Re: [GD-General] Future trends for commercial game engines

[Kent Q. <ken...@co...>]

Ing. Jacobo R=EDos wrote:
> With the more and more complex technology for games has become over=20
> time, the decreasing interest of students/amateurs wanting to get into=20
> game industry to learn DirectX/OpenGL and preferring to use an=20
> existing game engine instead, the increasing popularity and=20
> accessibility of TorqueEngine, CrystalSpace, etc among=20
> students/amateurs/indies, and big corporate companies like EA, etc.=20
> licensing UnrealEngine3 for their next-gen games...
>
> What are the future trends for commercial game engines? Will there be=20
> a time were game studios will no longer create their own home-made=20
> game engines and buy existing licenses (as we do today with=20
> Maya/3DSM)?  Will there be a day were it won't be worth for students=20
> to learn Dx/Ogl and how to create their own engine?, and where game=20
> development schools will focus on teaching how to use a specific game=20
> engine like UE3 (as there are animation schools today to teach=20
> Maya/3DSM) and focus their curricula on other areas of game=20
> development not game-engine-related? Can eventually this day come=20
> someday?
>
> And if so=85 how soon or how far do you think we are until that day com=
es?
Basically, the question is what's cost effective? These days, major=20
market games are expected to do a lot. Thousands of objects, millions of=20
particles, physics, intelligent AI, realistic animation, brilliant=20
graphics, 3D sound...

If you're going to build all of that into your game, you'd almost be=20
foolish to build it all yourself, unless it's more your business to=20
build a better game engine rather than to build a great game. And there=20
will continue to be people who do that. But if your budget is growing=20
north of $10 Million and you're building a game that "fits" into one of=20
the existing engines, you'd be wise to spend a million of that on a good=20
game engine.

If your game doesn't feet neatly into one of those categories, or you're=20
building a game with a different emphasis than on technology, you may=20
find it worthwhile to build your own engine, or to start from a=20
different place.

In an industry that changes as fast as ours, building education programs=20
that rely on a particular technology is foolish. I don't care whether=20
it's Maya or Unreal or Max, I want artists to be able to create in 3D --=20
who cares what tool they use? The same can be said of programming=20
languages. Hell, it can be said of human languages. Wouldn't it be nice=20
if we'd all just settle on English so we could drop language education=20
in our schools?

I think your desire is to get the discussion away from the engine and=20
technology and more toward the gameplay, and that's not a bad desire.=20
Because the complexity of game engines is getting so high, for education=20
to start students off with game engines is generally good, because it=20
lets you concentrate more on some of the gameplay issues and less on=20
blitting rectangles to the screen. But expecting a fast-changing=20
technology industry to settle on one target platform isn't gonna happen.=20
There'll be a steady increase in the complexity of the foundation tools=20
(we don't use assembler much anymore in this business), but I don't ever=20
want the schools to get too comfortable with one technology.

    Kent