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Create your own Game Engine but don't use it

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Re: Create your own Game Engine but don't use it

#41

Post by lentil_soup »

aphextron wrote: post #6

I think a lot of developers who come into game dev have a mistaken view of Unity as the "budget" choice based on the poor quality of many of the indie titles shovleled out with it. But Unity is probably the most advanced game engine in existence today. Far beyond Unreal 4 in terms of both performance and tooling. The reason the average quality is so low with Unity titles is because of just how easy the technical aspe…

I don't know what tools you're talking about, Unity comes with hardly any tools at all. You have to buy them in the Asset Store if you want anything a little bit more advanced.

Then again, Unity IS way easier to get started with, easy to script in and get something running and brilliant for prototyping quick ideas.

Re: Create your own Game Engine but don't use it

#42

Post by aphextron »

mnarayan01 wrote: post #22
aphextron wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most big studios are still on UE as a matter of momentum and the aforementioned biases. Unity really only became viable in the past 3 years, which is shorter than the average AAA game development cycle. Also certain games such as FPS are still better off with UE, as that's what it was designed for.

> Also certain games such as FPS are still better off with UE, as that's what it was designed for. What game types would you consider Unity to have better performance and/or tooling for? Also, if you're feeling generous, why?

>What game types would you consider Unity to have better performance and/or tooling for? Also, if you're feeling generous, why?

The main difference IMO is that Unity has become the de facto standard for anything VR related. UE is doing a good job with their VR support too, but it's really clear which engine is favored by SteamVR, the Oculus SDK, and the community at large.

Unity also has a first class asset store which can save you months of development time when it comes to things like networking or doing complex shaders.

Other than that it really comes down to personal preference. Scripting with Unity vs. Blueprints with UE, C++ vs C#, etc.

Re: Create your own Game Engine but don't use it

#43

Post by moomin »

fellellor wrote: post #39
alol wrote: post #21

Having a broader understanding of your domain at a different level of abstraction is always extremely valuable. For anyone interested in the detail of _how_ to create a game engine from scratch, I'd recommend checking out Handmade Hero https://handmadehero.org/

Handmade Hero is over 380, hour or two long videos last i saw. How far are you into it? Regardless, it's an amazing effort.

Yeah, it grossly understates the effort required to create a decent game.

Re: Create your own Game Engine but don't use it

#44

Post by Koshkin »

karmadog wrote: post #30

There's two big hindrances for success right off the bat: 1. Refusing to just use C/C++ 2. Attempting to support most of the platforms Both problems compound each other. All platforms (even Android at this point) have C APIs for everything you need. Creating another layer of abstraction here causes more work and overhead. Trying to get Java running on iOS with 3D APIs is a huge task in and of itself. The same goes fo…

> Being forced to do memory management manually

It may be worth repeating that in C++ the need to manually manage memory is drastically reduced compared with C (due to the native support of the RAII pattern).

Re: Create your own Game Engine but don't use it

#45

Post by aphextron »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #9

This can be said about plenty of things. Encryption is probably the most obvious; there's a lot of benefit from reading about and implementing various encryption methods, and absolutely foolish to use any of that work in a setting where it might actually be attacked. The article is pointing out something that should be obvious; if you're making a widget as part of a larger task, your implementation will probably be l…

>Getting over the "not invented here" mentality allows us to focus on doing things that are novel, or things that are custom.

I remember gradually coming to accept this as an intermediate programmer. Once you do, it's incredibly freeing. You can stop thinking in terms of "I'm gonna write SOOO much complex code to solve this problem!" to "I bet I can pipe together 5 different CLI programs and not write a single line of code".

You learn that it's all about layers of abstraction, and understanding that the human brain is far more useful and efficient at problem sets higher and higher on that scale of abstraction than it is at twiddling bits.

Re: Create your own Game Engine but don't use it

#46

Post by thehardsphere »

The mistake that most people make is thinking about whether or not they should make a "game engine" when what they really want to do is make a game.

If you want to make a game, make it. If it makes sense to use somebody else's engine to make it, then by all means do so. If you aren't going use someone else's game engine (which is a perfectly valid choice), skip straight to making your game. After you've made a game or two, you'll know whether making a "game engine" out of what you've written previously is a worthwhile effort for your next game.

Re: Create your own Game Engine but don't use it

#47

Post by Koshkin »

emodendroket wrote: post #13
thomascgalvin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of us aren't John Carmack, though. When you're the guy that basically invented the genre of code you're talking about, there's a very good chance that your next project will advance the state of the art. When you're basically a hobby coder looking to get an game in the app store, it's a slightly different story.

Beyond that, it's not the 90s anymore; what novel feature are you going to implement that is going to wow anyone in the way that Carmack's engines did?

> what novel feature

Ask that in 10 years; I believe there is always progress to be made.

Re: Create your own Game Engine but don't use it

#49

Post by musha68k »

juliangoldsmith wrote: post #35
aaron-lebo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish modern games could get the basics as right as Carmack's engines did. What good is the tech in No Man's Sky if visiting untold numbers of planets feels like a slog through mud?

Game mechanics were a lot of what always set id apart from everyone else. You could always count on them for smooth, fast-paced action, without much in the way of frills. While their new games are still quite good, they seem to have begun to slip a bit after Carmack's departure.

Huge Carmack fan here but I feel the need to defend the latest hi-octane Doom incarnation from 2016 - IMHO great controls, fast old-school gameplay, superbe graphics.

Re: Create your own Game Engine but don't use it

#50

Post by brianwawok »

aphextron wrote: post #45
thomascgalvin wrote: post #9

This can be said about plenty of things. Encryption is probably the most obvious; there's a lot of benefit from reading about and implementing various encryption methods, and absolutely foolish to use any of that work in a setting where it might actually be attacked. The article is pointing out something that should be obvious; if you're making a widget as part of a larger task, your implementation will probably be l…

>Getting over the "not invented here" mentality allows us to focus on doing things that are novel, or things that are custom. I remember gradually coming to accept this as an intermediate programmer. Once you do, it's incredibly freeing. You can stop thinking in terms of "I'm gonna write SOOO much complex code to solve this problem!" to "I bet I can pipe together 5 different CLI programs and not write a single line o…

Except for some of us, it isn't actually that fun to spend 5 minutes gluing together 6 libraries with no documentation, and 4 hours figuring out an undocumented bug deep in the source code. We would rather write someone from scratch :)

Not that you can really afford to do that in a paid position, but for a side hobby like making a game? Absolutely. If you are making a game for fun, do what is fun to you.

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