3D Game Engines

[dannys95]

I know of the Unity game Engine, but it's expensive (how much is it with the license to publish the app?) But is there any other cheaper (or free) Game Engine for the iPhone and iPod Touch that supports Sketch Up files? Thanks!

[dannys95]

Anyone?

[RPGGuy]

You could try http://oolongengine.com/

For sketchup files I would buy the PRO version of sketchup and then export them to another format (say 3ds) that is supported by engines.

[ChaoticBox]

Unity is a rapid production environment and not just an engine, so it can't really be compared other to middleware that consists of a source code dump and some tools. If you're looking for free stuff there are a couple open source projects I'm aware of:

http://code.google.com/p/oolongengine/ (whoops - RPGGuy beat me to it...)
http://www.sio2interactive.com/

I don't think either supports Sketch Up files directly but IIRC those files are just mangled Collada data which can be read and exported by many 3D tools. For the record, I haven't used either of those so no followup questions please ;)

[dannys95]

You could try http://oolongengine.com/

For sketchup files I would buy the PRO version of sketchup and then export them to another format (say 3ds) that is supported by engines.

Good enough. Thanks. But where do I download? There are no dowloads on the Google code page.

[TheBunny]

From my FAQ

http://www.plaidworld.com/iphonefaq.txt

iPhone Game Engines:

Shiva 3D
Lua based 3D IDE host app is windows only(?)
Looks Cool tho
http://www.stonetrip.com/

2D engine for iphone using python
cocos2d:
the PC/Mac/Linux coded in python (it doesn't work on iPhone)
http://cocos2d.org

iPhone version coded in objective-c
http://code.google.com/p/cocos2d-iphone/

With the NDA lifted libSDL is coming to iPhone

http://www.libsdl.org/

CVS http://www.libsdl.org/cgi/viewvc.cgi/trunk/

Unity3D - excellent mac/win game engine coming to iphone this week.
I can highly recommend this one. I work with ith daily doing fulltime contracting work.

http://unity3d.com/unity/features/iphone-publishing

Torque has also supposedly shipped for iphone.
Im told the cost is now $500 but its still in beta and Framerates are slow...

http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque/iphone

Here is another open source engine that looks promising and I know nothing about.

http://www.sio2interactive.com/HOME/HOME.html

[dannys95]

K thanks guys! One more question (Im doing my research first). The game engine takes care of physics right? Like if it's a plane flying game right?

[TheBunny]

K thanks guys! One more question (Im doing my research first). The game engine takes care of physics right? Like if it's a plane flying game right?

Some the ones listed above have physics engines with them.

[Eric5h5]

The game engine takes care of physics right? Like if it's a plane flying game right?

Like TheBunny said, that depends. Unity and Shiva have physics, Torque sort of does. However, you're not going to make a realistic plane flying game with the built-in physics in any engine. They don't model aerodynamics or anything complicated like that. You'd be scripting the plane yourself, using minimal or no help from the physics engine, depending on the feel you're going for.

--Eric

[dannys95]

i know this might be a weird question to post here, but does anyone know a game engine for computers that will run on pc that is free (or has lite version) that is not extremely hard?

[com.freak]

You could try UDK-unreal Development Kit....its the most powerful game engine out there for indie and little firms....its the SDK version of Unreal Engine 3!
if u want to publish game for selling ...u have to sign up with them..and it costs only 99 dollar/year.

www.udk.com


Some other free game engines:

# Blender3d
www.blender.org

#Ogre 3d
http://ogre3d.org/

#XNA 3.0
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7D70D6ED-1EDD-4852-9883-9A33C0AD8FEE&displaylang=en

[yarri]

Hi, I highly recommend SIO2 Interactive with Bullet physics support... it uses Blender for object, animation and physics design. Search google for SketchUp exporters to Blender using the COLLADA format.

--yarri

[The prez 12521]

Any step by step instrustions for a small hometown boy trying to understand that? like, start at sketchup, then continue with free plugins please.

thanks!

[schplurg]

Unity Indie version (non-iPhone) is now free. You can make a complete game with it that can run in Windows, Mac, in a browser, and even on the Wii.

The OP asked about price: Unity iPhone basic is $400. That and a $99 Apple dev license, and a Mac, will allow you to put games in the appstore. If you want to get rid of the Unity splash screen that will run you another 1000 or so - give or take a few hundred - i forget.

I am currently using Unity iPhone and it's really good. Contrary to what many people think, it is not a drag and drop builder. You have to code most things yourself, but it has a great GUI and you can see and play your game from within the editor.

Anyways, if you want to try an engine, Unity 3D is free and relatively simple (well, not really) to get started with.

[Eric5h5]

Unity Indie version (non-iPhone) is now free. You can make a complete game with it that can run in Windows, Mac, in a browser, and even on the Wii.

You need Unity Wii to make Wii games (it's a different app, I've heard a $30K figure for the price), plus a Nintendo dev kit, not to mention an actual company (not just you in your basement), so it's not something that most people are going to be able to do. Before anyone gets too excited. ;)

--Eric

[TheBunny]

You need Unity Wii to make Wii games (it's a different app, I've heard a $30K figure for the price), plus a Nintendo dev kit, not to mention an actual company (not just you in your basement), so it's not something that most people are going to be able to do. Before anyone gets too excited. ;)

--Eric

Unity Wii was about 17K per game
There might have been different pricing for Wiiware vs In store games.

Once you get to say 30K a game you can be looking at other Middleware.

Wii dev gear, PC, TVs etc costs around 5K for 1 person.

/me is doing Wii right now

[Eric5h5]

Good to hear that info, and indeed I think there might be different pricing of Wiiware/in-store games. I won't bother asking what you're doing, what with likely NDAs and all, but it sounds fun. :)

--Eric

[psionic]

The Ogre3d engine

www.ogre3d.org

for iphone seems to be almost release-worthy. I've used that engine a lot and it's pretty excellent :)

[bomber]

OOlong is more a collection of libraries, it includes the bullet physics library and importer for the PowerVR formats (optimized files exported with 3D max, and compressed textures).

We decided to make our own engine based on existing libraries (bullet physics etc.) because most available 3D engines add a lot of overhead which can make the game unplayable slow, and are limiting you in what way you can use your content - you either need to pay a lot to go to other platforms or you cannot use it at all. Our engine is working on Android, if you use some 3D library from a third party you might need to wait some years for that.

[schplurg]

You need Unity Wii to make Wii games (it's a different app, I've heard a $30K figure for the price), plus a Nintendo dev kit, not to mention an actual company (not just you in your basement), so it's not something that most people are going to be able to do. Before anyone gets too excited. ;)

--Eric

Ya well who wants to make Wii games anyways ;) Just threw that in there to mention you can make Wii games with Unity. Weeeee.

[mehware]

Unity! Play around with Unity 2.6.1 for free until your ready for iPhone Dev. I think you can even do an iPhone Trial for 30 days.

[The prez 12521]

wait, who are u responding too