Why wasn't this game created using the Unreal Engine?
SittingBear
Join Date: 2012-11-11 Member: 169620Members
Join Date: 2012-11-11 Member: 169620Members
Dear NS2 Forums,
This game could have the same capabilities, if not better, if it were created using the Unreal Engine. Licensing wouldn't cost that much at all (look up UDK Showcase or UDK Licensing). Everything this game does could be done smoother, better and be a lot more optimized in the Unreal engine. The only downside would be custom user-mods like UI mods might not exist. Though it is possible to create maps, create other little addons like extra buildings and things within the Unreal Engine itself.
I really don't understand why the Unreal Engine wasn't used. To me, there was really no excuse why not especially considering the following:
- Easier and better creation/usage of Model Permutations (Players could choose their models, the Unreal Engine allows this to be done very easily).
- Movement in high-ping servers would be smoother due to better lag compensation.
- Ambient Occlusion would not be nearly as system intensive.
- Lighting would be better in-general and, again, less intensive on the system.
- Particles, Effects and Textures have much more capability to look very nice and, AGAIN, not cause a strain on the system using the Unreal Engine.
Overall it would run better and smoother for everyone while maintaining all the capabilities it has now.
If I am wrong please tell me why, because I honestly can't understand why this game had to be created the way it is. I was really hoping it'd run on the Unreal Engine rather than the piece of crap engine it runs on now (terribly unoptimized).
<b>EDIT:</b> Forgot to mention Scaleform would work a lot better in the Unreal Engine so flash wouldn't cause as much strain on the system either.
This game could have the same capabilities, if not better, if it were created using the Unreal Engine. Licensing wouldn't cost that much at all (look up UDK Showcase or UDK Licensing). Everything this game does could be done smoother, better and be a lot more optimized in the Unreal engine. The only downside would be custom user-mods like UI mods might not exist. Though it is possible to create maps, create other little addons like extra buildings and things within the Unreal Engine itself.
I really don't understand why the Unreal Engine wasn't used. To me, there was really no excuse why not especially considering the following:
- Easier and better creation/usage of Model Permutations (Players could choose their models, the Unreal Engine allows this to be done very easily).
- Movement in high-ping servers would be smoother due to better lag compensation.
- Ambient Occlusion would not be nearly as system intensive.
- Lighting would be better in-general and, again, less intensive on the system.
- Particles, Effects and Textures have much more capability to look very nice and, AGAIN, not cause a strain on the system using the Unreal Engine.
Overall it would run better and smoother for everyone while maintaining all the capabilities it has now.
If I am wrong please tell me why, because I honestly can't understand why this game had to be created the way it is. I was really hoping it'd run on the Unreal Engine rather than the piece of crap engine it runs on now (terribly unoptimized).
<b>EDIT:</b> Forgot to mention Scaleform would work a lot better in the Unreal Engine so flash wouldn't cause as much strain on the system either.
Comments
True, they are paying the price for not having a mountain of development to get all the kinks out, but it's still a pretty good engine all things considered.
The Free Unreal SDK costs only 99 USD... But 25% of ALL money generated goes to Epic as well.
No Lag or anything, The whole game is eye candy for me :)
I can not see how Unreal Engine would have been much better for somebody who does not have strange problems with the game.
The Free Unreal SDK costs only 99 USD... But 25% of ALL money generated goes to Epic as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There was also the fact I don't think the Free Unreal SDK was available back then when the first started? I cannot remember.
By having their own custom engine, they can tailor it to meet their needs specifically and fine-tune / optimise it on their turns 100% without limitations.
No need for junk coding / unrequired features, and means they can quickly dev another game down the track on their own engine without worries about licencing... yes longer dev time to start-up but many gains down the track.
Now if this is true, that is quite........... Exploitable on the PC platform...
<a href="http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/10635/article/court-ruling-orders-silicon-knights-to-destroy-all-unsold-software-with-unreal-engine-code/" target="_blank">http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/10635/a...al-engine-code/</a>
The ruling states that Silicon Knights should "cease producing, distributing and destroy" the games mentioned below.
Too Human
X-Men: Destiny
The Sandman
The Box/Ritualyst
Siren in the Maelstrom
Lol at calling things you have to pay for free (even if price isn't how its meant)
From what I understand, it's completely free as long as you don't make any money from it, but as soon as you do, you haveto pay the 90 USD + 25% of all revenue.
<a href="http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/10635/article/court-ruling-orders-silicon-knights-to-destroy-all-unsold-software-with-unreal-engine-code/" target="_blank">http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/10635/a...al-engine-code/</a>
The ruling states that Silicon Knights should "cease producing, distributing and destroy" the games mentioned below.
Too Human
X-Men: Destiny
The Sandman
The Box/Ritualyst
Siren in the Maelstrom<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Keeping in mind that Silicon knights bought the UDK, and then tried to sue and steal code when they didn't like it. While the "Cease, deceast, and destroy" is extreme, and I understand your point, this is an outright awful example.
Even on my mid-range machine from a year ago, Spark runs fine with 70FPS on high, and as others have pointed out, UWE knows everything about it, and can adapt it to any need they desire. This is a significantly better option than buying an engine that didn't exist when they rolled out Spark.
That is not true. Performance is still a huge issue (both client and server).
it's not that easy, when you buy a license for an engine you buy the full support that goes with it, which include huuuge documentation and many software tools and i honestly doubt spark can compete with the next generation of engines that'll come very soon (the new source, unreal 4, luminous etc) sooo yeah i wouldn't count on it :p
Using the Unreal Engine brings up a few problems: first it certainly is harder to learn since it is not your own tech. Second it has its price and not every developer can afford it. And third: UE has to be modified in order to power a game such as NS2.
Still, it also has a few advantages: widely used in the industry, stable, highly optimized, rich feature set, etc.
Developing an own engine is quite of a risk, but i think that it paid of for NS2. The engine supports a nice amount of features, has fully dynamic lighting (drawback: performance suffers), supports ambient occlusion and is pretty stable. The best thing is that the devs know everything about the engine, and have optimized tools to build their own game with it. This allows faster iteration through different builds and so on.
The drawback is that they kinda reinvented the weel. So it does not run that well on every pc, even with fast hardware. Optimization is pretty hard, you might go and tweak the dynamic lighting code and discover that that part of the engine runs much faster, only to find out that the engine spends too much time on another part that renders the previous optimization kinda futile.
Also, you should keep in mind that writing a 3D game engine is considered one of the hardest topics in computer science. It includes topics from physics, graphics, sound, network, content management, ai, game logic and more.
And since the Engine is written by only one person (maximum two), he/they did a very good job.
Putting up a license model for the spark engine might be a bit difficult, since it could be a bit too customized towards games such as NS2. But that can only be answered by the devs themselves.
[I assume UE4 is targeted at xbox+1, so won't see the light of day for around another year]
The "big" engines in 2012 are cryengine 3/frostbite 2.... with a separate mention to "unity" (nowhere near as powerful, but interesting).
After they raised 1 million in the original preorder?
Iv made this argument before, that the majority of what we're paying for seems to be the development of spark and not the actual game. I really dont see what it actually adds, its not especially well optimised, its not got brilliant modding tools, its not super modern (doesnt have dynamic lightning etc), the physics arent any better than any other engine. So why did we have to make one? It just seems totally odd to me.
As for UE3 being dead, thats true now. But development for this started many years ago...
<!--quoteo(post=2020257:date=Nov 12 2012, 01:05 AM:name=phoenixbbs)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (phoenixbbs @ Nov 12 2012, 01:05 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2020257"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There are drawbacks to using the Unreal engine, over and above the licensing cost...
<a href="http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/10635/article/court-ruling-orders-silicon-knights-to-destroy-all-unsold-software-with-unreal-engine-code/" target="_blank">http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/10635/a...al-engine-code/</a>
The ruling states that Silicon Knights should "cease producing, distributing and destroy" the games mentioned below.
Too Human
X-Men: Destiny
The Sandman
The Box/Ritualyst
Siren in the Maelstrom<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thats because silicon knights stopped using UE3 and made their 'own' engine out of copy pasta parts from UE3, which was used on those games.
It's slower cause they had to make it from scratch, but now that they've got the engine up and running, and NS2 up and running on top of it, from now on, UWE will be able to accelerate their development much greater than if they had licensed an engine.
Huge risk at start, but big payoff and more responsive in the future.
versus
Easier start, but poorer rewards.
and what anticheat mechanisms does spark have? Infact its incredibly easy to hack because of the LUA side of things
True but what I meant is the Unreal cheating standard is pretty widescale. At least hackers would have to work towards Spark cheating. There are so many games on the Unreal engine that it's an all you can eat buffet of hack creation for so many games. However, Spark doesn't have a ton of games on it so it's less "easily available" to hack from your average hack creator. It's less "familiar".
Are you f**king serious!? No really, seriously serious, like no trolling serious?