Looking for a "Best Fit" 3D game enigine.

**jasonf** · 05-09-2007, 08:35 AM

I'm looking into the best pre-fabricated 3D engine for my next game project.

I need an engine which does the following.

:!: Decent Physics engine.
:!: Unlimited terrain, procedural or tile based.. but 1000's of KM's
:!: Advanced materials using shaders etc
:!: Really nice water.
:!: entities within entities... i.e imagine a moving train and you're walking through it, or running around on top of a moving truck, or moving around in an airplane. basically there will be moving entities which cannot be static geometry in the scene, I cannot cheat by moving the scenery as the entity movement will be dynamic.
:!: AI and pathfinding.
:!: Networking, including networked physics.
:!: Built in 3d sound support and music.
:!: Decent scripting with triggers, timed events.
:!: NPC conversation system with inventory support

Is there anything like this on the market at the moment which is pretty much ready to go?
Will 3Impact do this?
Will Air do this?
Are their any other options?

I've got an idea for a game and if it works, it's going to be quite nice..but there's a lot of work to do just making art assets and scripting, I don't want to and don't have the time to write or debug an engine.

**Paizo** · 05-09-2007, 09:18 AM

u may take a look here: http://www.realmcrafter.com/

and what about quake related open source project such as openquartz, tomaz, etc.. ?

**jasonf** · 05-09-2007, 09:46 AM

I'm not writing a MMORPG, but realmcrafter does look interesting.. I'll have a bit of a deeper look into it later.

I can't use the Quake related projects because I plan on making the game commercial and anyway Quake is very old tech now... I also don't want it to be room based. things will be moving around too much for statically lit stuff to work very well.. I'm also considering Day & Night cycles.

A question for Savage: It's a little OT, but I remember you posting something about a ragdoll physics system once which responded to changes in the terrain beneath the character making it attempt to regain balance.. it was a very basic video demonstrating the tech, do you remember? I'm thinking of implementing something like this... I need to be able to run and jump on moving objects which could be moving quite violently, so the sprites need to compensate realistically.

**WILL** · 05-09-2007, 10:05 AM

This is the features list for the AIR engine... http://www.artificial-reality-engine.net/features.php

Apparently it uses GLScene for it's graphics. Last time I checked (pretty recently actually) GLScene seemed fairly extensive with 3D animation features.

Are you looking at 1st or 3rd person?

**jasonf** · 05-09-2007, 11:39 AM

I've not decided upon 1st or 3rd person perspective yet, I think that 3rd person is best for an adventure type game and won't need quite as much detail as a first person game on account that you're always further away from the objects you're interacting with. But with 3rd person, you can get intp tonnes of trouble with a badly implemented chase cam...

It's a decision I've not made yet. Just like the direct control or point & click control decision.

I've looked at the features list for Air before, but they don't really tell me a lot.

**jasonf** · 05-09-2007, 12:12 PM

I've just taken a look at genesis device and if they have a release soon, that might be the way forward... But I need a demo to see if it's going to do the job.

I'm hoping that Genesis device will allow truly huge fractal spherical worlds, where I can travel for hours and eventually come back to my starting point.

**NecroDOME** · 05-09-2007, 03:52 PM

That sounds like my new 3D Game engine

Did you consider Necro3D Game Engine? It doesn't have all features, but I would like it if actually someone would use it

**jasonf** · 05-09-2007, 04:44 PM

I'm quite interested in using L3dT terrains, I've just checked out the demo and it looks very promising. If I can make really large terrains, they'll do as islands.. that is if the engine I use can handle multiple massive terrains and has realistic water (I'm asking a lot aren't I but the world does have to be massive?) But still, I want to write a cool game, I've got ideas in my head at the moment and I don't want to waste energy implementing a load of stuff. There's enough work to do on the game as it is.

The Necro engine appears to have lots of cool features, but some of the ones I want seem to be in the Todo: section. Unless the web site hasn't been updated for a bit.

I have quite a specific idea for what I'd like the engine to be able to do, but as I'm not even thinking about coding yet, perhaps you could implement them all eh?

it'd make for a damn fine engine..

**NecroDOME** · 05-09-2007, 05:04 PM

The website is still up-to-date... We stopped developing the "old engine". I think the things you want to see are shaders, physics and better scene management.

Necro3D Game Engine is not yet able to render huge outdoor stuff in detail. You can use meshes with LOD for terrain, but to much work to make (and it would also work crap).

**Firlefanz** · 06-09-2007, 07:20 AM

Hi Jason,

You can also do a lot with DanJetX. I did Bouldermouse with it and The Innominate also uses it. There is already Landscape (also with animated grass), Materials and Shaders and most things you need. Dirk did a sample using Newton for physics...

DanJetX here:
http://dan.mirgames.ru/

My projects here, take a look at Innominate and Bouldermouse screens, both done with DanJetX.
http://www.magicstorm.de/

Dirk also uses this so if you decide to use it, we could help each other.