I want to make a game, using one of the free-use game engines out there! Let the ridicule begin!

Okay, that's out of the way. I am NOT one of those grandiose types who says, I have big ideas but no idea how to use them, looking for scripters, animators, blahblahblah, everyone laughs at me, etc. I admit, my only real experience in making mods for games is modding Skyrim (for which I learned some scripting for the first time), so I know that (A) I will have to devote time to learning an entire game engine, and (B) I should not aim for a complete AAA game, but a smaller, more basic one. (I'm pretty much envisioning a fun random battle generator, with a third-person view of the PC, who is like a superhuman flying about in the midst of soldiers and airships and what-have-you.)

That said, I'm trying to figure out WHICH game engine would be best for me to learn. The ones I've heard most often are UDK and CryEngine. From what I understand, UDK is the most popular, as well as being very good and customizable, with lots of plugins and resources. CryEngine, from what I've heard, is basically top-of-the-line; it is less customizable, but has so many features there is little need to custom-add plugins. One thing I'm worried about CryEngine tho, is that it might have less resources (i.e. tutorials, art resources, etc) available.

So anyhow, whether I choose CryEngine or UDK or another engine, I am looking for a game engine that is capable of all of the following:

1. Over the top action and fun fluid combat, with God of War-style battle physics (or if "physics" is not the appropriate term, insert appropriate term here).

2. Fast, smooth acrobatics/aerobatics. Similar to the God of War style action above, if not actually included in it. For people jumping and flipping about, or zooming about in the air/space.

3. Flight -> handling airborne (or outer-space) movement and combat, in a manner that is NOT clunky. For individual actors (such as Superman or soldiers with jetpacks or what-have-you), small fighters or airborne mechs, AND great capital ships. At once.

4. Actors (including NPCs) able to stand and move about and fight on moving platforms (such as the decks of airships).

5. Lush, vivid, colorful, high/good-quality graphics

6. Handling a lot of actors onscreen at once.

7. Accurate, detailed animations -> for example, were I to somehow include a romance element, I'd want a kissing animation to be possible, without two actors clumsily kissing inches apart or whatever. Mass Effect-quality animations not required necessarily, just something not entirely clumsy/clunky.

8. Environment destructibility. Doesn't have to be a ridiculously destructible environment, though (which is hard to do without devoting an entire game to it and nothing else, like that one game, Red Something I think).

9. Some kind of auto-aiming feature, whether it be something as complete as V.A.T.S. (from Fallout 3/New Vegas) or simply a fuzzy bullseye (i.e. shooting close to something will shoot your bullet/fireball at the something).

10. Procedural generation, or some other kind of auto-generating battlefield/dungeon/etc based on specified parameters. (More of a bonus than a requirement, I suppose.)

So yeah. Obviously, despite the relatively modest "game" I have in mind, it will take a lot of time and effort on my part, and may in fact never get done (or even begun), but like I said, I would at least like to know what game engine would be best to begin learning for my purposes. Thanks!

Build

As far as I know, you can really make anything in UDK if you know how to code it in.

Aside from UDK and CryEngine that almost always get recommended in these threads, people have also mentioned Unity.

Anyway, I can't comment more on any of those since after DXN I'm done with editing. Funny how 15 years of various attempts have resulted in nothing.

Best of luck!

A lot of the things you're asking for is things you make happen in the engine. Any good engine isn't going to stop you from doing any of those things, you're just going to have to work your ass off to make it real. Honestly, the amount of detail and such that you're looking for is completely unrealistic for a one-man team, especially one without experience.

Tibby: Build? Is that an engine?

FG: Thanks!

CM: Thanks for the tip, and yup, I know, completely and totally unrealistic. But, I have to start somewhere, perhaps with super basic programs and stuff, which is why I asked.

Tibby is joking.

I think that's the Duke 3D engine, it's got all your requirements.. technically.

Obviously UDK has already been mentioned. From what i have seen on sites like polycount.com I actually prefer the look of UDK somewhat over CryEngine. although either one would be MORE than capable of handling what you are talking about.

If you use UDK, more people would be able to play your game than with CryEngine.

Alternately, learn a programming language like Python, get a hold of a nice game library, and make pong. It will be more difficult than it sounds, and knock you down several much-needed pegs. Then move on to something like Minesweeper or Tetris. This will be challenging and will require the use of some kind of rudimentary aggregate data type. Don't stop when you have the basics. Give it polish. Give it a robust scoring system with a persistent high score list that is saved to disk. Make it pretty. Give it sound effects! And when all is said and done, give it your own little twist. Maybe introduce some kind of power-up or unlockable.

Then use what you learned to have a fighting chance doing something like what you're talking about.

Saying "I know I need to aim lower than a triple AAA title, I know," is like saying "I can't build an aircraft carrier by myself." So you're aiming for building a car but soon you'll realize you can't even build a bicycle yet.

Freelancer: What you say is quite true. As I say though, I at least wanted to know which direction I should aim at. So apparently UDK or CryEngine will work equally well, which is really all I needed I suppose.

Now to go look at some basics ^^ Yeah, it'll be hard and challenging. I remember when I was first learning to mod Skyrim, and that was just to mod an existing game! So yeah. Pipe dream, will probably never happen, but now I know what I'm aiming for anyway.

.

I want to make classical music. Which 15 instruments should I learn to play?

Why would you want to do that?

Find the instrument that fits your passion. Learn it inside and out, practice playing it every day, and eventually you'll become a master. Then you won't have to play by yourself, because great musicians join great symphonies.

EDIT: I jacked that up somehow. What ever happened to the post delete option?

Wouldn't it be more useful to define an accomplish goal? What you described would require several experienced teams from several different disciplines, and they'd have to work full time for some time. Even if you were already good at all of this stuff, the raw workload is too large to finish in a useful amount of time, and you'll just get discouraged. This is like getting started on electronics by trying to design a motherboard.

Take Jon'Cs advice.


It sounds like you are thinking that a game engine is a package of features that you can just configure like you would in a simple mod. A modern game engine has a lot of nice stuff, to be sure, but most of that stuff you are talking about would have to be implemented by you at a much lower level than you are expecting and that is simply a lot of work. Those aren't features that an engine just supports, those are things that you program yourself.

Unity, UDK and CryEngine are good choices for dicking around.

.

I AM SECRETLY LEONARDO DA VINCI IN DISGUISE!

Okay, not really. Jon C, an apt point lol. It's true, I don't really know much about what a game engine supports or anything. Like I said, I merely wanted to know which one I should take a look at. So it looks like I have a ton to learn about UDK, and the more I learn, the more I'll realize how impossible this is.

*shrug*

I don't really care if it's impossible to fly to another planet, I just want to make sure I research the right planet >.>

You guys realize that when I said, "Let the ridicule begin," I was being sarcastic?

So far, my favorite comment was the one that said, "Hope you learn a lot before you give up!"

I don't think anyone's ridiculing you :P. I think this is the kind of community that would always be excited about a member continuing to mod games and tinker with making their own. I think everyone just wants you to have the right perspective so you're more likely to succeed.

That's not what I said at all.

Making a game requires advanced skills in many different professions. Project management, traditional art, 3D modelling, animation, three kinds of design, four flavours of software engineering. I don't know how you feel about Malcolm Gladwell, but he'd say you're looking at more than 20 years of full-time training here. This isn't impossible, it's just a huge waste of a life.

Pick one thing and then stick with it. With one concentration you'll learn much more quickly, and you won't get as discouraged because you will be able to see personal growth more easily. Then you won't have to learn everything, because skilled people want to work with other skilled people. And even if you really want to work alone, domain experts in games have ways to work around a lack of expertise in other areas.

Make a small multiplayer level.

Off-topic, is it bad that I don't have any idea who this is?

Apparently he's a British-born Canadian journalist who works for the New York Times of the US and A, heh. Not sure why Jon'C brought him up, but it does seem that he penned a few bestselling "popular science" type books.

Not sure why Koobie read the first two paragraphs of his Wikipedia page but not the third one, which would have completely explained everything.

Not as long as you got my point.

It's also not off-topic. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a popular book about statistical outliers. He observed that people who successfully do things had to spend a lot of time training to do those things before they were successful. Shocking, I know.

Notice how I didn't even bother recommending an engine. That's not because I'm an *******, it's because there's no good answer here. Once you grok the basic idea of scripting and level design, which you already have, you're basically set to choose a specialty. "Learning an engine" is the most useless activity you can undertake at this point, the non-transferrable final step you undertake once you've already mastered your art. The choice of engine is a technical and budgetary choice. "Learning an engine" is like learning to write a book by figuring out Microsoft Word.

I've actually been trying to develop novel writing skills by writing short stories and generally practicing writing theory, as well as doing hell of reading and taking note of how different people do things. One day I'll write that novel god darnit.
So do that, except with video games. Make lil' levels in some engine that work on a specific part of some level design theory, pay attention to how different designers do things, etc. Maybe take a look through some JK modders and take note of how their art evolved over time.

Also, whenever you get a ~brainstorm~ write it down and then solidify it later, like if you come up with some kickass element of a level or bit of gameplay write that idea down and then work directly on it later.

I don't think that there's anything wrong with having big ideas. Collect those ideas in a notebook--make diagrams, sketches, stories, pseudo-code, etc. I would suggest taking an incremental approach. For instance, take a stab at creating your own textures & release them individually & in a pack once you have enough to form a collection & in a quality & format that's useful across the board. Do the same thing for maps, models, scripts, etc. Make contributions to community projects. If much of your work is oriented towards a particular theme, create your own project using your existing library (by this time you'll likely want to improve your earlier work), seek out reliable folks that you've worked with on other projects to contribute in areas where you may be lacking & continue with an incremental approach. In other words--don't aim for failure. It's likely that through this process you'll discover that your interest(s) &/or "talent(s)" lie(s) in a particular area(s). I've noticed over the years that both individuals & teams of people tend to have unrealistic goals that were destined for failure. For example, if you wanted to remake JKDF2, why would you start with single-player when perhaps multi-player could be done in far less time? Why would you wait to release all of the LEC multi-player maps when you can release them individually & again in a pack once they're all complete? I think that what Jon'C said was very important (about learning core concepts instead of being engine-focused) & this applies to so many other things as well (e.g. digital art, modeling, etc.). Either way, good luck.

I agree with all this, but I don't think you're going to convince him by telling him. I don't think there's anything wrong with him picking up a free tool set and learning how hard things are, and maybe finding part of it he really likes.

I went on to read about the books he wrote and at least one of them seemed to me from the little amount of info available to be such BS that I wasn't even curious anymore.

Judging by your latest post, I guess the paragraph in question is this:


Your original argument was that if the OP wants to make a game, even a simple one, it's not as simple as just "mastering the engine" but that there's a whole variety of skills involved (programming, modelling, etc.), and that it's better to master one area of video game design than to spread his attention across everything at once. It was a good argument (albeit if he'd have a team working under him the more he'd know, the better, obviously). How the Brit-Canadian-American-Jewish journalist came into the picture remains a mystery in that context. But hey, we can argue about it if you want.

ANYWAY, I'd go with UDK if I'd really want to go that route, and I've even considered it, but the logic behind having to know modelling / scripting first always stood in the way. I figured I'd just stick to writing my little stories instead...

There's a bat-zillion tutorials available for UDK on the nets, too.

Peace & love,
Koobie

Ah. My fav. subject.

The trick's not to write a novel. The trick's to write a novel that's good.

And, HEY, here's how you do it:

1. Read a lot.
2. Write a lot. Write 1,000 words EVERY SINGLE DAY.

If you do step 2 EVERY SINGLE DAY (while trying to improve by having others look at your work on, say, www.absolutewrite.com/forums/ or www.critters.org), chances are that in 2 to 5 years you'll be pretty good. The trick to this, like to any art, I guess, is that's it has something that you can't live without -- if you can imagine yourself not writing stories and enjoying life, you're probably in the wrong business.

Peace & love,
Koobie

Ok, to go off-topic and to add onto my latest post (for Tibby):

--Another good idea is to transcribe your favorite short stories by hand into a notebook.
--Check out award winning stories in your genre of preference. Eg., if you're into science fiction, go to http://escapepod.org/; they have a section for Hugo nominees. Check some of those stories out (they're in audio, too, so you can listen while jogging or whatnot).
--Listen to YouTube mixes by spacemind12. He's the ****ing ****.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell proposes a hypothesis that it takes around 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master a skill. It has proven to be one of his most controversial claims in spite of being approximately supported by some recent studies. Disputes against it mainly come from three sources: 1.) people who don't understand the material conditional, 2.) people who don't understand the difference between deliberate and non-deliberate practice, and 3.) pedagogists, because deliberate practice is currently out of fashion in that field.

The reason Malcolm Gladwell came up is because his "10,000 Hour Rule" offers a heuristic for how long it would take Al Ciao to learn what he wishes to learn (cf. my estimate, 20 years of full-time study). I referenced him because his claim is not scientific, but rather a biased observation made in a popular non-fiction text, and I wanted to make it clear that this idea may not be taken seriously by all readers. i.e. "I don't know how you feel about [unproven claim], but...." You have essentially taken a rhetorical technique and stumbled around for not understanding it, but just like every other rhetorical technique, if you don't understand it you weren't the target audience for it anyway.

Are we happy now?

Having a team working under him requires yet another, completely different kind of skill....

For the first, I already do- and sometimes I throw them at showcase too.
For the rest, thanks.

Jon'C: "I don't know how you feel about Malcolm Gladwell, but he'd say you're looking at more than 20 years of full-time training here."

Me: "Malcom Gladwell? *checks Wiki* WTF? How does that tie in?"

Jon'C: "You have essentially taken a rhetorical technique and stumbled around for not understanding it, but just like every other rhetorical technique, if you don't understand it you weren't the target audience for it anyway."

Me: "Oh, BURN, what a BURN."



PS. Upon further research, it's not even Gladwell's hypothesis, heh. Sorry man, I like you and all, but to me it just seems that you're trying to look condescendingly smart when all you're saying is "you've got to practice if you want to be good." Like you've said yourself, shocking. Or, to Americanize, DUH.




Of course it does. But knowing a bit of everything REALLY, REALLY helps. A Project Manager who actually understand how **** works > Project Manager who has no ****ing clue. Of course, we can argue about that too if you really want.

So I saw your post and then I started vomiting uncontrollably.

I did it again, I get as far as the dumb cartoon dog and then I'm swimming in my own bile.
This ****'s acidic man, there's a hole in the floor now!

...

Thankfully we have socialist healthcare here, so I don't have to bill you for that.
You do however, owe me for **** I LOOKED AGAIN

Cool story bro.

koobie, as much as it pains me to say it... as best i can tell, Jon'C IS condescendingly smart, he also has a tendency to preemptively(not sure if that is technically the correct word.) stop arguments before they begin, or at least try to. he usually presents an opinion or an argument along with facts to back it up... sometimes as in this case kind of he presented the facts AS the argument. Not saying it isn't annoying, just that he usually has a point.

P.S. Zbrush would also be a useful thing to learn!