Is there really a point to the BGE? Enter SourceSDK

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
1

Not to put down the Blender Game Engine (a lot), but lately I have realized that there is really no point to it (a waste of time). When you break it down to the bones, its pretty much just an obsolete part of the Blender software that is (and in all probability will always be), too far behind for standard users expectations.

Furthermore, no matter what you make with blender, your experience is destined to count for nothing in the game industry, and your game (no matter how interesting) will never be that well known (except to the people on the forums here of course, which really isnt all that much.), all that making your project quite pointless.

Now imagine that you had access to the software tools used by one of the top leading videogame developers in the world. Im talking about valve and their source engine (people who made CounterStrike and The Halflife series). Also, imagine that theese tools will not only be available to you, but also continuously updated with the cutting edge features in game development, as they are accomplished.

Well you don’t have to imagine, since it’s all real and available to anyone who has purchased halflife 2 ($39.99). The source physics engine, HDR support, advanced AI, and all the graphical eye candy one could expect from todays game standards, are all at the users disposal. Also, for those of you who think that im talking about just the ability to “modify” HL2 content, think again. You can actually create a “third party mod” which functions as a completely seperate game from halflife 2 in which you can use your own models, textures, animations etc (it can be as modifiable as you want it to be).

Now, if you make something decent with the source sdk, you have a much better chance of getting your game (and skills) noticed, and not just by players, but people working at Valve as well, since thats pretty much how they scout for potential employees. I mean they use the same tools, so someone who makes a good game using the very same tools is much easier to hire.

Anyway, im sure most of you are aware of the sourceSDK, but im just putting it out there for people who might not, and who would like to work on a project that might actually translate into something more profitable than just bragging rights.

PS: Sorry for the long post.

2

Hello

one of the great Virtual Social functions of the Blender/Elysiun forum
is the “punching ball” one
When people gets frustated they post/punch

One advice?
Don’t fight against the Blender game engine ( in other words, don’t try to make
Half-life/Warcraft/xxxx… with it)
Try to “capture” the engine capabilities and make something
original/beautiful/bizarre…
Another one?
If you want to make money/work in the game industry, don’t waste your time
in the “Blender world”
Bye

3

I figured I never get noticed because I don’t play golf. :o

4

@Social
Do you think the almighty and holy Source Engine can do all the Work for You? You do not need a more powerfull Engine, you need a Engine with more Possibilities to hide boring Games behind. All the Eye blinding Nonsense does not help you.

You Guys are allways the Pain in my Ass! “Uaaah! I want to make HL³, how do i make my Actor jump? And can somebody code me a GravityGun and a Bumpmap Script please?” :< :< :< Hell! You Guys do not understand the Core!

If the Game is boring without all that, the Game will be boring within! (But who cares if it’s looking nice, right?) Don’t waste our Time. So move along and dream on!
Bye, Doc

5

Yeah if you like to mod and stuff. Sure… if you want to get hired by Valve and those other huge game companies.

Heh, but there’s no way you can make a commercial title with valve’s GE cause it’s part of their company. They hold licensing fees, etc on the GE.

Blender’s opensourced and completely free. Umm… who says you can’t make commercial titles with the GE? Hehe, just not at the level that it takes 20-30 guys getting paid $60K or more to make games like HL2. I’m sure if you had a huge team and the money, you could very well make your own commercial title with whooping graphics like that too.

Furthermore, no matter what you make with blender, your experience is destined to count for nothing in the game industry, and your game (no matter how interesting) will never be that well known (except to the people on the forums here of course, which really isnt all that much.), all that making your project quite pointless.

I could care less about the game industry or being “known”. It really depends on what your goals are. ie: I’m not looking to be hired by any big game company, just making games for myself.

Yeah you’re pretty correct about having your game known to others outside the GE. For me it’s just the physics engine that’s really stopping me. Lol, I still use sumo since bullet still has it’s share of bugs and no one outside this forum would understand shakey and jittery sumo physics. After bullet get’s there, I’d say we could definitely market or have other players outside blender play our games and let it be known.

It’s just for fun and games when it comes down to it at the end.

Jason Lin

6

When you break it down to the bones, its pretty much just an obsolete part of the Blender software that is (and in all probability will always be), too far behind for standard users expectations.

Boy, somebody sure got up on the wrong side of bed this morning ! :o

No doubt Blender’s Game Engine has some short comings (but as Goldentaiji said, the upcoming physics and shaders will resolve some of that) and has some serious bugs (but there’s usually a work-around), but compared to other game development tools out there that don’t require C programming, it’s pretty darn good. And the fact that it’s being developed entirely by voluntary effort is pretty darn amazing.

As for using Blender as a stepping stone to get a job in the CG industry, I don’t think what you use matters as much as what you can do with it. In my experience, the studios that insist that you be an expert in one app or the other are usually looking for what I would call a “grunt terminal operator”. When I managed a fairly large multimedia production company (main tools were Max, Photoshop, Director and C) I didn’t care if someone was a guru in Max, I wanted to see how creative and skilled they were in making their concepts a reality. If they had the skills and desire, I knew they would be able to adapt to the tools we used.

As for producing professional quality games, I don’t know. I tend to believe that the quality of the game is largely dependent on the quality of the content and game play. I’m now on the 3rd revision to my sim, and each time I find the only limitation are my skills and creativity, not Blender’s abilities.

I think it’s like anything else in life: pick the right tool to accomplish your goals. For now, for the project I’m working on, Blender GE seems to be doing the best job.

7

That was the whole point of my post. Also I am not against blender, im just trying to convey my opinion that the BGE is not something for the serious game developer, trying to break into the industry. Even so I still respect the “hobbyists” who are simply interested in making something for their own amusement/piece of mind. What I wanted to do here is just inform people (who already didnt know), about the sourceSDK and the vast options it provides for the developer. Thats all.

Well, now you know better.

O, boy. Did I really come off that hostile? Well lets see if I can salvage some civility.

1)No, I don’t (when did I say that?). I expect to do alot of work, but preferably with professional tools that will do the heavy lifting (pretty much the almighty source physics, and all the graphical support like HDR).

2)(I never said that either) When did I say that? Are you sure that I was the one you were talking to?

3)What makes a good game (not-boring) is many different things, not only gameplay (given that I do agree with you its one of the most important). What makes a truly good game is gameplay, graphics and sound combined. A “good game” needs to have it all, and I was just trying to inform you that the source engine can more than provide the means to make the best in each category. As for wasting time and dreaming, I think that im being very realistic (I am talking about using pro game dev software to make something decent, as opposed to making demos for the BGE, which needles to say is not as professional), but you are entitled to your own opinion of course. Also I apologize if I came off too agressive, please understand that I meant for this just to be informative.

Well yes, in order to make a profit off the game you make with the sourceSDK you will have to share a percentage of the royalties with them (if they decide that your game is good enough to be sold), but on the bright side, this means that now you can distribute your game through steam (Valves on-line distribution service), and actually make a profit. (as opposed to making squat, and only a few people even knowing about your game, let alone playing it).

Im glad it’s working out for you. For those who want to make something more advanced there are more advanced tools, and that’s what I wanted to inform people about.

8

I was having a boring laid back evening until now. I kind of live for these arguments in this site.
One thing, already mentioned, that I keep reminding myself with is that the content that I make with Blender becomes my own product to sell. (When I say sell I mean not to make huge sums of money, but to give something away for free tends to make someone automatically assume it is below par.) I do not have to go through a Federal Case to market my game. I have a paper and pen RPG that I have been playing with my friends and altering for 12 years; my dream was to make it professional to have a larger audience- to enjoy seeing them play the game I had so much fun with. I accomplished this only too late, finally realizing there is no market for this anymore. Blender has picked me back up from this down- the people that have made Blender are generous and genius. We need to respect what this is all about. Stop with the Utopian GE dream of greener grass on the other side.

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The pople that have made Blender are indeed generous and genious, and they definitelly deserve respect.

As for the “Utopian GE dream of greener grass on the other side”:
Well for one, its not a dream. As I have said the sourceSDK is available to anyone who has purchased HL2. Also, in this case, it should be noted that the “Grass is really greaner on the other side”, it’s the same set of software tools used to make a game like HalfLife 2, and not to mention the plus of those tools being constantly updated by the people working for valve.

Blender is an excelent piece of software for moddeling and animation, but when it comes to the GE, it is very primitive (by todays standards).

Im just saying that when making games, sourceSDK is a much better option (which in my opinion is an understatement). I thought that if I was going to be learning how to use a specific set of software tools to make games, I might as well learn the best. I wanted to see if any other people kept an open mind and maybe had similar thoughts (which to me sounded rational at the moment).

10

I have attempted higher-end gaming engines, but the licensing agreements generally kill the whole possibility. I hate constraints; to make a whole game and later find out major issues through the royalty protocol would be asinine. They can change the protocol to thier whim at anytime too
But I understand what you are saying. I would not mind taking a look at this option. You mention purchasing HL2 to get access. I do not have this game, but is there a website that I can go to?

11

You can get all the information at www.steampowered.com (steam is valves online game distribution system, and you can purchase the game through that, if you can’t find a dvd copy in stores).

Also, they have the license agreeament in pdf format, if you would like to read into all the details, along with source engine specifications, and other detailed docs.

12

Thank you. I will comb through it and let everyone know in the next few days what I think about it.

13

Heh, I looked through the .pdf on the site. Yup hl2 is a reall nice game engine. Too bad they don’t mention the licensing fees. My guess is, it’s really expensive… :wink: Let’s give a shout for a $25,000 or more licensing fee, lol maybe more… It’s great for all you guys who wants to work with professional tools and all, but commercial possibilities for a small developer is minimal. :wink: Hehe, goes back to the old saying, “You gotta have money to make money”.

It’s true, blender needs a revamp on it’s graphical speed capabilities and the efficiency at realtime rendering. More objects and armatured characters on screen at once would be nice. However, the best workflow and ease of use is what keeps me still here.

Jason Lin

14

Yea, just the licensing fees alone make it almost entirely implausable to use that engine if your an indie developer.

And, whos to say Blender couldnt make something professional eh? The issue isnt how the engine performs, or what its capable of…its pure man-power. Professional AAA game productions are developed under huge 20-40 person teams, sometimes larger, so no wonder they can crank out so much pretty content. If you had a 5 person team using the HL2 engine, theres no way you could make a AAA production right? you would have a small demo, something you yourself might consider “hobbiest”…something very similar to a demo you might find here on the elysiun boards.

ok, now that comment is just plane not true. Your experience with blender wouldnt count for nothing! c’mon, you would already know how to low-poly model and UV texture, which is a good foundation to build upon when learning more about the field, and that counts for nothing? Also, how “well-known” your game is has more to do with marketing than anything else…I mean, you could make a crap game and sell millions with a good marketing plan.(game companies do it all the time. :stuck_out_tongue: ) Or you could make a decent small game, sell it for a 1 or 2$, have a solid plan for cheap marketing, and sell hundreds, maybe thousands…Also, so what if your projects website doesnt recieve millions of visits. Making games isnt about making your game well-known, its about making great games that are fun to play and worlds that are hard to forget, not about making yourself or your project famous.

I get your point though. You want to break into the industry in a professional way, right? Heres my point though: Blender, as a piece of software, isnt holding you back from making a pro game…like I said, its pure man-power…a big team could make a commecial game with any engine, and a small team will make a smaller game with any engine.

15

Yo Social, dont be a jackass!

Blender may not be the best thing for you. But ive been using its GE since its first days. Its the best tool I have ever had besides my own engine which I made myself. I use Maya, Max, Blender, and Sol all together and am very productive because of it. Blender is where all my content can be created and put together.

Another thing dude! dont F-ing bring suggest people buy some damn HL2 engine and use it. Cus there aint to point. There is much more pride in making your own engine thats tailored to your style of work. And the resulting experiance is great. Why should someone buy and engine when they can spend the quality time to learn.

You may say that some users may not want to spend the time to make their own engine. I dont want to be mean to any of you guys cus your all cool and all. But if you ever want to go anywhere in the industry you need to put fourth the effort to get where you want to go. And that generaly requires that you get off your lazy ass.

So heres a lil suggestion to try and resolve this thread. Stop dissin the Blender GE or go make your own, cus its the best your getting for free. Or if you want to be super super cool, learn C++ and come help me and the guys improve the GE for everyone else.

Oh and you need to understand that if your going to make a game to make some money then your going to fail terribly. Good games are made by people who love to make games, not by people who love to make money.

I would work 20hrs a day without pay for a game studio as long as they let me make games…

16

The Blender Game Engine gives people a chance to make their own games without even looking at a line of code. That is a great feature. It is the boot strap that gets people really into making games, and a few of them will move on to actually program their own ( I think. I mean, I did. But my attempts are lax ). And you don’t have to purchace a game to use it ( as is with the Source and Unreal engines ). I could go on for a while, but I’ll stop now.

17

Does this Source engine come with a world class modeler build in? Does it come with a scripting language as rich as python, that allows you to extend the engine with anything you need?

18

Point made Social.

Counter Point:

Social, to say that the BGE, with regard to game development experience, is pointless is a gross overstatement.

The BGE certainly plays a roll in terms of bringing people into the realm of game development. It’s a quick and easy way of learning some of the basics.

It can be a stepping stone to the likes of the HL2 SDK. Afterall, one has to start with something. :smiley:

19

How about you don’t guess, and instead actually find out what the licensing fee is. Also, you guys don’t have to worry about licensing fees, since they only apply if you are selling your game (you guys don’t care about money, so now you don’t have an excuse).

@TommorowMan

Read my response to goldentaiji “you guys dont have to worry about the fees”. Also the source engine actually makes the game workflow faster (if you knew how to use the sdk, you could make a game faster, looking better and with better gameplay than you could ever do in blender). I agree with you on the fact that low-poly modelling and UV texturing is a skill that is usefull in the industry. Blender is a good tool to learn the basics of game dev, but it doesnt go much further than that. I should have phrased myself better, sorry.

And I would like to get paid, because even if im doing what I love, I still have to pay rent, and buy food, pay my insurance etc.

@laurens

It does not come with a modeler (actually for that you can use blender). As for the scripting; you can do everything in C++ (although I don’t see why you would ever need to, apart from programing a specific AI, because everything else has already been built in and ready for you to modify)

This is the smartest post I have read so far. Very well said thinkofwhy. Yes I agree, It was my mistake in saying that it was pointless, because it can be a great stepping stone.

20

The Blender game engine is quickly getting there, by 2.42 if the new GLSL shaders are in and bullet bugs are fixed it will seem to be pretty nice, if you want to complain about it pick up a coding book and start adding features to Blender’s game engine. Right now Blender’s game engine could use any developer who could add features.

spike1907, you’ve said before you’re helping to code the game engine, any idea what features you have planned right now, if not look at jm’s suggestions on the blender.org forum for ideas.

Blender’s game engine I believe can get up to par with more developers.