lined up. The only official one at the moment is Evoli: https://github.com/amethyst/evoli

It will have its first stable v0.1.0 MVP release in a matter of days. It’s designed to be easy to contribute to at scale so it’s a very suitable starter project for anyone looking to tinker with Amethyst in its current state.

As mentioned, the engine itself is still considered pre-release, but games like Evoli and more to come will demonstrate where Amethyst already shines, e.g. games that can take especially good advantage of the engine’s very close marriage to the specs ECS.

Re: Amethyst: Data-driven game engine written in Rust

#37

Post by hurricaneSlider »

hurricaneSlider wrote: post #22
Jare wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that invalidates the core issue that "trying to make a general purpose engine without a game is a BadIdea™" ("...if you want it to be used by other people" implied) is a pretty strong belief among experienced game developers. OTOH there's Unity, who never developed a large game themselves, only demos and samples.

> OTOH there's Unity, who never developed a large game themselves, only demos and samples. Possibly to the engine's detriment (though a cottage industry of add-ons in the assert store has helped bridge the most serious gaps)

And I think the engine is generally heading in the right direction now.
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