Which game engine would you prefer !!!

Desert Rose said:
I voted for others :|...dont ask me the name of it... cos u'll die down laughing.. but i like to watch my bro playing JTa sa(whtever!)
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Though i voted for doom3, but i second that, gta sa is way more entertaining than all the 3 games combined(an engine is no good if you dont have fun :p)
 
i voted for doom3 cause i guess this is meant for sp..

but i still i think u 4got 1 of the most used engine in sp games which is q3a engine.
also for multi i would prefer hl1 engine or q3a engine.
 
Blade_Runner said:
regarding the AI part plz let me know how is AI incorporated in the game otherwise. AI doesnt only mean shoot and dodge btw, it also involves a lot of complex behaviour like interaction with environment, recognizing friendlies and such and afaik the source engine allows the level designers to control AI independently. this is different from path mapping, encounter point mapping etc i guess.
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acc to u doom 3 engine derived game would never have a good AI??
 
heman said:
acc to u doom 3 engine derived game would never have a good AI??
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Meh ! did u even bother to read ? There are core AI tasks or components which are integral part of the engine will be same all over the games using the same engine. However added programming can be done like in the case of the source engine which i mentioned here "afaik the source engine allows the level designers to control AI independently". now consider level designers are mostly work on maps and all so the AI behavior for them is simple or limited to a certain level. They can't go about changing the core components.

Most ppl blurt "hey that game has good AI" dont even realise how complex it is. The lowest levels of AI in a game come in the form of any object have finite state. For e.g. a switch has 2 finite states on and off. There are more such complex levels of AI in any game. Alternately AI can use decision tree based system, database querying, finite state, etc. A core AI can be thought of as movement AI wherein the character in the game decides where and how to move within a game environment. at core level the charcter can receive feedback from objects in the game telling the character how to react to it. At higher level a separate static path can be programmed which would use less cpu cycles and exhibit a more "bot" like behaviour rather than natural behaviour.

Phew ! I hope this clarifies ;)

In short the answer to your original Q would be yes and no depending on how much amount of good AI programming is done by the game developer. Sad thing is most game devs will focus more on graphics rather than creating a more believeable world and hence a better AI system.
 
Kudos blade... That was a good explanation...

The best AI i have seen in a game was in FarCry... FEAR DEMO also seems to have good AI... But the discussion is not on AI...

All that said... The point of discussion was to focus on the preffered engine... Doom III engine has not shown its true colors even with two games out DOOM III and ROE but still most of the people here have vote for it... I wonder why...

I dont know weather anybody amongst you have tried this but i have played all three games on two different machines

AMD XP 2400 + 512 MB + TI 4400

and

AMD 64 3200 + 1 Gig + 6800GT

and only HL2 was the game which i enjoyed at both times... FarCry i only enjoyed on my second rig while DOOM III its all togather a different story... Yes you can put it to personal perception on liking or disliking for game itself but the fact of the matter is that DOOM III was simply unplayable on the first machine with decent settings... Also on the second Rig the engine had a steam/vapour sort of effect(That you generally get on a OpenGl API) which i really didnt like... I dont know how good the engine will be with larger maps but that only time can tell...

FarCry on the other hand looked amazingly good with the second rig but it was still playable with the first rig...

People voting for DOOM III engine please mention why DOOM III...
 
I sometimes wonder why myself.

I did not like the DOOM3 even for its looks. The only good part about it was lighting effects. Thats it. Models had blocky appearance. Specially face edges. That was the sign of devlopement showing its age.

Chronicles of Riddick on other had was equally good as far as gfx and engine goes if not better ( i rate it better personally ;) ). Superb indore environment. Better models. Better movements. Looked so damn nice. I am actiually surprised noone else mentioned the starbreeze engine behind it.

Ya that engine has some limitations but it can be modified for out door environments as well.
 
heman said:
this may be a good reason-----

http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/748/748377/img_2973414.html

http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/748/748377/img_2798698.html

http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/748/748377/img_2798697.html

http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/748/748377/img_2973413.html

check out the trailer--http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/748/748377/vids_1.html

hl2 runs because its an old engine...like carmack said "the best of last gen engines"
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Thats hardly an argument mate :). Is hl2 in any way inferior to doom3 or farcry ? U name any feature that any new game has which is absent in source engine. Shaders, bump mapping, advanced effects like particles, smoke etc, skeletal and bone animation system, one of the best lip synching :lol: , physics tweaked to the max, decent AI, and a powerful SDK and toolkit.

Did i miss anything ?

And yeah dont expect Carmack to say "yeah basically the source engine was way ahead of its time and so is good to go even today ;) " Carmack is god in his own might but off lately he has been too obssessed with "Grafixs" part and getting hi-polygon count. He himself said he wanted more hi-fidelity graphics and hi-fi and crisp graphics would drive the market forward :|

@funky: the starbreeze is another good engine but i wasn't impressed with the way it handles skyboxes :p
 
i presume this thread to go quite some time....hopefully till quake 4 is released cause i really wanna see the doom 3 engine in action in quake 4 to decide between source engine and doom engine
 
Switch said:
Well said blade... The reasone for chosseing the source engine by me was the scalability factor mainly... Otherwise for both Farcry and DOOM III you need quite decent machines...

Also before seeing Gary's mod i was also not in favour of the source engine and was all set for FarCry(I still beleive its a better game then HL2 but thats a alltogather a different issue) but after seeing the mod i realised what all you can do with the game... Yes source also has its negatives cause 20x20 cube maps but then again it makes up in a lot of different areas...

@anishcool You said you liked the graphics of Doom III but seriously did you enjoy the game that much... Graphics doesnt make up for the game...
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Like you said, it's an altogether different issue.

It's public knowledge that doom3 the game was mediocre at best.
But it was excellent for what it was, dark, moody and extremely fun to load random maps and play in the dark with the sound turned up.

Although hl2 is one of the best fps's I have played,, I don't feel like playing through it again.
The levels are just too story driven.

So the gameplay aspect is very much subjective, but yeah hl2 was the better game. The sense of scale, the story, the epic strider battles, too good.

Switch said:
People voting for DOOM III engine please mention why DOOM III...
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Look beyond the gameplay, there's so much more to d3tech than what was shown, we are talking strictly engine superiority here.

Doom3's graphics were not even a proper flex from the d3tech muscle.
The damp, cramped feel was a design decision not an engine limitation as made more than obvious by how id (yet again) stamped their authority in graphics engine development with the quakewars videos.

They are not ue3 quality, but ue3 is epic's next-gen engine, this is id's current-gen!
After watching those videos I can safely say d3tech is the most advanced current-gen engine.

The outdoors were infact better than even farcry. Although it may not seem that way but you have to realise that a wartorn battlefield won't look nearly as aesthetically pleasing as a tropical island - noone makes postcards featuring maintainence shafts.

Turns out d3tech can do the paradise island look afterall (complete with the water) and added with it's unrivalled superiority in indoors rendering and unified lighting there's just no competition.
Comparatively source environments just feel too clean and synthetic when rendering natural scenes (highway 17).

There's only so much you can do with source.
Bloodlines comes to mind, it tried to use 'somewhat' bigger maps and fell flat on it's face.

The scalability of source is practically a given since the engine doesn't look any special (slick yes, but still very much 2002) even at the highest details.
Some of the levels in hl2 looked like something based on the quake3 engine with hi-res textues slapped on to them.

Valve did an extremely good job with the art style of the game and created some of the best looking urban environments for hl2. The part with the bridge, the railway yard and the look of trains etc. were simply too cool, easily the best urban environments in any game.
Full credit to their texture artists and game designers for that.

Design is law but the thread is about technology and the fancier effects are limited only to some pretty shader work seen occasionally (like the water in water hazard).
I recall someone made a ut2004 map using hl2 assets and achieved the exact same look. Someone even remade a hl2 map under doom3 and it actually ended up looking better, don't think the inverse is even possible.

Doom3 and farcry may need beefier machines but god knows it's power well spent.

While it may be agreed that all maps in doom3 look pretty much the same but just so much subtle detail is put into every nook and cranny - cables, wires, lights, lamps, broken hardware, display panels, smeared blood, overhead piping, ducts, grills, shattered glass, rails, rusted metal, dead bodies, reception terminals, random machinary and equipment...



Shots taken on medium texture detail and not as sharp as what the game has to offer.

Blade_Runner said:
Thats hardly an argument mate . Is hl2 in any way inferior to doom3 or farcry ? U name any feature that any new game has which is absent in source engine. Shaders, bump mapping, advanced effects like particles, smoke etc, skeletal and bone animation system, one of the best lip synching , physics tweaked to the max, decent AI, and a powerful SDK and toolkit.

Did i miss anything ?
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All fake shadows (not that it matters as long as things look good but the bigger picture is engine superiority here), inability to handle large maps completely, the gixxed texure handling has trouble with the single layered flat textures at high detail with 512mb ram while farcry does exactly that with 2x sharper textures + bump-glossmaps + individual detail maps for each texture.

And, what bumpmaps?

Blade_Runner said:
And yeah dont expect Carmack to say "yeah basically the source engine was way ahead of its time and so is good to go even today " Carmack is god in his own might but off lately he has been too obssessed with "Grafixs" part and getting hi-polygon count. He himself said he wanted more hi-fidelity graphics and hi-fi and crisp graphics would drive the market forward
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When discussing engine prowess, graphics is the criteria. They aren't called graphics engines for nothing.
What's the point of bringing ai, quality of character models, interactivity and gameplay into the picture, those are ever changeable depending on whichever developer is using the entire game engine package to serve it's ends.

It's a known fact id doesn't make good sp games, only techdemos.
Run-and-gun standard crap, but look at sof2 and the modern ww shooters built using the quake3 engine.

Even so hl2 does NOT have good ai (no game does except maybe sof2 and farcry), the rebels blocked far too many corridors than I would like to remember.
iirc we were promised a completely un-scripted ai, not that I am complaining (dog raping combine armored cars is up there among my top gaming moments).

And doom3's cone head models are a non-issue. Get the hi-poly patch, there's no performance hit, weird why they ever used those in the first place.
id's 3d modelling staff hasn't been top notch ever since they fired paul steed.

So aside from the facial expressions and skeletal character posing (just that though because d3tech is miles ahead in the actual character animation part, look at the imps and hellknights walking, each limb feels like it actually has some weight associated to it), I really don't see how source can even be considered for a modern graphics engine comparison. It's just too dated.

And the poll reflects that, although I am surprised only 3 people other than myself voted for cryengine.
 
How could we forget about the Unreal Engine guys?
Dont you remember the Stir UT 2003, Unreal, Unreal 2, UT2004, Created.
I can wait for the nex. gen. Unreal Engine powering UT2007!

Id say Unreal Engine is better than the Quake 3 engine.
Doom 3's is greater than Far Cry's Engine.

Source Engine is really really good. Its ahead of the time, except for the AI.
But graphics, not up to the mark. The only think i like about the Source engine are the Physics and the Lip-Synching. Its very very well done.
Oh yea, and the Source SDK Rocks too. It is very easy.

Have you heard of Tim-coop Mod? I "was" a part of it.
 
Well I voted for the doom engine purely cos of its unified lighting system and per pixel hit detection. Nothing else comes close to it in terms of tech. Its the way future engines are headed. HL2 is dated pure and simple. Lightmapping and precomputed radiosity belonged to Quake1 times and it doesnt deserve a place anymore in modern games. The only good thing about HL2 are its art assets which are a class above the rest of the games. Thats the only reason why the game looks so good. Another major downer is that unlike doom and farcry, you do not have WYSISWYG level editing. It still needs time to compile bsps before you can test out a created level. This is so very passe' cos even 2002 tech like the serious sam engine had WYSISWYG level editing. Farcry gets a mention as well cos its the most efficient terrain rendering system that i've seen till date!
 
saumilsingh said:
Shots taken on medium texture detail and not as sharp as what the game has to offer.

All fake shadows (not that it matters as long as things look good but the bigger picture is engine superiority here), inability to handle large maps completely, the gixxed texure handling has trouble with the single layered flat textures at high detail with 512mb ram while farcry does exactly that with 2x sharper textures + bump-glossmaps + individual detail maps for each texture.

And, what bumpmaps?
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For all that i'll quote somone
anything that will work on my gf2.
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All that eye candy isnt going to take your game anywhere. Imho flexibility matters. The gap between hardcore level gamers hardware and hardware that casual users have has widened, thnks to the advancements in tech. So the games that allow for most flexibility @ good enough graphics will be popular. Another thing is that the source engine has to be flexible hardware wise since it has a huge MP community and the mp in farcry and doom 3 is well not upto the mark. They focussed more on sp and hence you get the so called better graphics. Actually the perception of graphics have also changed, what one might say is good grphics the other might not.

Also this is a good article to read for anyone and especially people who consider grafixs paramount over game play http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/8/3

i'll quote the escapist mag here
Emag said:
Now one might argue, of course, that the improvement in graphical quality improves the gameplay experience so much that the cost is worthwhile. But if that's so, why was Doom so rapturously received, such a huge hit? And why do the critics basically agree that Doom III - well, it kind of sucks?
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When discussing engine prowess, graphics is the criteria. They aren't called graphics engines for nothing.

What's the point of bringing ai, quality of character models, interactivity and gameplay into the picture, those are ever changeable depending on whichever developer is using the entire game engine package to serve it's ends.
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Hehe ! Its a game engine first and foremost ! Graphics rendering are a part of it ;) Its graphics that draw the most attention and most "OMFG ! JUst look @ the game! Its awesome d00d" Most gamers just love way too much graphics rather than other imp elements in the game as well. Its just this main reason that many people have contorted the term game engine to "grafixs" engine as well.

Hehe so basically you have been also lead to believe or choose to believe that graphics are of paramount importance. Its just that we have started giving graphics way too much importance.

It's a known fact id doesn't make good sp games, only techdemos.

Run-and-gun standard crap, but look at sof2 and the modern ww shooters built using the quake3 engine.

Even so hl2 does NOT have good ai (no game does except maybe sof2 and farcry), the rebels blocked far too many corridors than I would like to remember.

iirc we were promised a completely un-scripted ai, not that I am complaining (dog raping combine armored cars is up there among my top gaming moments).
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Unscripted AI, ah every gamer's dream. I hope that turns into a reality with that Ai chip that's coming in. Farcry AI was good no doubt but was appropriately balanced. Almost godlike in later difficulty levels. This takes away from the making the game more natural.

And doom3's cone head models are a non-issue. Get the hi-poly patch, there's no performance hit, weird why they ever used those in the first place.

id's 3d modelling staff hasn't been top notch ever since they fired paul steed.

So aside from the facial expressions and skeletal character posing (just that though because d3tech is miles ahead in the actual character animation part, look at the imps and hellknights walking, each limb feels like it actually has some weight associated to it), I really don't see how source can even be considered for a modern graphics engine comparison. It's just too dated.

And the poll reflects that, although I am surprised only 3 people other than myself voted for cryengine.
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Hehe i see you are still stuck with graphics. Ok. Umm facial animation in and posing; it's easy to say that but i am sure that the facial animation and posing the source is the best and will remain till sometime. In hl2 the emphasis on not using hi-polygon models was a deliberate developer decision. They used a a muscle groups system for te face thanks to which the models in hl2 can speak in unicode :rofl: (i.e. they can be lipsynched to any language) There's also the wave pattern recognition technology which helps in a lot in this. Doom3 characters were used the interpolation technique, age old and rusty. The skeletal system is the way to go and more and more games will keep using it.

PS: i love the way the Terrorist model still keeps rolling down the floor after the player has been killed. :p

If you ask me there is no so much that graphics can do to add to gameplay and the original games and sooner or later we will reach that point. So its better that we start focusing on other aspects of the game and the game engine. I was only too happy to know that half life 2 was doing just that and the efforts are showing in the way of sales. Now if the sucky steam was eliminated then the sales would double i guess. Apparently i am also happy that the so called sucky steam will allow developers to be experimental (yippe !) once more again. Episodic content will allow for that freedom. Hopefully we will see something more useful and interesting due to such an approach.

That said if you going to quote my posts and continue with GRAFIXS then please carry on. i'd like honourably withdraw from the discussion :).Hehe i am off TE for few days as well ;)

PS: No offence to anyone. But i knew this was going to turn into a subtle argument of sorts. Also the scratchware Manifesto is a good read http://www.the-underdogs.org/scratch.php

All self respecting gamers should read it :p

EDIT: i also forgot to mention dynamic skin model and the advanced material set which i am sure most of you are fully aware. Remember the way the hovercraft glided smoothly on water and mud but roughly on dry land. This is much better than just appplying textures. A lot of nifty effects can be done since material sets include a lot for eg: how a surface will behave when it comes in contact with a player, a vehicle, how will it sound when it interacts with other objects. These are the little things that never cross the gamers mind but are going to be implemented a lot in upcoming game engines. So material behaviour can finally be non-scripted.

Dynamic skin model is basically skins changing dynamically when they react to a certain situation. For eg: A shot in the face of the hostages will create a blood mark where its supposed to be. A shot in the arm or a hand burn will do the same.
 
I dont get it guys...

You all are trying to say that source engine is not good looking... I dont know about you guys but seeing the water in the game just makes me go wild... The effects are just about amazing... Also the game physics are just about amazing... Yes it doesnt look as good as Doom III but it doesnt look bad at all...

I dont know was it just me or you guys are being ignorent... DOOM III's OpenGl API looks too cartoonish... Also didnt any of you guys had that steam/vapour effect with the game...
 
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