Why make an new engine when you can download a pre-programmed one??? what type of question is that...obviously you will probably not become a game designer/programmer profesionally..
I am not a "Expert" programmer but one day i will. by learning to build a program/engine from the bottom up takes alot of skill and for anybody who has game/program idea and wants it to be the best and fastest on todays systems you make your own engine to tailor the wants and needs of what your game/program requires...

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what type of question is that...obviously you will probably not become a game designer/programmer profesionally..
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Quite the contrary. In the future, those who believe that they have to roll their own code for each and every project will probably not become a professional.

I say in the future for a reason. The game development industry is far behind the rest of the software development industry. For businesses, time is money. Companies can not afford to write everything they need. Instead, they purchase rewritten, predebugged, working code. This saves them money. Sooner or later, the game industry will realize that it would be beneficial for them to use prewritten code as well.

If a company buys a prewritten 3D engine, then they are saving themselves 6-18 months of work. If you would calculate this into man hours, the savings would be incredible! Instead of spending their time worrying about creating a great graphics engine, they could be creating a great *game*.

In the end, it''s the game that sells, not the engine. Sure, there are companies who sell technology to consumers, but they are the exception, not the rule. If you don''t believe me, then tell me why Starcraft is such an awesome game? Is it because it has better graphics than everyone else? Obviously Starcraft is a great game because the developers spent their time making it a great game, not a technological showcase.

Obviously, if you are interested in making the best 3D engine out there, then you should by all means spend the 12,18,24,36 months making it. However, if you are interested in creating a game, which I believe most of us are, then do some research: Find an engine, library, whatever that does low level stuff that you will need (graphics, sound, networking, etc.) and use it. It will save you a lot of time and you will get to the actual game code much sooner. Isn''t that the best part?

Game Architecture and Design is a great book and it talks about exactly this subject. I recommend it to anyone interested in game development.

As always, these are only my opinions. Flame them if you''d like.

Josh

I haven''t done any research into engines , but I say that it depends on whether or not you can find one that "fits" your project.<br>__Having said that I''ll say that reviewing 500+ engines could easily eat up a year. Unless you can easily cut down the number quickly with certain criteria, this seems a bit daunting and a waste of time.<br>__Still, if you are just starting, a pre-made does make sense, as long as you just try a few good candidates and stick with one in the end (possibly a bit tailroed by yourself.)<br>__I know I''d be extremely hard pressed to find my "dream engine" as I know of no game that has had similar features. Personally, I''d like to write my own anyways. That way I won''t have to worry about as many headaches (technical and legal.) Maybe I should just start making a wrapper. That sounds hard enough in itself. [And I could rework the classes in to the engine afterward.]

No flames, but I heartily recommend trying to write your own engine at least once. That way, when you break out the hammer and tongs to modify the pre-build engine you bought or downloaded, you''ll have a clue of what you''re doing. Don''t kid yourself, most 3d engines were written too much with exactly one kind of game in mind. Talk to the Heretic II or System Shock II people about this one if you don''t believe me. If you can''t modify the system then you''ll probably end up compromising the game. Unless of course you want to do "just another Quake". Most people I know want to write "it''s like Quake but it has this, this and this."

Well now Josh, its a little bit trickier than that. Even in the business world...

Currently, I develop 3 tier applications using MTS, sql server, and vb front end. (there''s an asp front end too, but I don''t want to know anything about that...)

Anyway, before this version there was only one other developer besides me. We didn''t know about MTS. We knew it would do somethings for us, but we didn''t know what special circumstances would arise. So we said screw it.

And I wrote my own transaction server in VB. It was primitive at its time compared to MTS, but it also had certain things that MTS didn''t have. Just little things at the time, but we were going to include a really cool way to do record locking, and I was going to make the object brokering much more sophisticated.

Than we hired a guy, who said, why do that just use MTS! It will do all that stuff for you so you can focus on writing code.

Its almost true. But you have to code for the engine. And in this case, I have to code for ways MTS does things, that I wouldn''t prefer they get done.

But I wouldn''t know that if I hadn''t ever built something close to it. I didn''t have to acheive a product of the same level to see the limitations. Just to have built enough to see what could be done.

If you want to make the same old generic fps type game then go ahead and use someone elses engine, there are tons of them out there (never as good as the game they are trying to copy). If you want to make a great game with a new concepts etc etc... then make your own.

Technology will not advance if everyone uses others code.

Why are people using anything above the first version of internet explorer? The first one worked didn''t it? Same with the first version of windows.

If I wanted to make a new operating system, should I purchase the source code for windows? No. What I would end up with is exacly the same as what you are using now.

Why do you assume that all games using a single engine must look identical?

How many Win32 game programmers use DirectX? Almost all of them. They don''t all look the same do they? I realize that using DirectX is different than using a 3D engine, but I hope you see my point.

Just because two games use the same engine does not neccessarily mean they are going to play the same. This is where game design is important.

If your game design consists of something along the lines of "It''ll be like Quake, but with this feature and that feature and blah, blah, blah", you''re going to end up with yet another Quake clone. However, if you take the time to actually design from the ground up, then you''ll most likely come up with something different than Quake... that is, if that''s what you want.

If you want to learn 3D, then I would recommend building your own 3D engine. But remember, there is more to a game than graphics. Nowadays, since most 3D games look the same anyway (at least in the same genre), gameplay is becoming much more important. Games are now being judged by their gameplay and artificial intellegence. I''ll tell you, I couldn''t be happier! I was getting tired of hearing about how great a game was just because it looked pretty... "Gameplay, who needs gameplay? Check out these graphics!" If I want to see cool special effects, I''ll go see a good movie.

I guess I should probably make something more clear. I do not believe that every aspect of a game should be written by someone else. Only you know what your game really needs. If your game requires a very specialized graphics engine to enhance the gameplay , then spend the time to build it. However, you really should spend some time looking around for a prewritten engine that could suit your needs.

Again, my perhaps not-so-humble opinions.

Josh

There are two types of game developers. One type want to build games quickly, the other want to work with technology. For those who are fluent in C/C++, have 3d math knowledge, and have done simple 3d in DX, Glide, OpenGL and want to build game quickly then go to http://www.genesis3d.com/ and download their GDemo first, then see if you like to use their free 3d engine based on how you liked gdemo. I think GDemo is very cool. For genesis3d, I''ve built a right leg of my actor in free TrueSpace 1.04, then converted the .cob file int .act file that genesis3d uses with TrueGene 0.8 free from Klaus Zerbe, then I built a simple room in genesis editor and coded it in c++ from scratch, then I imported into my room my actor''s animated right leg which I can move now up and down with the up arrow key.

All this in about a week of learning the api and figureing out how things work (truespace, truegene, actorviewer) together. I''ve had a lot of fun and I believe others will too. Genesis forum is a gold mine for information, so use the search engine to look up info. I recomend building a simple level with the gtest or gdemo as a code base then let yourself loose and code your own game without using gtest or gdemo.

I also like to mess with algos in DX and wrote my mini engine/editor for myself which helped me understand most of how 3d engines work on inside. However I don''t have the time to code my own 3d engine from scratch so I opted for genesis and so far I like it. As I get to do more advanced stuff in genesis, time will tell if it''s worth to continue or build my own 3d engine again. Hope my post helps some of you out there

P.S. Genesis gtest and gdemo come with lots of free textures and .wav files. Also visit GenTex3d at http://www.gentex3d.freeuk.com/ for more free textures and Graphtallica at http://graphtallica.ingava.com/ for even more textures. Also check out genesis 2 editor since it has some textures and .wav files. For genesis 2 engine check out Jet3D website. Jet3D is also open source engine as is genesis3d, the only thing with genesis3d is that you must show their logo inside your game and on the retail box, but that''s it. You don''t have to pay anyone, also with genesis3d v1.1 if you modify the "engine" code then you have to release those modifications with your game, but you keep the game source code you''ve written using genesis api to yourself.

Jerry

I''ll make this simple. SOMEONE has to write a 3d engine. If people don''t take the time to learn how and just use available ones, looks like we''ll be stuck with what we got.

My opinion is this: If a already created engine suits your project and you already have a good understanding of how engines work, then by all means use it. But if you don''t understand how an engine works, you shouldn''t be using someone elses engine without an understanding of whats going on. Another reason not to use an engine is because it might not suit your project. I''m writing my own little landscape engine right now, and I doubt Genesis 3D would help me at all.

I guess my point is: If you can, use another engine. But if it doesn''t suit you, then write your own.

--TheGoop