[vogel]

To clear up some naming confusion: we did NOT show Unreal 3 at GDC but rather our third generation Unreal Engine called UnrealEngine3

-- Daniel, Epic Games Inc.

[Evildeus]

A newbie question. How far from a game is a game engine? Sorry if it's dumb, but it's something i would like to know.

[jvd]

Err the game engine is like a foundation of the house . The game is like the house levels weapons , models , textures are all built to fit that foundation and what its capable of .

[Evildeus]

Yes i know. What i want to know is, the Game engine done, is 10 25 ..90% of the work done or is there no rule?

[Zeross]

Originally Posted by Evildeus

Yes i know. What i want to know is, the Game engine done, is 10 25 ..90% of the work done or is there no rule?

To give you an idea : Carmack said at the E3 2002 that he had basically finished the work on the engine of Doom3. Of course he tweaked it quite a bit since then but for the most part the core technology was over, we're in 2004 and the game isn't released yet

I think there is no rule, it depends on your content : even when a team buy a solid and well conceived engine like the Unreal Engine it needs quite a long time before they can release a game (*cough* DNF anyone *couh* ). You need a story (err sometines it isn't necessary ) but you also need levels, textures and sounds and this is by far one of the most time consuming part in a game creation I would say.

Just my two cents I'm not working in the game industry

[Evildeus]

Yeah i should i've known. But well those games are exceptions aren't they. Thanks Zeross

[McDusty]

Hey Vogel,

If you post some pics of it - we'll call it whatever you want

Most games are produced using some off the shelf technology, such as an engine/tools from Id, Epic or Renderware. Plenty of other Middleware is used as well. If you want sophisticated physics in your game, why start from scratch when you can purchase Havok for £30k?
Thats the salary of one programmer, and one guy working solidly for a year isn't going to beat the work of an entire team at Havok.

So lots of games take 2 years+ to develop and they don't even produce their own engines/tools.

[sonix666]

It's nice to see that finally games will be putting bumpmapping to good use. Namely on every object to 'fake' more detail/relief where there is not. And on top of that the next Unreal Engine will also use the offset mapping. Great work vogel and your team.

[Doomtrooper]

One thing EPIC has always had was very good artists, and looking at some of the screen shots they have not lost that touch.

[Ostsol]

Originally Posted by Evildeus

Yes i know. What i want to know is, the Game engine done, is 10 25 ..90% of the work done or is there no rule?

An engine is complete when all the features the game needs it to have are implemented. What licensees get is certainly a complete engine, but not necessarily complete enough for the game.

Don't forget that the Unreal Engine is quite modular. There were Unreal Engine games coming out between the UT version of the engine and the UT2003 version, yet still had features from the latter (such as heightmapped terrain and static meshes). As such, completeness for the Unreal Engine is probably best defined as a specification, detailing features that the engine must have -- sorta like OpenGL versions. Then again, there are some deeper differences between the first and second generation Unreal Engines, other than just features.

[Evildeus]

Thx Ostol

[Helevitia]

Originally Posted by Doomtrooper

One thing EPIC has always had was very good artists, and looking at some of the screen shots they have not lost that touch.

Are you talking about screenshots from UnrealEngine3? If so, I'd be interested in seeing them. got a link?

Thanks,
Dave