3D Gamecask Engine

[mobilus]

A month ago I started working on a 3D game engine based on GLScene. The results came out very good, so I decided to put some screenshots. Still a lot of things I need to do, but the basics are already implemented.

Brief description of the engine:
* API: OpenGL, GLSL
* Editor: WYSIWYG
* Objects: *.3ds, *.ase
* Textures: *.jpg, *.dds
* Physics (Newton Game Dynamics):
- collisions
- joints
- behaviours
- vehicles (in progress)
* GLSL Shaders:
- Post-Processing: SSAO, Bloom, Blur, Gamma
- Shadows: Real-Time Soft Shadow Mapping
- Materials: Parallax Occlusion Mapping, Bump Mapping, Multi-Light Bump Mapping, etc.

Screenshots:
http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/3D_Gamecask_Engine1.jpg

http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/3D_Gamecask_Engine2.jpg

http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/3D_Gamecask_Engine3.jpg

http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/3D_Gamecask_Engine4.jpg

http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/3D_Gamecask_Engine5.jpg

[Luuk van Venrooij]

Looks great! Keep up the good work.

[Stoney]

Very impressive screenshots. Will this engine be available for free or commercially?

[WILL]

Looks great. Why not do a HD video and post it via youtube so we can see the physics portion in action?

[code_glitch]

I think the four following letter sum it up best: WOOW. This is amazing stuff, but like Stoney asked; will this be avaible for free? And what are the chances of it working with a standalon FPC setup?

[mobilus]

Will this engine be available for free or commercially?
I think it will be free someday, but not soon. First I must finish the engine and then write documentation for it - this is a very long road.


...and what are the chances of it working with a standalon FPC setup
That is my goal to make the engine as a standalone application (Game Module + WYSIWYG Editor) and add some scripting language.


Why not do a HD video and post it via youtube so we can see the physics portion in action?
When I do physics for vehicles and a few more models, I will try to do a HD video and post it via youtube.
For now I have only one tree, terrain, human and house model - nothing special for good looking video ;)

[noeska]

Nice tree model. How did you make it? Or is it procedural generated by your engine?

[mobilus]

I don't remember exactly where I found this model, but it was some kind of free sample from some Blender or LightWave plug-in. The model is rather simple and it was free, so I don't pay attention to the source of origin.
In fact, the best part of this tree is the texture.

At the moment there are more important things to do than procedural objects. Oh, maybe procedural terrain would be useful, but I'll do it later. GLScene has it all, but it takes a some time to figure out how this things works.

[farcodev]

Wow impressive work ! o.O

Keep up the good work for future release :D

[Brainer]

Nice work there, mobilus. :) But if I can toss my ten cents here - GLScene's really nice for starters, but it still uses OpenGL 2.x which is obsolete these days. AFAIK they're doing ports for OGL 3.x, but I'm not sure at what stage it is right now. It's not that I'm trying to discourage you, though. Don't get me wrong - I like GLScene, but if you ask me, unless it fully supports the latest OpenGL version, it's not worth a try (or a "come-back" in my case).

[mobilus]

There are many publishers who require older solutions, especially in the casual market. For this reason, I use Asphyre to produce 2D games (DirectX7) and GLScene for 3D games (OpenGL2).

I do not create an engine with a view to making a super high-tech FPS, which would compete with the giants from the market and I don't use OpenGL3.x yet.

Plans for the development of GLScene is such that there were two versions of GLScene - for older (OpenGL1/2) and newer (OpenGL3/4) video cards. I do not know whether the developers will be consistent in their assumptions, but don't worry about the ports for OpenGL 3.x:
http://glscene.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/glscene/trunk/Source/Experimental/

I am trying to build my engine with independent modules (physics, scripting, material shaders, post-processing shaders, gui, etc.) and I hope that I can use them together with "next-gen" APIs without major modifications in the future.


I like GLScene, but if you ask me, unless it fully supports the latest OpenGL version, it's not worth a try
To create a game, OpenGL or DirectX itself is not enough. In the meantime (waiting for OpenGL3), you could write a lot of useful tools and a lot to learn.

[mobilus]

Screenshots after eleven months of hard work (still in progress):

screenshot1 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/cm1.jpg)
screenshot2 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/cm2.jpg)
screenshot3 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/cm3.jpg)
screenshot4 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/cm4.jpg)
screenshot5 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/cm5.jpg)
screenshot6 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/cm6.jpg)
screenshot7 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/cm7.jpg)
screenshot8 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/cm8.jpg)

RENDERING FEATURES (forward rendering):

Post-processing effects:
- Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion
- Depth of Field with auto-focus
- HDR with automatic Tone Mapping
- Light Scattering
- Vignette
- Fullscreen Blur (GLScene)
- Edge Blur

Optimization:
- Standard Frustum Culling (GLScene)
- Sphere Frustum Culling
- LOD textures
- DOV (dependent on the size of objects)

Mapping:
- Normal Mapping
- Bump Mapping
- Parallax Mapping
- Spherical Environment Mapping
- Procedural Mapping (metal)
- Shadow Mapping

Vertex operations:
- precomputed Vertex Ambient Occlusion
- precomputed Radiosity (in progress)

[Legolas]

It's really impressive! :o

Great work, mobilus

[Stoney]

Absolutely fantastic.
When I first glanced at the first screenshot, I thought it was a photo. :)

[code_glitch]

Absolutely unbelievable - better than a ton of blender and DX11 jobs Oo

The first one does actually look like a real photo... Took me a few seconds to register it was rendered.

[mobilus]

Thanks guys!
On the first screenshot there is no Fog and DepthOfField - I did it by accident and indeed looks better.

[azrael11]

That is very promising.... Great work...

[AirPas]

the lightmap is really good , did you generate it your self or using other program ?

[mobilus]

I don't use lightmaps, it's real-time soft shadow mapping + Vertex Ambient Occlusion (generated in an Engine) + real-time Screen Space Ambient Occlusion. All these elements are mixed together and may create the impression of a good lightmap :)

[bukdub]

I just saw it on IGN, and I think it does. Between the physics and graphical tricks, its looking like the most versatile engine ever.

What they show in realtime is beyond what I wouldve though possible for years to come.

Agree?

[Relfos]

Hi, this is very impressive indeed. Could you tell me how do you implement the screen space ambient occlusion?

[mobilus]

This is the algorithm that I used:
1. Create an Framebuffer Object FBO (you can use TGLFBORenderer from GLScene)
2. Attach the color buffer to a texture (TGLFBORenderer can do it for you; or look at the source files, if you don't want to use GLScene)
3. Attach the depth buffer to a texture (TGLFBORenderer can do it for you)
4. Create your rotateMap texture (4x4 pixels is enough). You can imagine this texture as a sprite which will be imposed on the screen - this is your ambient shadow. (it seems to me that Bokeh Depth of Field uses similar technique)
5. Read about Ambient Occlusion, shader techinques and write your SSAO shader (depthMap+rotateMap); or find a solution on the internet.

screenshot9 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/Throne8.jpg)

[mobilus]

How goes the work on SSAO? Here is ready solution for GLScene:
http://glscene.ru/e107_files/public/111_ssao_glscene1.rar

My shader is very similar, but I added automatic change of size of ambient shadows and added fog.
The size of SSAO is dependent on the camera's distance to the observed object and the fog covers SSAO in the further view.
screenshot10 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/Throne9.jpg)


By the way, I made several improvements to the Depth of Field (blur was too strong) and now it looks perfect
screenshot11 (http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/Throne10.jpg)

[mobilus]

I need some help.
I'm looking for graphics cards models (desktop computers), that do not support my shaders.

Please check techdemo.exe and write information about your video card, if an error occurs.
http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/techdemo2.7z
Information should be similar, as shown below:
<Your hardware/driver doesn't support shader "Parallax">
I need this info to buy that card and find out what is wrong. Maybe this is not the best way to find bugs, but practical.

Until now, there are errors on the integrated ATI cards (I don't have any ATI card, and at least one would be handy).

[WILL]

If you could port that to Mac, I'd be happy to test it for you on my iMac. It has an ATI card which is not integrated, but a current one at least.

[wagenheimer]

I tried to download it 3 times and I got a corrupted download. =(

[mobilus]

I tried to download it 3 times and I got a corrupted download. =(
Sorry, now it works (checked):
http://www.gamecask.com/forum/root/resources/techdemo2.7z


If you could port that to Mac, I'd be happy to test it for you on my iMac. It has an ATI card which is not integrated, but a current one at least.
First, I will try to port to XBox 360 ;)
Theoretically it is possible.... I think so...

... and there are no problems with different drivers.

[WILL]

First, I will try to port to XBox 360 ;)

Does that mean the first real usage of 'Oxygene for .NET' as a development tool for game development? That's pretty exciting actually. If you want help with such a task, you should contact RemObjects and tell them what you intend. I'm sure they will be more than helpful knowing what a milestone this would be for them.

[Daikrys]

missing tons off shaders with my XFX Radeon HD6850 Black Edition

dont recommend to buy this expensive one, just look for an HD6000+ series with shader model 5.0
you can get a new HD6450 for around 40euros, ebay might be alot cheaper for older cards

[Stoney]

On my ATI Radeon 5750 (not integrated, 1024 GDDR5, Shader Model 5.0, latest drivers, should be a PowerColor card), I'm missing the shaders "bump", "shadow", "paralax2" and "paralax". After that, I get the message "Unbalanced shader application in ...ENGINE\GLSCENE\GLMaterial.pas, line 1140" and the only way to close the application is by killing the task with the task manager.

[mobilus]

Thanks guys, I bought the cheapest HD series card (HD5450) for ~30 euros and fixed the bug.


Does that mean the first real usage of 'Oxygene for .NET' as a development tool for game development? That's pretty exciting actually. If you want help with such a task, you should contact RemObjects and tell them what you intend. I'm sure they will be more than helpful knowing what a milestone this would be for them.
If we talking about XBOX, much still depends on my publisher.
My current project is very large (first and third person steering, 11 types of vehicles, newton physics) and it would be better to use Oxygene for something smaller... in the beginning.

[mobilus]

http://youtu.be/lkdigqC4s7Q


A small video about rendering process:
http://youtu.be/lkdigqC4s7Q

[WILL]

Very cool! This is some exciting stuff we're seeing here. Great visuals!

How long has this development been in the works?

Can you talk more about the specific details of the engine and what types of graphical effects, shading and other filters it'll support?

This video looks like a major step up from the original screenshots you posted at the start of the thread.

[mobilus]

Thank you WILL for improving my last post.

I'm working on the engine since November 2010 (17 months?). 8 - 16 hours a day, everyday.
The engine is written for simulator game - Construction Machines (bulldozer, excavator, concrete pump, crane etc), but expanded to include many other features, such as moving a character (First Person Steering and 3rd Person Steering = First Person Camera and 3rd Person Cameras (free around and follow camera)) and the ability to quickly build any vehicles with any mechanisms. A player can enter to any vehicle and control it.

I use Turbo Delphi and the base of the engine is GLScene from 2009/2010 (OpenGL 2.x), but I don't use visual components (how many people had problems with installing GLScene in Delphi? - in Turbo Delphi is not even possible) - everything is created dynamically and GLScene is treated as a framework (properties editors are created individually with a focus on the minimum). Just a few things have changed in GLScene, as the calculation of Bounding Box for Frustum Culling (with Shadow Maps).


THRONE ENGINE (In fact, it's not engine yet, but it's close)
Throne consists of: WYSIWYP Editor/Engine and (Empty) Game Module.

FEATURES:

PHYSICS:
- Newton Game Dynamics 2.x - thanks to Sasha Willems for wrappers. (I saw that NGD is already implemented in GLScene. When I started there was a few files with some code for NGD)
- Compound Editor for Compound collisions - some objects, like excavator bucket, can't use a standard Convex Hull collision type.
- Complex joints for Pipes - cables for mechanisms.

SHADERS (Forward Rendering)
MATERIALS:
The engine does not have a network shader editor, but a collection of ready to use GLSL shaders. In fact, only a few of them are really useful.
- GLSLShadow - Shadow Mapping (color map + shadow map + fog + vertex color)
- GLSLBump - Bump Mapping (color map + specular map + normal map + shadow map + fog + vertex color)
- GLSLParallax - Parallax Mapping (color map + specular map + normal map + height map + shadow map + fog + vertex color)
- GLSLSphere - Environment Mapping (color map + specular map + normal map + sphere/environment map + shadow map + fog + vertex color)
- GLSLMetal - Procedural Mapping (sphere/environment map + shadow map + fog + vertex color)
Additional shaders (do not pay attention to names):
- GLSLSaturation
- GLSLToon
- GLSLAdaptativeAA
- GLSLMetaballs
- GLSLMask
- GLSLLightmap
- GLSLBumpMapSL_LM
- GLSLNormalMapTS
- GLSLFog
- GLSLBumpMapML
- GLSLBumpMapTS
- GLSLSphereMap
- GLSLSphereMapNS

POST-PROCESSING:
PBO:
- Underwater
- Sharpen
- Fullscreen Blur
- Sobel Edge Blur
- Telescopic Blur
- Bloom
- Film Grain
- Saturation (+gamma)
- FXAA 1.0 low profile
- FXAA 3.1 high profile

FBO:
- SSAO + Vignette
- HDR + automatic Tone Mapping
- Light Scattering
- automatic Bokeh Depth of Field / or standard Depth of Field
- Color Correction

COMPLEX OBJECTS/MECHANISMS:
- Caterpillar
- Gantry
- Concrete Pump
- Procedural Vegetation (can grow)
- Details

GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE:
Three-dimensional gui responsive to the position of the mouse; Fonts can be (for now must be) generated in AsphyreFont Tool and converted to Throne; Support for UTF-8; Auto-translating from dictionary.
COMPONENTS:
- Panel
- Image
- Button
- Label
- RollingText
- Edit

VERTEX COLOR:
- Vertex Ambient Occlusion Editor
- Vertex Painter

OPTIMIZATION:
- BBox Frustum Culling and Sphere Frustum Culling for/With Shadow Maps
- LOD Textures (pre-resampling is created automatically)
- LOD Meshes (not yet implemented, but it is possible; this is my priority for further days. I would also do it automatically)

SOUND:
- Squall Library - I love this library, I never had any problems with it and works well in 3D space.

RESOURCES:
- The whole game is packaged and sent to the game module by clicking one button PACKAGE ALL or can be packaged partially (for example, PACKAGE level1.map).
(The engine has its own resource folders and the game has its own file folders - disused sources are not located in the game folder - this is verified automatically when the resources are packaged.)

MORE IMPORTANT TOOLS/EDITORS:
- Material Editor
- Import/Export vehicles and other parts of map (duplicated names are automatically changed)
- Player Editor (walk speed, run speed, jump power, etc.)

SUMMARY:
- So far, I take great pleasure from working in this engine - is simple and clean (Picture 1)


In a week or two I will put a video from the editor.

[SilverWarior]

Verry cool video.
Could you be so kind to add text or atleast anotations teling wich efects are used at wich stage of the video. I belive that this way it could become verry educational.

[mobilus]

The video has a description on YouTube channel, but I can expand it a bit here:

1. Wireframe View
2. Solid View
3. Pre-Computed Ambient Vertex Occlusion + corrections (Vertex Painter)
4. Texture Mapping
5. Shadow Mapping (Real-Time Computed Soft Shadow Maps)
6. Material Shaders (GLSLParallax for ground and house walls, GLSLEnvironment for container, GLSLShadow for procedural vegetation, GLSLBump for the rest)

POST-PROCESSING (all FBO effects are automatic/dynamic, for example: radius of the ambient occlusion depends on the distance between the camera and the observed object):
7. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (FBO) + Vignette (FBO)
8. HDR (FBO) + Tone Mapping (FBO)
9. Light Scattering (FBO) + Film Grain (PBO)
10. Bokeh Depth of Field (FBO)
11. Simple Motion Blur from GLScene
12. Bloom (PBO) - unnecessary at this video (too many bloom)
13. Color Correction (FBO) - saturation, gamma, RGB

[SilverWarior]

Haven't seen description on youtube becouse of video embeding. But still I think adding anotation would be verry nice.

[mobilus]

Map Editor:


http://youtu.be/P51bauLNLho

[de_jean_7777]

Whoah, that's amazing.

[Cybermonkey]

I just can say: AWESOME!

[AirPas]

nice gui , is it yours ?

[azrael11]

Great work... just amazing...

[Ñuño Martínez]

Wow. I mean. Wow. :o

[SilverWarior]

Great work

[WILL]

Damn, I can only think of what kind of user generated content game you could make this this engine. :)

Too cool! Way to show off Pascal code. I think this and the Genesis Device demo engine are neck and neck for best real-time visual 3D graphics made with Pascal code ever! :)

...actually I think there was a couple that came close too. All I can say is that this is extremely impressive.

[mobilus]

Thanks guys!

nice gui , is it yours ?
No, it's "Concave XP Theme".

[mobilus]

Throne Engine - Debut Trailer:


http://youtu.be/O1GjnzAGvgk

[Cybermonkey]

"Awesome", is the only word that comes to my mind ...

[de_jean_7777]

Most awesome indeed.

[phibermon]

Excellent work! the graphics are indeed impressive but what's amazed me the most is the maturity of the real time editing functions. The level of integration of the physics and the various customized modules (how cool is the caterpillar track thing?) blew my mind, it represents some good design with focus on easing asset creation. This is great stuff, with such tools you can do more, quicker.. really handy if you're working alone or in a small team and want to go that one step further in terms of scope.

[SilverWarior]

Not so long ago someone sad that Pascal need some uber engine. I think that your engine is just that.

Absolutely amazing work you have done on it. Keep up the good work and I'll definitly be a potentional user of it for my game development in the future.

[Luuk van Venrooij]

WOW this is certainly some VERY impressive stuff! Together with Tower22 (http://www.tower22game.com) and GAEL (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLvHAfcAP5Q&list=UUYC5LnZSeesE7Cyul_K_Gvg&index=1&feature=plcp) some of the BEST pascal engine/graphics development ever! Going to keep an eye on this:)

@Will
While Genesis Device was impressive in the day I would say that this is impressive * 1000:D

[vgo]

Awesome! :)

[Super Vegeta]

Art thou a spellcaster?

Absolutely astonishing piece of work.

[pstudio]

Yeah that looks really good. I can't say if this is/will become an über engine but you have surely created an impressive engine so far.

[WILL]

So when do we get to read or hear about this game engine in full. What it's uses are and what overall capabilities it will have and what platforms people can use it on. Is it just for GameCask's future titles OR will it be license-able to other game developers too?

[mobilus]

I've made video about the engine, but it's not 100% engine yet - a script engine is not connected.
I experimented with Lua and PascalScript, and PascalScript was my favorite. Unfortunately, it was impossible to use it with other platforms so I waited (for Lua4Delphi) and wondered (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/showthread.php?13417-A-few-reflections-on-Oxygene-and-Pascal).
"pstudio" opened my mind yesterday with news "RemObjects Script for .NET: Managed JavaScript and Pascal Script for .NET and Mono" so I can managed "Pascal Script" to other platforms and have one script for all renderers - this is only theory for now, but if it succeeds, it will be able to write THRONE renderers for the following platforms: PSVita, Xbox, iOS, MacOSX, Android.
It sounds like a lot of hours of work, but I'm going to use ready-made frameworks: XNA, very similar PSVita SDK and MonoGame.

I don't know what I would do in the next few years, but my current plan looks like this:
- write renderers
- write sprite engine for all those renderers with this same names and properties,
- write 2D physics engine for C# (or Oxygene) with this same names and properties,
- write some help classes for sound engines with this same names and properties,
- connect "PascalScript for .Net" to renderers,
- connect "PascalScript" to THRONE (SynEdit, RTTI reader),
- write scripts with THRONE,
- make 2D games with THRONE (editor) and export them to other platforms.
Do you see any troubles at this stage? ;)


Is it just for GameCask's future titles OR will it be license-able to other game developers too?
I'm not sure about the future, so I don't really know.

[SesillaAndromeda]

Hi mobilus,

Have you news about your fantastic engine?

Regards
Sesilla

[Ñuño Martínez]

Yes, we want to know.

I'm working to create a game design studio and I want to use your engine, if possible.

[Mirage]

Such projects clearly shows that if we (or some of us) were able to unite our forces we would create something really impressive and finished.

[phibermon]

Such projects clearly shows that if we (or some of us) were able to unite our forces we would create something really impressive and finished.

I've been trying to get people to do that for the past couple of years. I think a lot of engine devs simply enjoy learning and implementing new techniques. I'm sure that we'd all like our engines to be popular but it's second place to the joy you get when you've gotten a module working well. In this sence people probably don't want to work with others on an engine because things they were looking forward to working on would be done by somebody else.

This engine is in an advanced stage of development but unfortuantly it's based upon GLScene so in order to support the platforms that are stated, you're talking something in the order of ten times the amount of work that has already been conducted.

EDIT : that is to say that the design of the GLScene renderer is old fashioned and poorly suited to GL4 for example and would probably require some work to get working on .NET derived platforms (mono etc) and you may as well join the FPC team if you think you can get things up and running on the PSVita. There's no support for the cell processors modules either so at best you're stuck to using the PowerPC64 core which instantly puts your engine at a disadvantage compared to the C/C++ ones. I did a lot of work a year or two ago getting FPC PowerPC64 compiled stuff working on the PS3 (native, not in linux) and it's unfeasible for the most part as you have to export any functionality you need and link your stuff into a C wrapper. Debugging is a nightmare plus you need a very expensive Dev kit or a hacked console.

Obviously this isn't of concern if GLScene supports those platforms too but speaking as a dev that's spent the past few years writing a core GL3/4 engine, you're not going to see that any time soon :(

[Akira13]

So, uh, what the hell ever became of this? The idea that this guy spent what seems to have been several years developing this amazing looking engine only to suddenly disappear off the face of the Earth is extremely bizarre. Anyone have any idea what happened with it? (Or with/to the author?)

[laggyluk]

Construction Machines 2014 apparently

[Akira13]

Just found it on Steam, wow! So what, did he just quit because the game turned out so terrible?

[laggyluk]

Don't know. Terrible or not kudos for finishing it.

[Akira13]

Don't know. Terrible or not kudos for finishing it.

So I just bought the game for eleven dollars, and played it for two hours or so. Not to be rude but he does NOT deserve kudos for finishing it. It's an absolute nightmare. So bad that I wouldn't be surprised if it was simply the result of some kind of money laundering scheme or other financial shadiness. There's no way anyone who actually remotely wanted to make a good game would have possibly released it. You can't even change the resolution! Like, at all. The game is permanently fixed to this awful 4:3 aspect ratio that renders at what seems to be somewhere between 800x600 and 1024X768, and simply looks dire on a 1080p monitor. The supposedly advanced physics engine doesn't exist. All of the vehicles are ludicrously faster than they should be, which makes them all feel virtually identical, and it's essentially impossible not to crash into walls. There's also no way to customize the controls. And so on and so forth........ Now, interestingly, it appears the the underlying engine itself DOES actually exist, at least in some capacity. I ran ConstructionMachines.exe through IDR and it revealed a number of what seem to be addon units for GLScene.... "THGLSLPostSaturation", "THGLSLPostBloom", "THGLSLPostFilmGrain", e.t.c. So I'm left just being really curious as to whether the engine was actually good and was simply woefully underused in the game, or whether the engine itself was bad and the game reflected that in kind? We'll probably never know, unfortunately!

[laggyluk]

No kudos then. If it's that terrible then maybe it was released only to finalize the deal with publisher? I know the name from local market and word is it puts quantity over quality

[turrican]

Construction Machines 2014 apparently

But they released Construction Machines 2016 -> https://store.steampowered.com/app/355330/Construction_Machines_Simulator_2016/

I think they are using the same engine, but don't post any news on the forum.

[Ñuño Martínez]

But they released Construction Machines 2016 -> https://store.steampowered.com/app/355330/Construction_Machines_Simulator_2016/

I think they are using the same engine, but don't post any news on the forum. AFAIK that game is a new game developed by different company (PlayWay SA), not a sequel. Engine seems to be a different one too.

I'm sad that this ended that way. Engine looked promising. Fortunatelly we still have Castle Engine. ;D

[phibermon]

The engine at its core was GLScene - so the rendering and scene management didn't differ bar some rendering extensions - I think the most impressive part of Gamecask was the integration of the engine with the real time engine tool.

Some people put too much emphasis on game/rendering engines. Capabilities are important but in terms of creating almost any game, the content creation/editing tools play a far larger role in terms of an end product. You're going to be able to work far faster and thus have more time to focus on gameplay.

Providing your project can live with the level of graphical capability an engine provides - then ease of development including available tools should be the primary factor when choosing an engine.

Nobody would use unity if it didn't have the unity editor - without that? unity is just a poorly performing .NET based engine for less experienced coders.

The people behind Gamecask put the greater emphasis on the tools and I think that's the best call - from what I saw it was very capable, certainly its physics integration - although it appears things are not entirely what they seemed :\