3D Game Engines

Game Engines

What is a game engine?

A game engine is a software framework used for the creation and running of video game. Some of the benefits of a game engine are the physics engine for simulating complex physics such as the flight of an arrow or collision detection, a rendering engine for 2D or 3D graphics, sound, artificial intelligence, etc.

Game engines usually have components that allow for the easy creation of games within the engine. For example Unreal Engine 4 uses a system called Blueprints in an attempt to create streamlined programming that is easier to follow at first glance. (Pictured Below)

It also features a creation utility to more easily create the level structure and environment. Within software like Unreal Engine 4 there are several landscaping tools that make building up a convincing landscape far easier. It allows you to create a landscape of a custom size and location and use the sculpting tools such as the “Sculpt, Smooth, Flatten, etc” tools. These tools allow you to manipulate the ground into different shapes and formations on which to add more detailed models such as trees, rocks, buildings, etc into the scene. There is more information on sculpting tools here:

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Landscape/Editing/SculptMode/index.html

Game engines are often used economically as they take a long time and many resources to create. Franchises are often built upon a certain game engine as it makes it easier to create titles in a shorter space of time with the same game engine. The Assassin’s Creed franchise is built upon the Anvil game engine. All of the games are built upon an iteration of this game engine and as the needs of the developers change the game engine must be reworked to fit those needs.

What game engines are available what do they do?

Unreal engine 4

Unreal Engine 4 is the successor to the wildly popular Unreal Engine 3 that was used for an extremely large amount of games in its lifetime. UE was developed by Epic, a company known for the creation of the Unreal game engine and games such as Unreal Tournament and Gears of War. It uses the extremely powerful C++ programming language.

• DirectX 11 & 12 Rendering Features
• Cascade Visual Effects
• New Material Pipeline
• Blueprint Visual Scripting
• Live Blueprint Debugging
• Content Browser
• Persona Animation
• Matinee Cinematics
• Terrain & Foliage
• Post-Process Effects

• Full Source Code Access
• Professional Source Control
• C++ Code View
• Hot Reload Function
• Simulate & Immersive Views
• Instant Game Preview
• Possess & Eject Features
• Artificial Intelligence
• Audio
• Leading Middleware Integrations

Unity 5

Unity is a cross-platform game engine that has been used to create games for PC, mobile, consoles and websites. Developed by Unity Technologies this engine uses the more versatile C# programming language and so is arguably easier to learn and leads to faster development of projects. The engine was created to be versatile and create either 2D or 3D applications.

• The Physically-based Standard Shader to make your materials look consistent in any lighting environment, cross platform.
• Real-time Global Illumination, built on Geomerics Enlighten technology.
• The Audio Mixer, to massively improve audio in your game.
• HDR Reflection Probes to enhance visual fidelity.
• PhysX 3.3 to bring massive performance improvements to 3D physics.
• Major updates to the animation system.
• WebGL preview.

CryEngine

CryEngine is a less popular, but still powerful gaming engine used for games such as the Crysis series and Ryse: Son of Rome. It was developed by the German developer Crytek originally for their triple A game Far Cry. Ubisoft uses a heavily modified version of CryEngine for the more recent games in the Far Cry series.

For a full list of features see below:

http://cryengine.com/features