Could the Project Offset Engine be better than Epic's?

That game of theirs looks amazing!

I think that Heretic (or Shadowcaster?) was the first the first epic fantasy FPS though... :p
 
There's a thread about this on the Technology forum, and FYI, Sammy isn't developping a Console port of his engine at this point. It's all in D3D (but in a way that it'd be easy to port to OpenGL, according to him), so it might work on the XBox360. OTHOH, he has better relations with NVIDIA, so it remains to be seen if he bothers doing much of anything from that point of view.

Uttar
 
This should answer any kind of questions about this engine:
Team Info

Sam McGrath [Founder / Technical Director]
Travis Stringer [Co founder / Artist]
Trevor Stringer [Co founder / Artist]


We are just three people working out of an apartment, and are currently completely self-funded. The engine and all art thus far has been created with a tiny budget -- just enough to purchase the software and hardware we need for development. However, although our budget may be small, our goal is big. We are creating an AAA next generation game (codenamed "Project Offset"), and a powerful game engine to run it.
Click to expand...
 
If they can make a good easy to use engine that rivals unreal 3 engine or falls between that and say the source engine they can get away with charging 50-100k a pop . Alot of small devs will pick it up
 
I really hope that a lot of small devs use this engine. I would like to see a few people go from nothing in an apartment to millionares selling their own engine. I just hope they don't get bought out. But who knows maybe getting bought out is what they need. :?
 
Anything that increases choice of engines is a good thing, IMO. Nice.

I hope UE3 doesn't become the standard, since it might favour one system generically (eg, Quake3 on Nvidia), making one "brand' perform better.
 
Dude... :oops: If that's three guys in an apartment, I do NOT want to visit that apartment, because they can't have cleaned the place in ages!

I'll wait for their first engine sale, when they can afford a maid. ;)
 
If they can make a good easy to use engine that rivals unreal 3 engine or falls between that and say the source engine they can get away with charging 50-100k a pop . Alot of small devs will pick it up
Click to expand...

you know ,making the engine is the easy part.What a dev whant is quality tools that relly improve workflow ,open-ness,and Support.

"3 guys in a room making an engine" + their cheap-simple tech page can't sound very serious for the moment.
 
U know, i'm not speaking about this engine in particular, haven't even seen the videos, but i don't see what the huge fuss is about with UE3. I mean, it's a great engine, gorgeous to look at, but it's a given that there will be much better engines in the next generation. And much sooner than we expect.

The good thing about the UE3 is that all new architectures are similar enough for it to be used on either PS3, X360 or PC and have similar results.

There WILL be better engines, like there were much better engines than the first Unreal or the Quake3 engine after they were made. Especially if an engine is taylor made for one single platform in mind.
 
l-b your correct on a lot of points but here are the reasons why it impresses me


1) its supposed to make developing very easy

2) for a smaller company its cheaper to liscense it than to make an engine near the quality of it from scratch

3) we get really good looking games quickly

4) alot of the engines you speak of will not be liscensed out . I don't really see them liscensing out the gt5 engine or the halo 3 engine u know ?
 
london-boy said:
There WILL be better engines, like there were much better engines than the first Unreal or the Quake3 engine after they were made. Especially if an engine is taylor made for one single platform in mind.
Click to expand...

I think the big selling point on UE3 is it cuts development time by allowing map makers and artists/modelers to have more control over the shaders, scripting, and other tasks that are typically put in the que for programmers to assist with.

Basically UE3 is more about the tools than the technology. Sure they have almost every DX9 check box item supported, and they have the streaming technology and a really high quality implimentation, numerous plugins (like Physics), etc. But it seems their focus is on tools. The fact it looks really good helps obviously.

I agree, we will see better engines and better looking games. But UE3 is at the head of the class right now. UE3 games have a chance to be the best looking FPS/3PS games in 2006. That is a pretty big achievement in of itself.

I agree that there will be engines that are better matched for their art direction. I think that is an important point. Having a good engine is not enough. Neither is a good art direction. They have to match up well. Doom 3 engine would not have been a good fit for the FarCry game; and the Source engine would not have done Doom 3 game justice.

But for the small guys who might be more technologically handicapped early on (i.e. they have not had the time/money/resources to be making their own independant engine over the last 2 or 3 years preparing for the current gen) UE3 is a great gateway to get a competitive looking project out the door and focusing on what matters: The gameplay.

So I agree. I expect 1st party games in 2007 to really strut their stuff, but for 2005/2006 I think UE3 will be at the front of the class.
 
jvd said:
l-b your correct on a lot of points but here are the reasons why it impresses me


1) its supposed to make developing very easy

2) for a smaller company its cheaper to liscense it than to make an engine near the quality of it from scratch

3) we get really good looking games quickly

4) alot of the engines you speak of will not be liscensed out . I don't really see them liscensing out the gt5 engine or the halo 3 engine u know ?
Click to expand...

Well no but it seems comparisons are made on the technology with UE3. When the advantages, as you said, are more to do with the ease of multiplatform development - mostly because all next gen machines seem to share a lot in terms of technology and performance.
Bit like Renderware, but we don't see people using Renderware as standard for comparison, not sure why they're doing it for UE3.
Multiplatform or not, as an example, the engine that's used as milestone for comparison on PS2 is the Jak2/3 engine.
 
Imo the most impressive thing about UE3 (from what I've read from some interview) is that it should be incredibly versatile and scalable.
You can for example make a completely competitive football game with the engine, or a fps game, or a racing game... all within the same engine, even within the same game.
Also it supports a wide variety of graphics technigues so the games made with UE3 should not all have a distinctive "similar" look that tells "that game's made with the UE3".
For example if PS3 were that much more powerful than xbox360, UT2007 should look technically more edvanced than GOW because they could use more of the UE3 supported features because of more powerful hardware.

That's why I don't understand the talk that UE2007 for PS3 can't look that much better anyway, because it was done using the same engine.
I mean look at the games done with Criterion Renderware this gen.
 
Well no but it seems comparisons are made on the technology with UE3. When the advantages, as you said, are more to do with the ease of multiplatform development - mostly because all next gen machines seem to share a lot in terms of technology and performance.
Bit like Renderware, but we don't see people using Renderware as standard for comparison, not sure why they're doing it for UE3.
Multiplatform or not, as an example, the engine that's used as milestone for comparison on PS2 is the Jak2/3 engine.
Click to expand...
its not just about multiplatform its about ease of use like acert said . Its very easy for the artists and map makers to have controller over the shaders cutting down developement time and it is very powerfull .

That is why . The reason why jak2/3 engine never got much press was simply because it was a 2 game engine and while it had good graphics for the ps2 wasn't leaps above the other engines and didn't offer developers a fast way of getting great looking games
 
I agree jvd, my main point was that many people keep using the UE3 as milestone for the wrong reasons (you and Acert listed the right ones). They keep going on about "OMG will this look better than the UE3 engine?!!!11" when there WILL be many things looking better than the UE3.
The questions should be "OMG will this be as versatile and multiplatform-easy as the UE3!?!!11". Though i guess that hasn't really the same impact on the boys...
 
after reading more ,i think their unified lighting engine pipeline is way better than what's in UE3.
Jvd ,i agree with what you said.UE3 is good for its tools and integrated environement . we 'll sure see better things .
 
london-boy said:
I agree jvd, my main point was that many people keep using the UE3 as milestone for the wrong reasons (you and Acert listed the right ones). They keep going on about "OMG will this look better than the UE3 engine?!!!11" when there WILL be many things looking better than the UE3.
The questions should be "OMG will this be as versatile and multiplatform-easy as the UE3!?!!11". Though i guess that hasn't really the same impact on the boys...
Click to expand...

well to be fair its really the first playable engine we've seen so far . Gears of war was playable . There isn't another engine right now that compares graphicly so you are going to get that comparison.

Its just like when shenmue came out , people used that as a benchmark or when mgs 2 came out . Heck even gt3 .

Its what people do and you can't really blame them because honestly all the unreal engien 3 games are easy on the eyes

Its graphics that sell in this market. I mean look at sega's full auto . People are dismising it cause its graphics aren't much better than a pumped up xbox game . But they all fail to see the fact that everything in that game can be destroyed . Which is more impressive than making graphical improvements . But that isn't what sells . Same thing with kameo , we have the developers saying they might be able to get 9k units on screen at once and no one really cares . It barely gets mentioned because while the graphics are great , it doesn't look like heavenly sword or killzone or gears of war
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Z
I gave up on the Resident Evil series...
2 3 4
Replies
66
Views
3K
Zombietoid
Z
Z
How can the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes be canon?
Replies
3
Views
4K
Zombietoid
Z
Z
A stalking case...
Replies
19
Views
2K
Zombietoid
Z
M
What's a rolling generation? What are the pros/cons?
Replies
1
Views
2K
manux
M
R
An Nvidia console seems a no brainer to me. Who else could Console?
2 3 4
Replies
75
Views
14K
Deleted member 13524
D
Back
Top