3D engines

[Allanon]

Yes, that is true, but you can't buy a commercial license of UDK (yet).

UDK is the Unreal Engine 3 which has been used it many games. So you can buy a commercial license but it will cost.

[Matte]

The UDK isn't really the same as UE3, it's UE3.5: it has extra features, such as lightmass. Licensing UE3 for a lot of money isn't the same as licensing UDK.

[Allanon]

The UDK isn't really the same as UE3, it's UE3.5: it has extra features, such as lightmass. Licensing UE3 for a lot of money isn't the same as licensing UDK.

Doesn't really matter but their site states:

What is it?

UDK is Unreal Engine 3 – the complete professional development framework. All the tools you need to create great games, advanced visualizations and detailed 3D simulations. The best tools in the industry are in your hands.

Plus you can get a commercial license:
http://www.udk.com/licensing

[Allanon]

Been playing around with Panda3d for the last week and it seems like a great engine. It's free and seems to have all the features most pay engines have. It is multi-platform and you can program using C++ or Python. Has full documentation and a lot of sample programs. This isn't a click and play engine, programming is required.

Panda3D is a scene graph engine so you use other modeling programs to build geometry and characters then import them in to Panda3d. It has integrated ODE for physics. It can use both OpenGL or Direct3d and uses FMOD, OpenAL or Miles Sound System for sound. It also has support for networking.

According to Wikipedia Panda3d was created by Disney VR Studio for uses with the "Aladdin's Magic Carpet" attraction and has been used on other attractions. Later it was used for Toontown Online and Pirates of the Caribbean Online. It was open sourced in 2002 but Disney VR Studio still did the bulk of development. Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center attached itself to the project and helps polish the code, write documentation, and add certain high-end features such as shaders.

[Allanon]

Check out Maratis, it's open source and is billed as a portable, simple and visual game development tool designed for artists and developers. It has an editor that allows you to place items in to a scene and adjust their properties. It also allows you to set up simple game mechanics such as follow another object. You can use Lua script to create games. Plus it has built in physics. This engine still needs a lot of work but it's well on it's way to being an easy to use game builder.

[bernie]

Check out Maratis,

Its got a long way to go. It uses its own .mesh format and the only modelling program that is supported is Blender 2.49 and no other support in the pipeline. In my opinion it won't get off the ground until it has decent modeller support.

[Allanon]

Blender supports almost every free format, so using Blender to export models is not a limitation. Use any modeling software you want and just use blender as an exporter, just like RF uses Milkshape3d and Equity to convert models. But I agree it does have a long way to go.

[bernie]

Blender may import and export a lot of formats but the big problem with Blender is its interface. I personally have never yet been able to import a model into blender with texture and/or animation, let alone export it. The interface for blender is so complicated it is impossible for an artist to understand unless he is a computer nerd. On top of all this the import export functions are always broken when they update Blender which makes it useless as a converter.

[Allanon]

Blender may import and export a lot of formats but the big problem with Blender is its interface. I personally have never yet been able to import a model into blender with texture and/or animation, let alone export it.

I like Blender's new interface, it is a lot like 3dsmax which is the industry standard.

Edit:
Using Blender version 2.56 Beta, I was able to import obj, 3ds, and COLLADA models that I downloaded from turbosquid.com. And was also able to add textures to all that had them. Previous Alpha releases had trouble importing because the importers were not fully converted to Python 3.0, but now they seem to work. I didn't test the exporters.

[Allanon]

The CryENGINE 3 SDK is now free to use and has a similar license as the UDK SDK. It's the engine used to create Crysis 2.

[Allanon]

Visual3d Game Engine looks good.

[Veleran]

except and unity,neoaxis there is ShiVa web edition...and gamestart ,some of the lower priced engines that look less complicated to use

ShiVa3d free web edition,no level of details and such,although without lod you cant do much.
I think you want to go commercial you have to pay around 200$ for the basic edition.

http://www.stonetrip.com/shiva-editor.html
editor,although i dont know exactly ,the web edition might miss some features of that editor in the video,maybe not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUAGLULM ... re=related

http://www.stonetrip.com/developer/242- ... -making-of

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCgMCupq_x0

http://www.haven4gamerz.com/2010/03/29/ ... eb-player/

And,there is always Gamestart3d http://www.gamestart3d.com/

http://gamestart3d.com/blog/tig-source- ... adline-met

i think gamestart is still in alpha phase.
for 3darcade-puzzle games ,neoaxis looks good,
and maybe shiva is more easy to add into ready existing mmo clients.

From user reviews i ve read,ShiVa3d is almost popular like unity3d but much faster to use ,and easier.

[Veleran]

devmaster
http://devmaster.net/devdb/engines
and there
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?a ... ic=21471.0
give some tips you should know before trying engines
i noticed that there s delta3d but i do not know yet if it supports mobile ios

[Veleran]

I switched looking to the free open source ones and i read that
maratis3d has now support for 3dsmax although that is still under development.

[Allanon]

Just found Platinum Arts Sandbox Free 3D Game Maker, it's an open source easy to use standalone 3D Game Maker and 3D Game Design program currently based on the Cube 2 engine. I watched some tutorials and it looks like it has a WYSIWYG editor and the webpage states it has a scripting language for making games.