andrew timms: game engines

There are a wide array of different game engines out there and I am going look at some that have been used in games I have actually played as having experienced them it will make it even more interesting for me to research and maybe I will find out things that I will look out for when playing a game with said engine next time.

The rage (Rockstar advanced game engine) engine developed by yes you guessed it Rockstar games, is the engine Rockstar developed to use for the next generation consoles (360, ps3, wii and pc) titles. Previous to this they used the Render Ware engine e.g. GTA 3 through to san Andreas.

This engine can handle rendering large worlds with a lot of building interiors and exteriors also real time weather and complex AI, the engine is usually use in conjunction with the “spectacular” euphoria physics engine.There doesn’t seem to be many gripes with the rage engine when looking online although the pc version of gta IV did get slated at times however I am not entirely sure this is an engine problem or not.

Looking into the future there are rumors the new gta V will run on an improved version of the rage engine and rockstars co-founder dan houser says

“The engine now allows for a much greater draw distance over previous GTAs, letting Rockstar render the most distant mountains at the other end of the world many, many miles away, with further advances made to the lighting and shader model.”

I have played many games that use the rage engine from gta IV and Red Dead Redemption to Max payne 3, and the improvement of graphics from each of the games is incredible. Another game worth mentioning is l.a noire which was co produced by Rockstar and team bondi, however after some research I am still unable to identify which engine it uses as one site says it uses a custom engine combining motion capture and animation software but a specific engine name is never mentioned other than being used with the havok physics engine.

Cry engine 3 was developed by crytek and has not been used on many games as far as I can find but one of them is crysis 2 which I have played. I didn’t think much of the gameplay in crisis 2 to be honest but as this is a post about engines I wont go into detail however when I first played it I thought the graphics were insane and probably the best I had seen. For me the graphics saved the game for me in terms of experience because they exited me more than the game play which was just plain boring in my opinion I hope the third instalment it better.

cry engine 3 at extreme spec level

When looking for features that the cry engine 3 has there was huge list, and to include them all would make for right boring old read and half of it you probably wouldn’t understand or at least I didn’t.

Cry engine SDK (software development kit) also known as sandbox editor is the editor that is used to put objects into the engine however the engine also runs at the same time as the editor and it is possible to connect your computer to a ps3 or xbox with a second display and then test the level during constuction, this called live create

I decided to list a few features as this is what really what differentiates between

Engines.

· High Speed Texture Rendering

· Stereoscopic 3D support for all platforms

· Simultaneous WYSIWYG on all platforms in Sandbox editor (live create as described previous)

· Uber Shader technology

· Dynamic volumetric light beams & light shaft effects

examples of the engines features

This engine hasn’t been used in many games so i doubt it has had a chance to show off its full potential although what I have have seen and read about it i think it is a great engine and best used for high end realistic graphic titles rather than say a game for the Wii.

Having used it firsthand I suppose it’s best to mention the unreal engine and its editor UDK (unreal development kit). This engine has been use very widely across the games industry and some top name titles using the engine are gears of war and unreal tournament although there are many more.

gears of war 3

After being shown the basics I found it fairly straight forward to use the editor and I am confident in importing meshes and textures etc to create a level. Like the cry engine you are able to run around your created level as if you in game which is help for spotting any issues with yours objects or level.

screen shot from UDK

When looking at unreal engine 3 specifically the main features it has are:

· Bokeh Depth of field ( e.g looking at your hand close to your face everything around it blurs)

· Nvidia apex clothing

· Direct x11 msaa(multi-sample anti aliasing) hair

· Image based refelection

· Light shafts

· Realistic foliage

· Height fog

· Simplygon mesh reduction and merging

i watched an overview video about this engine and it really impressed me how diverse it is as it can be used on ios and android devices for making games but includes things like shadows on charcters and also light shafts. The graphics on the ps vita also astonished me as i have an original psp so i havent really seen the improvement of all the later models. there is still so much more to mention about this engine and how good it is but the post would go on for years, unreal engine 4 is also in development and it will be exciting to see what improvements they have made to an already great engine.

Other engines of interest which I have come across are:

infinity ward‘s IW 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 engines, used on call of duty 2, 4 and modern warfare 2 respectively.

MT framework engine in Resident evil 5.

Dunia engine used in far cry 2, the dunia engine is actually the cry engine which was modified by ubisoft, the next incarnation dunia 2 will be used in far cry 3 which I believe is released soon.