Unit 70: Computer Game Engines

Game Engines

Definition of Game Engines:

A Game Engine is a software which is used to develop a video game. Each game engine has different styles and are usually focused on a certain style or genre. These game engines will be used to make games for consoles, mobile devices and personal computers. The main functionality for a game engine usually includes a rendering engine which gives the designer the option of a 2D or 3D graphics. A physics engine or collision detection, sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, threading, memory management, localisation support and scene graph.

Game Engines: Unreal, Unity, Crytec, RAGE, Quake, Foss, Gamebryo etc.

Unreal Engine: 
Supported Platforms: Windows PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Mac OS X, Mobile Devices, steam, VR, Oculus Etc.

The Unreal Engine was created by Epic Games, first showcased in 1998 (as a first-person shooter).

This game engine is primarily made for first person shooters it has been successful in many different other genres. 

This engine became popular due to its modular architecture and the inclusion of the scripting language called "UnrealScript" which made it easy to mod games, including total conversations like Tactical Ops. While Unreal Engine 3 has been quite open for modders to work with, the ability to publish and sell games made using UE3 was restricted to licensees of the engine, However in November 2009, Epic released a free version of UE3's SDK, called the "Unreal Development kit" that was available to the general public. 

All the lighting done in UE are calculated by (per-pixel) instead of per-vertex. When rendering in UE it also provides support for gamma-correct high-dynamic range renderer.

On March 19, 2014 at the Game Developers Conference, Epic Games released Unreal Engine 4, and all of its tools, features and complete C++ source code, to the development community through a new subscription model. Anyone can sign up for UE4 for windows, OS X, iOS and Android by paying $19 per month, plus 5% of gross revenue resulting from any commercial products built using UE4
The Engine builds on the tools available from previous versions of the engine. Which makes it so advanced. The first game to be released on console using Unreal Engine 3 was "Gears of War" and the first game released for PC was "RoboBlitz".

Unreal Engine has evolved much better than most other engines, due to it trying to grab a big audience. Each time Unreal Engine has upgraded its version, either the support or choices are increased. This has made the Unreal Engine reliable to most people using the engine that will download the next version when it's released. Since Unreal Engine 1 came out to Unreal Engine 4, the choices and customer support has improved dramatically. The Engine is continuing to stay new to developers and trys to offer things that other engines cannot such as; the chance to create a game using blueprints for a VR game which is very popular right now. With a range of items for the VR that can be bought in there store to help out the designing progress of their VR-game.

Unity:
Supported Platforms: Mobile Devices, Nintendo, PlayStation 4/ Vita, Windows, Wii, Xbox 360/One Etc.

Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies and used to develop video games for PC, consoles, mobile devices and websites. This was first announced only for OS X, at apples Worldwide Developers Conference in 2005, it has since been extended to target 21 platforms.

Nintendo provides free licenses of Unity 5 to all licensed Nintendo developers along with their software development kits SDKs for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS Family.

Unity 4.0 was officially released on November 13, 2012 Major new features including new "Mecanim" animation system, Direct 11 support and real-time shadows on mobile platforms. With the new releases of Unity 4.0 the company announced a shift towards a release cycle which would see versions be released with fewer features but at a faster rate. More than 1.5 million people are using unity for graphics on their iOS,l android, console, PC and web based games. Unity wants to be a multi-platform game engine.

Unity 5.0 was released for free on March 3, 2015, adding the much anticipated real-time global illumination based on the Geomerics Enlighten technology. Other major changes include physically based shades, HDR sky-boxes, reflection probes, a new audio mixer with effects and enhanced animator workflows. Unity's cloud build system was introduced for ($25/month for non-pro users) as well as "Game Performance Reporting" and the beta "Game Analytics" (same costs) which logs players usage and performance on released games, something that many developers found hard to implement in Unity 4.x. Previously, a game developer needed to code support for player logging directly into their game engine.
Unity has evolved in a great way, however when it comes to 3D designing or realistic graphics the Unreal Engine takes the lead. Many people say that Unity is lacking options when 3D games are involved although Unity has increased its stores and blueprints the game engine itself needs more work if it wants to compete with Unreal Engine 4 and others. Unity and Unreal Engine are one of the most popular choices for those independent individual developers. This is why Unity and Unreal are always competing to be the better engine for the public. Unity focuses more on the choices and options available to the developer rather than the actual detail in the game. Many people that are beginners are more likely to go to unity as it gives you art assets and code which would be great for easy designing, however Unreal Engine is still good for beginners as they give you tutorials and gives you information on what you have highlighted, yet still involves you doing most of the work compared to Unity.     

CryEngine:
Supported Platforms: Windows, PlayStation 3/4, Xbox 360/One, Wii U, Mobile Devices Etc.

CryEngine is a engine that was made by a German game developer "Crytek". It has been used in all of their titles with initial version being used in Far cry and other games such as Star Citizen.

On March 11, 2009 the German/ Turkish game studio Crytek announced that it would introduce CryEngine 3 at 2009 Game Developers Conference, held from March 25 to march 27. As of June 1, 2009 it was announced that Crysis 2 would be developed by Crytek on their brand new engine. CryEngine 3 was released on October 14, 2009.

Crytek announced on September 9, 2011 that they would be using CryEngine 3 Network on October 4 2011.

On August 21, 2013, Crytek re-branded CryEngine (starting from version 3.6.0) to simply "CryEngine" With no version number. This was changed due to this newer engine being complete different to its previous designs. However the development kits available to licences still use version numbers.

On March 22, 2016, Crytek announced a new version of CryEngine, called CryEngine V, which features native DirectX 12, Vulkan and Virtual reality (VR) support. Additionally, a new licensing model was introduced with a "pay what you want" model for usage and access to the source code. CryEngine is completely focused on the public and offers a range of choices for them. Like most engines there are stores and assets, however what makes this standout is that it has a big focus on "Mods" which the public can try and create. Most engines wont allow or guide you to do this which makes CryEngine a popular choice for those players that want to change or edit something in the original game. For example placing zombies in a GTA game would be modding, and with this engine the mod would be in the store and if not, there would be mods for the items such as the buildings or zombies themselves for you to use as you please.

RAGE:
Supported Platforms: Xbox 360/One, PlayStation 3/4, Mac, Windows.

(Rockstar Advanced Game Engine)

Rage is a game engine developed by Rage technology group at Rockstar San Diego with contributions by other Rockstar studios. The engine has been used on several different platforms such as Microsoft windows, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and the Xbox One. RAGE initially evolved from the Angel Game Engine Originally developed by Angel Studios for Midtown Madness and later the sixth generation console era versions of the Midnight Club series and other Rockstar San Diego games. 

(This Engine is not open for the public)

Rockstar has integrated a few third party middle-ware components into RAGE like the proprietary Euphoria character animation engine and the open-source Bullet physics engine. Prior to RAGE, Rockstar mostly used Criterion Games Render-Ware Engine to develop various game titles. Since the release of Max Payne 3, the engine supports DirectX 11 and stereoscopic 3D rendering on the PC platform. Due to its main succession in GTA the game engine focuses on 3rd person, world wide environment vehicle based game. Which is seen on every game they have released using this engine, (Red Dead Redemption) and (Max Payne).

Game Maker:
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Mobile Devices.

Developed by YoYo Games, a wealth of titles have been created through 2D development platform GameMaker, including Gunpoint, Hotline Miami, Spelunky and super crate box.
Last Month is was announced that GameMaker: Studio would be free for all PlayStation platforms. The tech has support for PSN features and licences peripherals including controllers, control inputs and cameras, for those developing on other platforms, a hot of licences are available.

GameMaker accommodates the creation of cross-platform and multi-genre video games using drag and drop action sequences or a sand-boxed scripting language known as GameMaker language, which can be used to develop more advanced games that could not be created just by using the drag and drop features, GameMaker was designed to allow novice computer programmers to be able to make computer games without much programming knowledge. The Engine system requirements are low and it doesn't require you needing a high spec computer to use it.
Originally titled "Animo", the program was first released in 1999. Then later on changed to "GameMaker".

Comparisons: (Unreal Engine Vs Unity)

When designing is involved each engine has its weakness and its strengths, for example:

Unity and Unreal engine are both great engines and are both popular in the indie market, they both are likely to get the job done when designing a game, however one engine maybe better. Unity is most likely seen on mobile devices as it shows its dominance there, Unity has many 2D options available for designers and for that reason it is more popular than UE3, However UE3 is expanding their options to the public by adding in new 2D options however Unity is still arguably better when 2D games are involved.

When designing a game is involved this can matter, Unity is the better choice for those people who want to experiment and expand their designing skills, Unreal Engine is more serious and is used on the much larger games. When prices are involved both can be free in different situations such as being in college. Unreal engine is a little bit more on the asking price for users and may only be an option for those that have a high budget. When designing a 3D game Unity is very powerful however Unreal Engine is much better in graphic terms, and so if you don't require the next gen level graphics then Unity maybe the better option rather than using a engine that can do much more.

When asset stores are involved they both have them and offer much add-on's. However Unity comes on top on this one due to its large store and variety of choices.

Unreal Engine offers a visual scripting blueprint which is in the engine, this allows the designer to use the blueprints instead of creating any code, which would be much easier to make a game than most engines due to code being so difficult.


(CryEngine / RAGE) These are totally different engines as they both have different primarily aims. CryEngine is a great engine for modding and games that are "sandbox" style. CryEngine encourages people to make their own mods of the game, so that people would use the engine more and that its different to most engines as it's designed to be used for modding purposes.
Originally the CryEngine software development kit was called "Sandbox Editor".
On the other hand RAGE is made for the company and they wont give it to anyone without copyright being an issue. This engine is designed for them and for that reason the engine has one primary objective, which is to focus on a realistic world (map) that is styled in first-person. This engine isn't designed for people to use as they please and is only used for actual designing in there company.
There engine allows modding but they don't promote it.

GameMaker is focused on helping independent developers design games, which most individual designers would struggle with. This engine is easy to learn and offers a range of easy shortcuts to create a great game, an example is drag and drop function which allows the designer to not need to create any code by themselves. The primary focus on this engine is to help designers create easy yet good developed games. This engine is usually used by developers that have just started designing and dont have much knowledge about code. GameMaker is great in this way as it's a starting point for most developers, and is most likely to be chosen out of the engines I have already spoken about. GameMaker is a engine that only focuses on 2D games, which makes this engine amazing if you want to design a 2D game, however this engine doesn't offer any help or guidance towards 3D games and that's why this engine is slightly forgotten.

In my opinion the Unreal Engine is my favourite engine as it welcomes any independent individual developer that needs some help designing a 3D game help and guidance. The Engine also offers a range of items in the store that you can get for free or purchase. This also has many blueprints already available to you which can make it easier on designing when you have a certain type of game in mind. The graphics in the engine can be amazing as it can make any type of style of game or art.

Where Some Of My Research Was Found:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameMaker:_Studio
http://www.develop-online.net/tools-and-tech/the-top-16-game-engines-for-2014/0192302