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Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

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Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#31

Post by douche »

markatkinson wrote: post #25
ogsharkman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, especially when you consider Carmack basically volunteered to rewrite Minecraft in C++ for Microsoft (and VR use). I'm not a game developer so I have no idea if C++ is as widespread as it seems but to me that's a pretty big indication.

I spent some time going through tutorials for different game engines, UE, Unity, Chaos and researching others, it became pretty clear that C++ the most pervasive and valuable across them, which is probably obvious to some of the more involved players in that space.

I think it's become something of a chicken and egg problem. All the hard-core game developers moved up from assembly to C, then introduced bits of C++ in the late 90s. All the books and tutorials end up getting written in C++ (or C with classes...). APIs get written in C/C++. More people learn C++ because its what the game devs do, and it's harder to find resources on learning how to do it in any other language. It's usually possible to make a wrapper for C++ code in a managed language, but it's not easy, if somebody else hasn't made a good binding already.

Garbage-collection has a bad name for some reason in game-dev circles, which maybe makes sense if you're developing a fast-twitch action game or shooter - a GC pause might drop enough frames to matter there, but for most games, Java or C# should be fine.

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#32

Post by [deleted] »

obsurveyor wrote: post #19
Grue3 wrote: post #17

The wording is rather strange. >free AAA game engine Doesn't being called that require that there are AAA games developed with it? According to wikipedia, "In the video game industry, AAA (pronounced "triple A") or Triple-A is a classification term used for games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion or the highest ratings by a consensus of professional reviewers." So if it's an engine for game…

It's describing the engine and the games that have been produced with it, not necessarily the games that will be created with it in the future. Crysis 3 was definitely a AAA game.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#35

Post by jo909 »

ascorbic wrote: post #4

Note that it's "free, including all source code", but definitively not open source. https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/faq/#Licensing

Also note that you can not use other cloud platforms for your games backend. While I understand their position, I consider that a deal breaker.

  Q. Can my game use an alternate web service instead of AWS?

  No. If your game servers use a non-AWS alternate web service,
  we obviously don’t make any money, and it’s more difficult for
  us to support future development of Lumberyard. By “alternate
  web service” we mean any non-AWS web service that is similar 
  to or can act as a replacement for Amazon EC2, Amazon Lambda,
  Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon RDS, Amazon S3, Amazon EBS, Amazon EC2 
  Container Service, or Amazon GameLift. You can use hardware you
  own and operate for your game servers.

  Q. Is it okay for me to use my own servers?

  Yes. You can use hardware you own and operate for your game.

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#36

Post by lmm »

markatkinson wrote: post #22

I got pretty excited and rushed through the article trying to clarify what engine and language it is based on. Got a little bleak when I saw CryEngine and C++. As someone who uses C# and Java it's becoming pretty clear I need to start learning C++ if I want to explore game dev. I realize Unity uses C# but when I compare UE, Unity and CryEngine it really feels like Unity still has a long way to go. The features you ge…

Five years ago using C# for a serious game would get you laughed at. But every day the balance shifts: computers get faster, but developers don't get smarter, so a language that sacrifices performance for ease of development becomes a better choice. If you're looking to the future I'd recommend sticking with C#.

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#37

Post by bananaboy »

douche wrote: post #31
markatkinson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent some time going through tutorials for different game engines, UE, Unity, Chaos and researching others, it became pretty clear that C++ the most pervasive and valuable across them, which is probably obvious to some of the more involved players in that space.

I think it's become something of a chicken and egg problem. All the hard-core game developers moved up from assembly to C, then introduced bits of C++ in the late 90s. All the books and tutorials end up getting written in C++ (or C with classes...). APIs get written in C/C++. More people learn C++ because its what the game devs do, and it's harder to find resources on learning how to do it in any other language. It's…

The console manufacturers have typically provided a C/C++ compiler and nothing else, so it was very difficult in the past to use any other language for developing console games. Some studios did retarget existing compilers like gcc but it was pretty rare; you don't usually have the time for that! If you're doing cross-platform that then limits your code base, so you can't even use the latest features of a language on one platform but not another (e.g. some platforms don't support C++11 in their compiler).

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#39

Post by muhmi »

douche wrote: post #31
markatkinson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent some time going through tutorials for different game engines, UE, Unity, Chaos and researching others, it became pretty clear that C++ the most pervasive and valuable across them, which is probably obvious to some of the more involved players in that space.

I think it's become something of a chicken and egg problem. All the hard-core game developers moved up from assembly to C, then introduced bits of C++ in the late 90s. All the books and tutorials end up getting written in C++ (or C with classes...). APIs get written in C/C++. More people learn C++ because its what the game devs do, and it's harder to find resources on learning how to do it in any other language. It's…

Well, yes, the idea that there will be GC pauses and you just cannot get a _consistent_ framerate no matter how hard you try does not sound good. (Disclaimer I currently write games with Unity ;D)

Re: Amazon Lumberyard: free AAA game engine with Oculus and AWS integration

#40

Post by Tepix »

eterm wrote: post #16
ascorbic wrote: post #4

Note that it's "free, including all source code", but definitively not open source. https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/faq/#Licensing

It also contains built in obselesence: 57.6 Registration; Release. Before distributing your Lumberyard Project to End Users, you must register it at aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/registration. You must obtain our prior written consent if the initial public or commercial release of your Lumberyard Project is based on a version of the Lumberyard Materials more than 5 years old.

That means if you keep releasing updates for a project for 5 years, you need renewed permission from them, right?
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