Need Advice on Engine to Use

[English Mobster]

I have this idea in my head for a game. Actually, I have ideas for two games, but this one game is the game I'm focusing my efforts on currently.
ANYWAY.
I'm looking for a decent engine to get some codebase in. I know a bunch of people are going to scream "Unreal" at me, but I need an engine which can support all this:


Flight Simulation, and not the crappy "Planes" you find in most FPS games nowadays, I mean full-on Ace Combat 6 simulation.
Good first-person mechanics. Something along the lines of MW2 or TF2 would be nice. I need to know how "smooth" Unreal's shooting bit is, as the only experience I have had with UT3 was on a computer which could barely handle it, and thus EVERYTHING lagged.
Good vehicle controls. I'd like an engine where driving vehicles feels natural, not "oh here you can drive vehicles in addition to first person shooting".

In other words, I'd like an engine which could incorporate all of these elements seamlessly. I'm currently looking at the capabilities of the Unreal engine, but none of my computers can run UT3 very well ATM. From what I've heard, the Unreal engine could do most anything, however, I'd like Aerial combat to be a major focus point, and I would really like to know how well Unreal performs on the vehicular end of things.
Would you guys have any suggestions? Do you think the Unreal engine is a good choice, or do you have another recommendation? Or would I be best off working with a few programmer friends of mine to program my own engine?
Thanks in advance.

[Phopojijo]

UnrealEngine's great for shooting... but if you want Flight Sim, shooting, and good vehicles -- while UnrealEngine would be nice... I'm going to HAVE to say the Battlefield engine.

If Battlefield 3 allows mods, go for it.

You could adjust the functionality of UnrealEngine to suit your needs... or you can use the Battlefield engine which does exactly what you want... ... very little else... but what you want it does.

You have no idea how much work it is to program an engine though... DIY engines... no.

[English Mobster]

I thought DIY engines would be hard, but when I saw how Llama was doing it... :p
Currently I'm still set on Unreal. I have a few programmer friends who may be able to help me on the coding side of things.

[Phopojijo]

Yeah... but you seem to essentially be making a Battlefield-esque game... so... <shrugs>

[English Mobster]

I'm thinking about adding a bit more functionality, so I need an engine which can be flexible.
The only BF game I've played would be 2142, and I don't believe that one was very mod-friendly.

[Con]

I think CryEngine would be better if you're planning on doing huge environments for air and ground vehicles. Brush modeling that seems like it would be a bitch.

[FRain]

You don't necessarily have to brush model for unreal. You can model in max and import the file as a staticmesh (although disaster is going to yell at me for that)

also they have terrain editor, which isn't too bad.

[Roostervier]

cryengine 2

[Dwood]

Halo Custom Edition.

[k4is3rxkh40s]

I'm thinking about adding a bit more functionality, so I need an engine which can be flexible.
The only BF game I've played would be 2142, and I don't believe that one was very mod-friendly.

I'm not too into the modding scene, but they're actually supposed to be pretty mod friendly last I checked. Saw a lot of full conversion mods with actual progress pretty often, although seldom saw finish iirc.

[Phopojijo]

Seldom mods see finish, period.

[t3h m00kz]

Halo Custom Edition.

HAH! HAH!

... oh wait, you're serious? D:

[English Mobster]

Halo... Not quite what I'm looking for.
I've spent almost four years modding Halo, sweetheart, I don't need to spend any more time on it.

[Disaster]

You don't necessarily have to brush model for unreal. You can model in max and import the file as a staticmesh (although disaster is going to yell at me for that)

also they have terrain editor, which isn't too bad.

Static meshes aren't meant to be used as the entire playable surface. :eng101:

[FRain]

Yeah, but what they are meant to do and what they CAN do are two different things. :eng101:

[Disaster]

Yeah, but what they are meant to do and what they CAN do are two different things. :eng101:

Just because you can use as many polygons as you want doesn't mean that the engine won't give you problems somewhere else down the line. :eng101:

Using static meshes as the entire playable surface will give you bugs in the long run.

[neuro]

it's a flight sim, there is no playable surface.

you should have no problem doing everythign in SMs in unreal if youre doing a flightsim.

[FRain]

Just because you can use as many polygons as you want doesn't mean that the engine won't give you problems somewhere else down the line. :eng101:

Using static meshes as the entire playable surface will give you bugs in the long run.

Are you positive of that?

E: I'm saying that are you positive that using static meshes WILL cause a bug, no matter what?

Because that is what you are stating.

[PopeAK49]

Unreal Development Kit (UDK) bro. I was also looking for a free engine for developing a game and that's that best one I found, because I want to move out of dame halo. Too bad I can't use it because I have a crap computer. It seems like it's easy to use if you have time to learn a few new things.

[Disaster]

it's a flight sim, there is no playable surface.

you should have no problem doing everythign in SMs in unreal if youre doing a flightsim.

Yeah. I was just referring to his statement that you can build an unreal level entirely out of static meshes in general. Not a level for a flight sim.



Are you positive of that?

E: I'm saying that are you positive that using static meshes WILL cause a bug, no matter what?

Because that is what you are stating.

I would compare it to building a halo level entirely out of scenery.

[Phopojijo]

Yeah. I was just referring to his statement that you can build an unreal level entirely out of static meshes in general. Not a level for a flight sim.




I would compare it to building a halo level entirely out of scenery.I have no problems with Skyhook being entirely SMesh. It all depends on what makes the most sense for your layout.

The only time I use the BSP tool is to make volumes... of course.

It's very common these days to have an entire level made out of SMesh. One of the first mods was DM-Krodan, which was absolutely zero BSP. Terrain make sense, but BSP really isn't necessary anymore.

You can use it... it could be easier for what you do (especially indoor levels) but the nlog(n) advantage compared to SMesh's n^2 is negligible.

[Limited]

Most engines out there are based towards first person shooters, they are very common PC games. Theres a whole list you could easily use to implement, if you didnt want to include the flight sim part.

For a more defined answer, we'd need to know more criteria:


Will this be single player or multiplayer
Do you want good visuals, or is the core of it gameplay, would you sacrifice graphics over gameplay, or vice versa?
Do you want it to be free.
Planning on just developing in it, or actually want to distribute the final product.
How skilled are your programmers, are they looking to do a big part of the development, or just implement basic code to get it working.

Right now, I'd be considering either UDK, perhaps Cry Engine, even though its really demanding on pc spec. Those are 2 engines where you can plop in your models etc, perhaps do a small bit of coding and hey presto!

Your going to have limitations regardless of which engine you pick, you'll have to scale down some factors, perhaps the flight sim part won't be a fully fledged simulation, more of incorporates flying into it.

If you want to go down the coding a large portion of it, I'd recommend the following:


Irrlicht
Orge
Torque 3D

[Disaster]

One of the first mods was DM-Krodan, which was absolutely zero BSP. Terrain make sense, but BSP really isn't necessary anymore.
.

Krodan is only 100% SM because it was made before unreal engine 3 became available.

Like I said, building entire levels out of static meshes is pretty much the same as building an entire level out of scenery in halo. You may get problems or you may not. I'm also willing to bet your going to get a higher framerate using bsp and terrain than if you were to use entirely static meshes.

[Phopojijo]

Well terrain... I'm not going to discuss that.

As for BSP... not a whole lot more. Like I said, nLog(n) vs n^2