Anyone else gotten tired of having to evaluate and use various “engines”? I mean I’m happy that they are available, but I’m getting kind of bored of having to relearn new things every time. It just so happens I kind of need to do it for my lecturing job, so its something I can justify to myself that way. Plus of course I love the possibilities each one brings (I can imagine games I’d make with Unreal that I couldn’t make in other engines right now). Still, it seems to me that its all too easy to see the engine as the main factor in making the game, when in reality it absolutely shouldn’t be.
On the upside, I’ve spent just over a week with Unreal and have had a fun time looking over the various art pipeline things which all seem to work (thankfully). At some point I guess I’ll delve deeper into the core engine code and look that over (I’m an AI programmer by background) but for now I’m just playing at the surface level looking at the kind of tasks my students might tackle.
I’m looking forward to seeing more than just uber-soldier games made with it though. Only so many sci-fi marines you can see in one lifetime before you get bored.
I’ve got an inventory/crafting/trading system to package up and sell on the Unity asset store, then I’ll have a look at some things for Unreal (including a port of the inventory stuff) before jumping into what I think will be an interesting project that literally would only work with Unreal’s pretty rendering
Sorry, bit of a ramble, but I’ve been bitten by “engine-itus” before (many years ago now when Torque 3D was called V12) and wanted to remind myself and others to be a bit more circumspect about it all.
Nope. I was like you thinking of engine this engine that, Irrlicht, Ogre3D, torque, and so forth, but I think it’s really about the investment. Unity was the first that I finally catch my attention, but that is also the time I wish other great engines like Unreal/CryEngine would go down here to indie community, and they did. So I have no reason not to learn and invest myself to these long-awaited dreams.
I can’t tell there won’t be any changes/new things, but hey, what in IT world that never changes? But realistically this decision is a long shot. No matter how old the technology this is will be in the future, it can stand up for 5 years or more. Not to mention that they always update it, mostly may not change your development pipeline/only slightly.
I will be tired if I have to learn everything new in a size of “engines” every month, but I most probably not for every year when strategy can always change.
It is a little annoying, especially when your jumping from project to project and different people use different engines. This especially, when I was in school. But I started modding with Unreal Tournament 1999, and have stuck with Epic since. They have always kept modders in mind, their engines are always top of the line and they do their best, giving support to anyone using their engine. UDK was difficult sometimes, but it was the most powerful at the time, and UE4 is even better. It does everything I need it to do, so I didn’t need to look further.
It’s a situation where it used to be that pretty much every game studio had to make an engine for their own games, but they’re finding that it’s better to use something that has a lot of work put into it already so that it’s a better engine and they can get more people that know how to use it. As time goes on, there will be less engines.
that’s a forever on going process you’ll never stop learning to code regardless of if its an engine your programing for or making your own. they call it new technology or new processes
its the nature of the beast as graphics and technolgy improves so will more engines come out. for me i dont mind and unreal engine 4 has encouraged me to learn a bit more about it more so then the previous ones i dont find it boring!
But realistically this decision is a long shot. No matter how old the technology this is will be in the future, it can stand up for 5 years or more. Not to mention that they always update it, mostly may not change your development pipeline/only slightly.