This is a pretty basic question. I am wondering if the Unreal Development Kit can be used for something other than games, specifically a light show simulator and editor. The site says:
Unreal Engine 3 has been used by game developers, researchers, television studios, machinima directors, artists and students. If you have an idea that needs to be brought to life in a game engine, UDK is for you.
But I have the feeling that it is more game oriented. For my hobby project, I would like to be able to create light show simulations with rotating/moving lasers/lights of changing color, synchronized to sound/music. I would also like to develop an GUI editor for this, preferably in C#, but if it's not possible to access the rendering functionality of the engine from C#, then C++/Qt should suffice. The editor would be used to design the simulation, which would then be rendered/played out in real time.
I guess my base, general question is: can the Unreal Development Kit be used for something like this, not necessarily game related? Or should I go with my original option of Ogre3D, which just focuses on rendering and 3D graphics as far as I know.
EDIT: Just saw this page which again mentions:
Can I create any kind of game with UDK?
Absolutely. UDK is the perfect solution for any kind of virtual world you wish to create, from racing games to simulations.
So my question is now simply: Would I be able to access the renderer or other functionality of my resulting code to integrate it into an editor for my simulator? I guess a simpler, more relatable analogy would be, if I wrote a game, would I be able to write my own level/character/etc. editor for it? And how would I do so? Yes, I know that the UDK comes with editors already, but I mean if I want to make my own.
Thanks! I appreciate any answers :)
The UDK only permits you to play with script (Unreal Script) and not with native code (c++). So more complicated projects or integrations are very difficult without the full c++ source code. But if you will re-use the editor (UnrealED) for your project and make you simulation based upon unreal you can do it.
I'm pretty well oriented in what Unreal Engine can do, and answer to your question is yes and no ;)
Yes, you can create your own actors that will be rotating/moving and emitting light. But won't be able to create your own custom editor around UE's rendered. Frankly I don't see why you would need one - Unreal Editor has all the tools needed to design and execute light show simulation (and much more) - all you need to do is to get familiar with those tools.
One thing you could do in external editor (except, of course, for textures, sounds, models, etc) is create some custom setup in saved to text files, and later read in those files in unreal script - it allows it.
"I guess a simpler, more relatable analogy would be, if I wrote a game, would I be able to write my own level/character/etc. editor for it?"
Yes, you can make your own characters and maps. You shouldn't have any need to make your own editor though, the given editor should be enough.
Although you might not have access to the C++ source code, there is a lot that can be done using Unrealscript. Check out all the entries to the Make Something Unreal contest, they were all done using tools available in the UDK.
Related
I've created a core mechanic of my game and want to create a level editor for it. my game is not a tile-based one, so my needs are quite specific. Game is written using Swift and Cocos2d-swift, but i dont think i can figure something out with Sprite Builder.
What you can advice me? Can I for example create a level editor with c# and then use it from swift code?
And what data structure is the best?
I mean is it possible to serialize classes on desktop Swift application and then just load them on ios from file or I'll need to use json/xml?
It might be an old question but I ended up with using a .Net powered solution. I choosed as It has all controls that you need for creating a rich user interface and also, it has a lot of built-in and third party solutions for serializing levels in any way you want. And the c# syntax is very similar to the Swift one.
The only problem is that you might run windows to work with it.
My game in development also needed a non-tile level editor. A few months ago I took some time to make my choice.
Since my project still uses cocos2d 2.x, I don't use the whole new 3.x and SB system. After some investigation I found out that it would be too time consuming to adjust my whole project to the new system and adjusting SB to my needs, mainly because my game engine has been in development for quite some time and is close to finished. Further more, I couldn't find the right information to actually make it work for my game (it needed some odd level architecture I guess).
Finally, I didn't find any other good alternative so I decided to create my own level editor. In this way I had full control and I knew exactly how everything worked which was a huge advantage for me.
Right now my level editor has been finished for some time and works like a charm. I still think in my situation I made the right choice. Also because I learned a lot this way, building everything from the ground up. Having said that, for my next game I will probably go with the main stream and use SB from the start. Also for you I advice you to still check out SB and take some time for it before making an alternative choice...
I'll explain how I did mine. Disclaimer: it has some oddity's which only worked in my situation, but hopefully it helps a bit with choosing your own way to go, that's the goal I'm aiming at...
I used:
max/msp
Although it's developed to make music and audio based software, I used max/msp because it's very easy and fast for creating visual and interface based software as well.
More importend: I happened to be very experienced in it, which shortened the development time tremendously.
javascript
Inside the max/msp patch is a javascript file running. This file is like a bridge between the interface and the visual representation of the level being edited, and the database in which the level
is saved in. 70% of the editor development went into this file I think.
sqlite
All the data is written in a sqlite database. Again, this has been mainly the choice because it saved a great amount of development time in my case. I could have used xml files for instance, but my game was already using a sqlite database and because of this I felt comfortable using it, I had no experience in xml. Also all the code was already in place for a big part, which speeded up the whole proces a lot.
I'm very happy with the end result. It does everything I need, it's easy too use and since I made everything myself from the ground up I know exactly how every works.
Good luck with you choices.
I am not very familiar with Game engines for iOS app. Can anyone suggest an open source game engine for my game development?
My game scenario is as follows: The user selects a map, and a character inside of the game I moves through a path predefined in the map.
I was thinking about writing this game in OpenGL but it seems like I have to write a huge amount of code. Do any game engines exist in which I can successfully write this game?
Lua is easier to learn than Objective-C. There are several Lua development environments:
Gideros Studio: http://www.giderosmobile.com/
Corona SDK: http://www.coronalabs.com/
Moai: http://getmoai.com/
My favourite is Gideros Studio, because it seemed to me the easiest to get started, and is free until you want to remove the splash screen, and has a very friendly forum with access to the developers. You can also include native plugins (Objective C and C++ for Android).
Moai is the only actual open source one, if you really need to change the source, but it is probably the hardest one to learn.
cocos2d is popular and easy to use and learn. you could also use kobald2d as that includes cocos2d and other frameworks as well. you can download them through a search on google
As state by the other user cocos2d would be a good solution for what you want. Although you asked for "open source", you can always check, for free, Unity for iOS. You could also check a question I made some time ago, which can give you some hints of some options you have, here. From the Unity site:
Oh, and don't forget that Unity is free and we have fully-functional
30-day trials available for Unity Pro and Unity iOS Pro!
I know it's not perfect, but still, if you see it's worth, it can make a huge difference in your project.
Try Stencyl, it's not free, but it is a good engine that doesnt require a lot of code
I was wondering so long that how can people analyze the trait of each file extension (of course open it in notepad is not readable)
For example, I want to write a program that can read everything from .fla file like timeline, movie clips, position of each MCs or all the motion tween values. And get the image embeded in it. (I'm planning to use flash as IDE for another project.)
(The reason that I tried to read proprietary format is I want to utilize their awesome editor. What I actually want to do is, I want to make an iOS game with cocos2d. There is a code to move things around in cocos2d but there is no decent editor. So I'd like to use Flash as an editor, then convert the motion to objective-C cocos2D code by reading the .fla file.)
If you would like to be able to import timeline animation from flash into cocos2d, this tool might help. More information in this thread.
The grapefrukt-exporter might also help as it can export keyframe data, and various other formats for animation.
Instead of creating the tool yourself, it might be much easier (and time saving) to use one of these and integrate it into your workflow :)
Finally, if none of the above works, how about just exporting the flash animation as an animated GIF or a movie file?
Im assuming you want to write a decompiler, this is possible and there are several available on the internet, price varies.
It is not possible for flash to achieve this, Most programs, software are built on a native language such as C, Native meaning it can independly run in its own with out initially setting up an invironment to support it.
Flash is not independent enough to be available to have this much power.
Try looking at c++ or C# as this would be possible, also these languages are a lot more powerful.
I would like to have a go at making some simple games for personal/learning purposes. By simple games I mean games like platform, maze, arcade games for example. I would also one day like to create a platform game with a simple editor to allow others to edit and design their own game levels.
I am not sure if Delphi is the way to go though, I don't see or hear many people writing games in Delphi, but Delphi is the only language I understand on an intermediate level.
If Delphi is acceptable to create simple games as I mentioned, am I right in thinking that I would require some libraries that would help me do this, maybe Direct X for example?
I am using Delphi XE, I wish I had waited and upgraded to Delphi XE2 instead as it seems that includes some built in Drawing libraries.
I look forward to hearing your responses on this.
Thanks.
Check out Asphyre
And to encourage you; Soldat, C-evo and many more quality games were built with Delphi, Game Maker too.
There are to many options ...
If you are really new to this take a look at this site and get some good examples from children that try to make games Pascal programming for schools ...
If you are one level up here some library's that give you the a great start for small and big games... this is for new and very advance pascal programming...
GLScene just get the svn version... (Windows,MacOsX,Linux and hear for android and iphone ;) ) -- 2D,3D,isometric........
CastII Great engine (Windows,MacOsX,Linux) -- Mostly 3D....
Asphyre Sphinx 2 One of my favorite i allready start a big big game with that library... NOW (Windows32-64,MacOsX,Linux,and IOS) with DelphiXE2
ZenGL Fantastic and quite easy to use (Windows,Linux,MacOsX and i hear android too) --Mostly 2D but i hear 3D is in way out...
Castle Great library for me not to easy... (Windows,Linux,MacOsX) compine great with freepascal and lazarus...
Andorra 2d This is going to be the best but suddenly stops ... 2d programming at its best...
there are many other libraries and i here a few of them come out before the new year...
But if you go deeper you can try the hard way... the headers so ...
for opengl use the header from here delphigl
for SDL use the Jedi-SDL header (great by the way)...
for directX use the clootie and good luck...
But the most important thing in the game programming is the paper...
Every think write in the paper is the most value object in object programming...
Hope that helps...
Delphi is great for games! Here is a very good resource to get you started: http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/
It has a friendly forum where you can ask questions.
I have personally used Delphi for graphics programming for many years and written a free open source game engine in Delphi called ZGameEditor.
azrael11
GLScene doesn't support Android(work in progress as I know)
Cast II works only on Windows
Asphyre Sphinx 2 doesn't support Linux
ZenGL supports also iOS. Android - work in progress. 3D - I'm not interested in it currently, so only fast 2D is main goal.
I have used PyGame for a while now, and quite enjoyed doing so, but only 2D experience is not going to cut it when I apply for video game jobs, and besides, I have a number of ideas I want to try out in 3D. What 3D library should I go into first? I was considering Irrlicht, which will also force me to work on my C++ again, but I was also looking towards XNA, as it would be cool to write 360 games. Any suggestions?
You can try Unity3D http://unity3d.com/. In the fall they released their engine for free that is cross platform (Mac, Win and possible Linux) and it can also be targeted for iPhone and web browser and is starting to build an open community and looks promising.
I've done some XNA stuff and the Unity tools look pretty good in comparison making it easier to get content into your games.
In my opinion, going with Irrlicht or OGRE is a good idea. It will help you get back in touch with C++ and experiment with 3D without making it too easy. It is a good idea to learn XNA as well and build a few 3D game prototypes there.
Summary: Do both, eventually. Learn OpenGL/DirectX later.
All the best.
XNA Game Studio is a fantastic framework and let's users jump into creating games quite quickly if you are comfortable with the .NET Framework.
However, if you decide that you want to move to the 3D world, you have 1 more dimension to take into consideration and it makes things exponentially harder. Simple collision detection, isn't so simple anymore. However, with the vast amount of information available for XNA Game Studio, you should find yourself getting to grips with the 3rd dimension quite quickly.
If you haven't done the whole Nehe type tutorials, it's probably best to play with the API, so that you get comfortable with it.
Create a Triangle
Spin the Triangle
Color the Triangle
Load some assets (models and textures) and render them
Try your hand at Alpha Blending
Take into consideration that XNA Game Studio does not have a fixed function pipeline and you will have to use Shaders (HLSL).
I have personally used Irrlicht, Ogre3d, Unity & Xna. Because you want to do this to help for when you apply for jobs in the game industry in my opinion I would suggest Irrlicht as you will want to work on your c++ skills. I also suggest Irrlicht as it is a 3D engine not a specific game engine which will allow you to work on your physics and maths skills as well which are highly sought after in the games industry.
I would suggest avoiding Unity if you are looking for experience to take to industry as it is a package that handles a lot for you and as such could limit your learning.
Ogre3D is a viable option as it is similar to Irlicht, maybe look into the tools available to help you make a choice between those two.
Xna is another interesting choice, it will give you a lot of chances to learn as Irrlicht could and there are a huge amount of resources to help you learn but at the same time you lose the c++ experience that comes with irrlicht.