I was having a little look around as I was curious about the future of the BGE. After a short look, it looks like the future is a bit bleak. It would be a shame if the BGE dies. Its great having the combination of asset creation and game engine together. I also read that the code is quite a mess.
Is it an option, to write a bran new game engine from scratch, in something like C++, that can work alongside Blender, or inside Blender, so that we can still have the same work flow, but on a brand new engine?
An all new, shiny C++/OpenGL game engine for Blender
So in my head, blender itself becomes more of an asset creator only. And then you have your game logic editor inside of Blender with your assets linked. But your game code is always a separate entity instead of being part of Blenders main program. So I imagine it will always launch in standalone.
I’m a C++ programmer with a little bit of OpenGL/Direct X experience, so I will get my thiking cap on how to implement this
Could you make it so that it has logic bricks with great framerate for openworlds?As of now the blender game engine lags with dynamically loaded terrains.I would like to have procedural generation acessible through logic bricks.The new unreal game engine has that.
Yeah I think the logic bricks would have to come to, as this is a big factor in why a lot of people start using the BGE I’m sure, but…
I would like it so people that have programming experience to directly access the games code.
Maybe have it so when you start a new game, you start a new ‘project’ and you start off with a bare bones program with direct access to the code of the game itself without disturbing Blender.
Or maybe even swapping logic bricks for very simplified functions that you can stick into the game loop, but then still be able to write your own functions. hmm I havnt really put a huge amount of thought into it yet, just wanted to get the wheels turning. Hopefully some programmers will see this thread!!
for example, take the following C++ class
class LogicBrick_Movement
{
MovePlayerSimple(x,y,z);
function();
};
You could access the class itself directly and alter/extend it, and then it could be visualised as a logic brick in some kind of wysiwyg editor for those that don’t want to code.
I think being able to extend the functionality of ‘logic bricks’ would be a step in the right direction. It also gives a good learning step to the engine because you could start with the bricks only, and then when you are more comfortable, start digging in to them
You will see you can do that. Just edit the BGE code and build.
If you put some more thoughts in it you will see you … a game developer does not want to work on that level of abstraction, nor should he. This is engine code and not game code. You would loose all benefits from an high level scripting language (e.g. fast compile, high level programming …).
If you really want a pure programming engine I suggest to look at Panda3d (Python) or jMonkey(Java). There are many other engines that live from pure scripting too.
There are a few options already for a game engine in Blender. There are developers working on fixing bugs in the BGE currently; they might be interested in overhauling the engine eventually (but that’s a big task, I’m sure). There’s an IRC community for them over at #bgecoders.
Mahalin was working on an engine, last I checked; not sure how it’s turning out at the moment.
I’m contributing to Goran’s Java-based BDX engine, which is turning out pretty swell at the moment. I’m sure we’d appreciate more users / developers to contribute.
In any case, you might want to reconsider starting yet another BGE project when you could easily work on adding new features to an existing engine.
I’m glad to hear that there is stuff going on to address the BGE. Whether that be improving the current one, or working on a bran new one. I wasn’t hoping to have to create this by myself, especially if there is already some things in the pipeline.
BDX is an engine for independent developers, who are willing to embrace certain constraints, in order to gain greater benefits in more relevant areas.
For anyone who wants/needs a AAA engine: Use UE4 - now that it’s basically free, there’s really no reason for anyone to complain about the BGE, or any other Open Source engine.
If you’re looking for a good quality FOSS game engine project to get on board with, you can always start developing for the Godot engine and have some of that work being to improve the quality and speed of getting Blender assets over to it.
They actually have one or two paid programmers being the project leads and would be happy to help you get started.
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