Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Torque 3D Pricing and Other Indie 3D Game Engines
This is old news for those who actually care, but GarageGames is currently discussing plans with the community to beef up not only the power of the upcoming "Torque 3D" over previous products, but also the price. This has many GarageGames fans concerned, but not necessarily alarmed. According to Brett Seylor of GG, most concerns were centered more on making sure the new engine was actually worth the upgrade.
As for me, this spawned off some curious browsing on the web to see what the current state of indie-friendly game engines was out there. I don't have a detailed report or anything to make here, as I haven't had time to make an exhaustive search or anything like that, let alone put the other engines through their paces, but I think the sea of possibility for indie developers will remain deep and wide even if GarageGames were to go insane and price Torque 3D out of the reach of non-professionals.
The Unity engine is a recent popular choice, especially if you do Mac-based development. It powers Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, which is good enough of a recommendation for me. :)
The Game Creators GDK is a non-commercial free game development kit that's included free-of-charge with Microsoft's Visual Studio 2008 Express. Upgrading to a commercial license costs a mere $30.
The C4 Engine is still going strong, having just released version 1.5. They've bumped their standard edition pricing up to about $350, which is still a great price for a serious indie, but not such a great 'entry-level' price for beginners.
As a fan of Python, I found that the new Python binding for Ogre 3D is now called Python-Ogre, and looks pretty dang cool. Temptingly so. And the latest release of the open-source graphics engine Ogre 3D, version 1.6, was recently released - built in C++, but with multiple bindings besides Python.
I was pleased to find out that the good ol' open-source Irrlicht Engine is likewise alive and well. Version 1.5 was just released in December, and while the core engine capabilities haven't changed much since version 1.0, a lot of little things keep getting fixed - those annoying little bugs and missing features that you don't notice until you absolutely need it and then feel the pain setting in. Not to mention optimization.
3D Game Studio A7 remains a popular choice.
Truevision3D advertises itself as more of an API and "middleware," but is likewise indie-priced.
As a fan of Blender, I should know a lot more about the Blender Game Engine than I do. It's GPL (I think), which makes it pretty uninteresting to me.
The Cipher Game Engine looks to still be alive, but just barely.
Blitz3D - still an option for simple 3D game development, but I have no idea how scalable it is for larger projects.
Nebula 3 - This is a new open-source engine based on the Nebula 2 engine. Still a work in progress.
Leadwerks 2.0 - A new 3D engine (as opposed to a fully-featured game engine) with physics, great dynamic lighting (including volumetric light scattering in version 2.1), shader support, and an extremely indie-friendly price tag of $150.
Reactor 3D is an XNA-based 3D game engine in public beta right now, currently donation-supported. If you don't mind being limited to Microsoft platforms, it may be worth checking out for easy 3D programming.
You can take a look at the DevMaster Engine page for (somewhat) up-to-date entries and reviews on tons of engines of all different flavors.
And then of course, there are the current flavors of Torque, which I both love and hate, at their current pricing. Current TGEA owners have been promised a discount on Torque 3D when it ships, whatever its price.
So all-in-all, I think the potential out there for indie 3D game development remains more vibrant than ever, and looks to be getting better by the year. There are a lot of difficulties facing indie developers wanting to create 3D games, but it looks like the availability and pricing of reasonable technology isn't gonna be one of them.
Labels: programming
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:57 AM (Permalink)
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Interesting stuff. I saw that at GG also and I'm not quite sure what to think. One thing is for sure after reading your post here though; there seems to be a lot more competition (heavy hitters) at the $1000.00 Engine level, than the $250.00.
There are definitely some strong contenders at the Torque price point though that are up and coming. The Unity and C4 engine guys seem to be really getting their stuff together as well. One thing that is obvious to me, is a lot of people (myself included) wouldn't of gotten into Torque if the pricepoint hadn't been something reasonable.
Torque was a gateway for me to make the jump from graphic designer and student to a real game developer. Had Torque cost more than $100 when I bought it, I probably wouldn't be where I am today.
There will always be free or cheap engines I guess, but I see the real intrinsic value to be the community that builds up around those products (in the thousands), especially the good products. The community seems like it is much more valuable to me in the long run than the product itself.
This seems to be straying from the original vision of the founders as well, but GarageGames is at a point where it is on it's 5th and 6th generation of staff, and the founders have moved on to other ventures or retirement.
They may be to the point where they feel the need to start crafting their own vision at this point; who will carry the original vision if the founders are gone? Personally, I owe most of what I do to the original vision, so I'm partial. I wish them the best of luck either way. :)
There are definitely some strong contenders at the Torque price point though that are up and coming. The Unity and C4 engine guys seem to be really getting their stuff together as well. One thing that is obvious to me, is a lot of people (myself included) wouldn't of gotten into Torque if the pricepoint hadn't been something reasonable.
Torque was a gateway for me to make the jump from graphic designer and student to a real game developer. Had Torque cost more than $100 when I bought it, I probably wouldn't be where I am today.
There will always be free or cheap engines I guess, but I see the real intrinsic value to be the community that builds up around those products (in the thousands), especially the good products. The community seems like it is much more valuable to me in the long run than the product itself.
This seems to be straying from the original vision of the founders as well, but GarageGames is at a point where it is on it's 5th and 6th generation of staff, and the founders have moved on to other ventures or retirement.
They may be to the point where they feel the need to start crafting their own vision at this point; who will carry the original vision if the founders are gone? Personally, I owe most of what I do to the original vision, so I'm partial. I wish them the best of luck either way. :)
True - they aren't the same company they were five or six years ago, not by a long shot. I, too, bought Torque because it was cheap - cheap and multi-platform. Not that I have made much use of the multiplatform capabilities (or even released a commercial game with it, yet).
I've been really pleased with what they've gotten done with TGB. If they could get their 3D engine to that level of polish and documentation, it might be worth an extra $100 to $250 --- but I also remember how slow some bugs were to get fixed in TGB. So I don't know.
The entry-level thing is definitely an issue. For $100 (or even $150), I'm okay with taking a chance after running through a demo. I still haven't purchased TGEA. I was (in retrospect) justifiably concerned about their timetable getting things completed (it took 'em about three years). And I wasn't too sure about my own timetable now.
BTW, I loved your work for the content packs!
I've been really pleased with what they've gotten done with TGB. If they could get their 3D engine to that level of polish and documentation, it might be worth an extra $100 to $250 --- but I also remember how slow some bugs were to get fixed in TGB. So I don't know.
The entry-level thing is definitely an issue. For $100 (or even $150), I'm okay with taking a chance after running through a demo. I still haven't purchased TGEA. I was (in retrospect) justifiably concerned about their timetable getting things completed (it took 'em about three years). And I wasn't too sure about my own timetable now.
BTW, I loved your work for the content packs!
I'm never a big fan of price hikes. I understand the need to make money, and I understand that Torque is a great engine, but indies and hobbyests don't always have deep pockets. I know when I first started up, if I was looking into 3d, I would probably pass by anything priced much over $250.
I also notice with GG that a lot push is going into Instance Action, but I don't see where that benefits anyone greatly but GG.
I also notice with GG that a lot push is going into Instance Action, but I don't see where that benefits anyone greatly but GG.
I've been following this as well and for me it really depends on the feature set -- if Torque3D brings a whole pile of new stuff, approaching or exceeding the level of useability and power of other engines (e.g. Unity), I'd be willing to pay more for it. However, if it's only the equivalent of a spit-and-polish to TGEA 1.8... forget about it. (And honestly, at the point that I'm at right now, TGE 1.5.2 does 95% of what I want anyway; I don't even have TGEA installed at the moment).
Also, I have noticed the concern that Torque3D could be priced beyond the means of hobbyists/students. But -- while possibly true -- people are missing the point that there will most likely still be a downloadable demo and people will be able to learn or prototype with it. Ken Finney's books proved that you don't need the full source to do that. And then, of course, if you come up with a viable game concept, you can go ahead and bite the bullet and purchase the full engine... because now you're serious about it, right? =)
Also, I have noticed the concern that Torque3D could be priced beyond the means of hobbyists/students. But -- while possibly true -- people are missing the point that there will most likely still be a downloadable demo and people will be able to learn or prototype with it. Ken Finney's books proved that you don't need the full source to do that. And then, of course, if you come up with a viable game concept, you can go ahead and bite the bullet and purchase the full engine... because now you're serious about it, right? =)
I have to echo Xenovore, if T3D doesn't add some significant features over TGEA 1.8 instead of just being a lot more polished then I'll pass.
Ironically enough, if Tim hadn't decided on Torque then I probably wouldn't have either. It was the Warzone demo that convinced me to go with TGE.
And I've since bought quite a number of GG/3rd party products. A pretty solid example of the benefits of a lower entry point and a large, active community.
Ironically enough, if Tim hadn't decided on Torque then I probably wouldn't have either. It was the Warzone demo that convinced me to go with TGE.
And I've since bought quite a number of GG/3rd party products. A pretty solid example of the benefits of a lower entry point and a large, active community.
I've never built a proper game before, or indeed even experiemnted with any of these cheaper game engines, but would be interested to know what you'd recommend for an isometric RPG similar to Arcanum?
Also do these packages come with any form of in built character relationship scripting, or is it really just the control over the physical environment that they offer with the rest having to be scripted byt the developer?
Also do these packages come with any form of in built character relationship scripting, or is it really just the control over the physical environment that they offer with the rest having to be scripted byt the developer?
Unity 2.5 adds full support for Windows Vista and XP and this will be released late in March 2009.
You can see that here:
http://unity3d.com/unity/coming-soon/unity-2.5
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=18127
Nostre
You can see that here:
http://unity3d.com/unity/coming-soon/unity-2.5
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=18127
Nostre
# posted by 
: February 25, 2009 12:28 PM
: February 25, 2009 12:28 PM
I found similar information about 3D Ready technology games and movies on www.3D-News.net (not my website)
This may help people looking for information on the topic.
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This may help people looking for information on the topic.
# posted by : August 09, 2009 5:39 PM
: August 09, 2009 5:39 PMLinks to this post:
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