Unreal Engine 3

Developer: Epic Platforms: PC, Mac, Xbox 360, PS3 Browser support: No Cost: Available on request Published titles: Mass Effect (Bioware), The Last Remnant (Square Enix), Lost Odyssey (Mistwalker), The Wheelman (Midway) Titles in development: Alpha Protocol (Obsidian), DC Universe Online (SOE), Alien Breed (Team 17) Middleware integrations: Fonix, SpeedTree, GameSpy, Scaleform GFx, PhysX, Illuminate Labs, Umbra, morpheme, nFringe, HumanIK, Kynapse, Bink, ProFX, AI.implant, Quazal, DigiMask, Game-Link, Wwise, Enlighten To be honest, Epic’s monster behemoth doesn’t really need any introduction at all. Now almost an industry standard in its third incarnation, Unreal Engine 3’s domination of the full-engine middleware sector is hard to argue against. Still, the main criticism levelled against it – usually by its competitors, we should say – is that the engine is geared towards first- (or third-) person shooters. Nevertheless, customers have managed to extend and rip apart the engine to power everything from Japanese-style RPGs to open-world action-racing games like The Wheelman. One of the emerging usage groups is for MMO development. In order to give the engine a better standing against dedicated MMO solutions like HeroEngine and BigWorld, and emerging threats like CryENGINE, Epic has tasked its China office with the development of Atlas, its persistent world server technology and MMO creation and management toolset. Another new feature is Unreal Lightmass, a new global illumination solver that can produce lightmaps with smooth bounced lighting without the need to use any third-party technology. Generation of the lightmaps can also be farmed out by the new Swarm distributed processing solution to use idle CPUs locally and across networks. The new Unreal Master Control Program is a new service-orientated architecture based on the Gears of War 2 persistent stat tracking system. It allows developers to track online populations and even domain-specific data mining such as level-based heat maps to quickly identify chokepoints and problem areas in multiplayer maps. Finally, Epic has enhanced asset management by introducing the new Content Browser, which allows users to tag assets and then find them easily with search filters, allowing users to locate, preview and manage assets regardless of whether they’re loaded or not. Contact: 620 Crossroads Blvd, Cary, NC 27518, United States
E-mail: licensing@epicgames.com
Web: www.epicgames.com

Gamebryo Lightspeed

Developer: Emergent Game Technologies Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PC Browser support: No Cost: Available on request Published titles: Fallout 3 (Bethesda), Civilization Revolution (Firaxis), Warhammer Online (EA Mythic) Titles in development: Unannounced titles from Square Enix, Disney, Tencent, Sidhe and Tose Middleware integrations: Nvidia PhysX and APEX, Scaleform GFx, Wwise, Speedtree, Illuminate Labs, NaturalMotion, Lightsprint, Aristen, Umbra, xaitment, memoraze, Allegorithmic, RAD Although the new name might fool you into thinking it a new entry in Emergent’s middleware line-up, the company is clear on one thing: Gamebryo Lightspeed is very much the future for the global firm. Having succeeded on its previous aims – to bring enterprise-level engineering to game middleware and to simplify multi-core development with Floodgate – Emergent is now pushing firmly into designer territory. “It’s the first offering from Emergent that is focused not only on engineers but also the needs of game designers,” says CEO Geoffrey Selzer. “It’s an all-in-one system that offers rapid prototyping, rapid iteration, and real-time, on-target updates.” As such, Lightspeed adds a data-driven framework to the existing Gamebryo tech base, enabling designers to iterate mechanics and ideas within hours rather than weeks. In fact, given that it features the entire Gamebryo feature set under the hood – the same feature set that’s powered genre-diverse games as big as Fallout 3 and Warhammer Online – it’s being placed as a solution that not only gets you rapidly prototyping, but can then follow with the development cycle all the way up to mastering up. The new toolset includes an Entity Modelling Tool to control the new entity and behaviour system; a brand-new World Builder that ties into the entity system; an Asset Controller that automatically monitors for changes in assets, hotloading them into the tools and onto target platforms in real-time without recompliation; and a script integration system that allows you to use the scripting language of your choice. Add to that the work it is doing in supporting small start-up developers – the number of small studios it hosted on its GDC stand was impressive – and Emergent’s market share is only set to grow. Contact: 5016 N. Parkway Calabasas, Suite 210, Calabasas, CA 91302, United States Tel: (818) 222-5355
E-mail: info@emergent.net
Web: www.emergent.net

CryENGINE 3

Developer: Crytek Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC, ‘MMO and next-gen ready’ Browser support: No Cost: Available on request Published titles: Crysis (CryTek), Crysis Warhead (Crytek), Aion (NCsoft) Titles in development: Not disclosed Middleware integrations: Scaleform GFx, CRI, FMOD Those expecting Crytek to mirror Epic in terms of version numbering might have been surprised to see CryENGINE hit version three so quickly, but maybe it’s important to be on an even playing field with your punchiest competitor. The main addition to v3 is the long sought after console support – the formerly PC-only engine is now fully supported on Xbox 360 and PS3, with the developer at pains to point out that it’s worked the graphics, physics, AI, networking and sound subsystems to make them ready for the massively many-core architectures likely to find themselves in the next generation of consoles. Of course, this is CryENGINE, so what you really care about is the visuals. Crytek has seen fit to add a huge number of high-end graphical features to the engine, including a real-time dynamic global illumination solution fully optimsed for current-generation machines. There’s also a new real-time soft particle system, which can be affected by object collisions, forces such as wind and gravity, and lighting and shadows; volumetric light beams; screen-space ambient occlusion support, a unique deferred shading solution and a high-level platform-agnostic shader scripting technology. The ‘What You See is What You Play’ Sandbox editor – which now deploys live to target consoles, giving instant feedback to scene changes – has also had its functionality bolstered, with a new automatic vegetation placement ruleset that’ll plant your foliage based on slope, surface altitude and desired density. There’s also dedicated road and river builders, a specialised vehicle editor, a facial animation tool, plus automatic navmesh generation unified for inside and outside spaces coupled with the engine’s dynamic pathfinding system. And, as if that wasn’t enough, there’s a fully featured audio offering, AI and game scripting by Lua or the graphical Flow-Graph system, an integrated physics engine and a full suite of performance analysis tools. Contact: Hanauer Landstr. 523, 60386 Frankfurt am Main, Germany E-mail: cryengine@crytek.de Web: www.crytek.com

Unity 3D

Developer: Unity Technologies Platforms: PC, Mac, iPhone, Wii Browser support: Yes Cost: $199 (Indie), $1499 (Pro), $399+ (iPhone), $15,000 (WiiWare, per title), $30,000 (Wii, per title) Published titles: FusionFall (Cartoon Network), Zombieville USA (mikamobile) Titles in development: Secret MMO by Funcom, other unannounced products Middleware integrations: PhysX, Mono, more to come We first covered Unity in these pages about a year ago, as it started to make more of an impact in the indie/low-end development market. For all its virtues, though, it was hampered by being Mac-only. Unity 2.5, launched at GDC, finally brings the Unity toolset to Windows and all those developers unwilling to switch to Macs for the sake of a nice engine. The editor differs from many in being entirely visual-lead – assets can be imported into projects by a simple drag-and-drop (that actually opens the host application in the background to export with optimal settings) and scripts are linked visually. The editor is also now completely scriptable, meaning that new workflows and interfaces can quickly be made up. Several members of the community have made new editors freely available, including a pathfinding module with automatic (and manual) nagivation mesh generation and behavioural tree editors. The community is something that Unity Technologies considers a big selling point of the engine: the low entry point means that many hobbyist and indie developers are ardent supporters. As they rationalise it, when big triple-As like Funcom and EA embark on development, they’ve got a wide (and educated) support base and also a pool of ready-trained talent to recruit from. Parts of Cartoon Network’s MMO FusionFall were developed by community members, for example. It’s also got arguably the best iPhone support, with the actual device acting as an input method to the editor to fine-tune accelerometer controls. According to the company, a new Unity-powered iPhone game is added to the App Store almost every day. Other console support is currently limited to Wii, but support for Xbox 360 and PS3 is firmly within the company’s roadmap, as are the MMO functionality updates spun out from the success of FusionFall. Contact: Duevej 94 a, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark E-mail: info@unity3d.com Web: www.unity3d.com

BlitzTech

Developer: Blitz Games Studios Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, PC Browser support: No Cost: Available on request Published titles: House of the Dead: Overkill (Headstrong), Power Up Forever (Blitz Arcade), Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol Encore 2 (Blitz Games) Titles in development: Dead to Rights Retribution (Volatile Games), Invincible Tiger (Blitz Arcade), many more TBA Middleware integrations: FMOD, Kynapse, Bink Given the Oliver brothers’ frequent comments about the horrors of middleware, it was quite a surprise to see Blitz move into the technology licensing arena. But all due credit to them – if you’ve got a platform- and genre-agnostic offering that’s been fine-tuned over the past 10 years, why not let other people use it? Although the internal uses of the tech are diverse – from the next-gen Dead to Rights to almost all of Blitz Arcade’s digital-distribution titles – the company is keen to market BlitzTech to triple-A developers only. It’s built for large-scale development, with in-built asset management that supports remote working and in-built version control. The focus is therefore very much on tools and the asset pipeline to support big teams, with the editor allowing designers and artists to work on multiple SKUs – including technologically disparate ones – through one interface. The editor can also be deployed on the target console to give immediate feedback and allow users to move objects, change properties and update assets in real-time. The engine is also certainly leading in graphical aspects too, as anyone who’s seen the amazing-looking Dead to Rights in person will attest. One particular highlight is that it runs entirely on dynamic lights – there are no pre-baked lightmaps whatsoever – on both the Xbox 360 and PS3, which gives better lighting and immediate feedback for artists. Of course, if you do want to do any complicated offline baking, the engine’s built-in distributed network processing system will help make it a much quicker process. Finally, one of the real distinguishing features is BlitzTech’s support for true stereoscopic 3D on current-generation consoles. Blitz is firm in its belief that 3D is the future, but is happily licensing out that technology now, including compatibility for the numerous standards that currently exist. Contact: Regent Square House, The Parade, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, CV32 4NL, UK E-mail: business@blitzgamesstudios.com Web: www.blitztech.com

Infernal Engine

Developer: Terminal Reality Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii, PS2, PSP Browser support: No Cost: Available on request Published titles: Ghostbusters (Terminal Reality), Mushroom Men: Spore Wars (Red Fly) Titles in development: The Strike and The Hunt (Piranha Games), Cook or be Cooked (Red Fly), plus unannounced titles from Wideload and more Middleware integrations: Scaleform GFx, FMOD, Wwise, Bink, Fonix, Quazal If there was ever a good time for Terminal Reality to launch its own games engine, the run-up to the release of the hotly-anticipated Ghostbusters game would definitely be it. Good-looking screenshots aside, the Infernal Engine is built from the developer’s 15 year history in the industry, during which time it’s shipped more than 30 titles. As such, much of the focus is on streamlining production. Take, for example, the integrated editor: not a major distinguishing feature on it’s own, but it enables collaborative level design, farms out lightmapping and other intensive processes to servers, has an integrated performance monitoring and memory tracking system, and even optimises the packaging of game assets to minimise disk seeks on physical media (a whole separate middleware area in its own right). The areas the engine touches are far wider than just productivity, though: it has its own physics system called VELOCITY that can simulate thousands of objects at once, as well as dynamic destruction and cloth simulation. The developer has also recently added the dynamic collision avoidance AI used in Ghostbusters to cope with massively dynamic environments, and is close to rolling out ‘dramatic improvements’ in its animation system. Audio is also catered for, with a data-driven engine with support for streaming on all platforms, real-time remote connection to tweak sound cues during playback, integrated positioning, spatialisation and Doppler shift for 3D audio. The engine’s C++-like scripting language Dante offers all of the benefits of a compiled language – quick execution, small memory footprint – but, curiously, features immediate feedback of script changes without recompilation. Given its wide platform support and future-proofed multi-threaded architecture, the Infernal Engine could easily be a big player in the market. Contact: 2274 Rockbrook Drive, Lewisville, TX 75067, United States Tel: (972) 315-8089 E-mail: enginesales@terminalreality.com Web: www.infernalengine.com

Vision Engine 7.5

Developer: Trinigy Platforms: PC (DX9 & 10), Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii Browser support: No Cost: Available upon request Published titles: Desperados 2 (Atari), Emergency 3 & 4 (Take 2), Warlord (Neowiz) Titles in development: Dungeon Hero (Firefly), Arcania – A Gothic Tale (JoWood), plus unannounced Ubisoft and Neowiz projects Middleware integrations: Bullet physics, Digital Molecular Matter, FMOD Ex, Kynapse, morpheme, NetDog, OpenAL, PhysX, ProFX 2, Quazal Net-Z, Scaleform GFx, SpeedTree, xaitEngine Trinigy’s Vision Engine continues to pick up pace in the international market, and is actually leading in some respects (it’s the first engine to integrate Pixelux’s Digital Molecular Matter, as used in LucasArts’ Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, for example). Although it might not be a name with the same clout of Unreal, its strongly genre-agnostic structure is clearly finding more and more fans across the industry. Version 7.5 – released earlier this year – adds a complete DirectX 10 engine that makes ‘full use’ of the DX10 feature set, as well as an enhanced PhysX integration that allows visual editing of physical properties and joints. The engine’s event and trigger system have also been fully integrated into the editor, and Wii support has also been overhauled. “The feedback we get from our 100-plus licensees is that Vision is simply the best overall package,” says Dag Frommhold, managing parter at Trinigy. “The engine is completely genre-agnostic and is flexible enough to adapt to almost any project’s needs, whether it’s a casual game or triple-A title.” Much effort has also been placed into Vision Engine’s multi-platform capabilities, with extensive optimisations provided for each platform. Scenes and models can be examined live on the actual machine for instant on-target viewing, while console-specific features – such as SPU balancing on PS3 and direct GPU to memory export on Xbox 360 – ensure that performance is equal on comparable targets. Finally, extensive documentation is available, including over 60 sample applications – ranging from concepts as simple as Hello World to efficient use of multi-threading. A number of sample scenes are also provided to demonstrate powerful features to artists, and video tutorials can also be downloaded from the Trinigy website. Contact: Trinigy GmbH, INKA-Businesspark, Arbachtalstr. 6, 72800 Eningen, Germany Tel: +49 (0)7121 986 993 E-mail: sales@trinigy.net Web: www.trinigy.net

Bigworld Technology Suite

Vicious Engine 2

Developer: Vicious Cycle Software Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3 (VE2); PSP, PS2, Wii (VE) Browser support: No Cost: Available on request Published titles: Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (Vicious Cycle), Dead Head Fred (Vicious Cycle), Hilton serious game (Virtual Heroes) Titles in development: Unannounced Ambitious independent developer turned engine provider Vicious Cycle is more than aware that it can’t compete with Epic in the super high-end AAA stakes. The niche it’s looking to fill are the smaller developers who have to move quick in order to survive; not those that can take three years on a project. Version one of the Vicious Engine – which is geared to lower-end platforms such as the PSP, PS2 and Wii – is still available, but what the company is really crowing about is the new version, Ve2, launched at GDC 2009. Teased for a number of years, the engine takes the Vicious Engine’s philosophy – of enabling teams to rapidly prototype and shorten the development process – and brings it kicking and screaming into the PS3 and Xbox 360 territory. The engine provides a fully-rounded toolset, including navmesh-based pathfinding, an easy editor for creating re-usable hierarchical state machines, and contextual point-and-click scripting for those who don’t want to get their hands dirty with code. Also, according to the developer, the engine will convert your game to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC ‘simultaneously at the push of a button’, which is quite the claim. It’s also got an in-built asset manager with a version control system to make sure that all assets are checked out when working on them and to ensure that assets remain frozen as milestones approach. Ve2 also features a robust physics system that includes ragdolls, inverse kinematics, surface friction, hinge constraints and object buoyancy. A new lighting system also means that placement, colour and intensity of lights can be quickly prototyped in the editor without the need to bake lightmaps, but ambient occlusion maps can still be baked to improve real-time performance. Contact: 3005 Carrington Mill Blvd, Suite 500, Morrisville, NC 27560, United States Phone: 919-370-3000 E-mail: info@viciouscycleinc.com Web: www.viciousengine.com

Torque 3D

Developer: GarageGames Platforms: PC, Mac, Xbox 360, Wii, iPhone, PS3, PSP Browser support: Yes Cost: PC/Mac/Web: $1,000 (indie, unlimited projects); $4k+ (studio licence, unlimited projects). iPhone: $500+ per seat. Console: undisclosed. Published titles: Penny Arcade Adventures, Fallen Empire: Legions, Buccaneer, Dreamlords, Marble Blast Ultra Titles in development: Unannounced titles from EA, Bioware, Ubisoft and more Middleware integrations: FMOD, PhysX, ODE, Pixomatic, pureLIGHT The latest generation of GarageGames’ Torque engine, the slightly anachronistically-named Torque 3D, is gearing up to take back some of the market share that the firm – admittedly one of the very first companies to dual-target the indie/hobbyist and professional markets – has lost to competitors of late. With a proven tech backbone that’s already available on multiple consoles – with PSP and PS3 set to join the crowd later this year – the focus for Torque 3D is the toolset. “It’s been completely overhauled, and we’ve focused particularly on the content pipeline for ease-of-use and iteration,” says the company’s Brett Seyler. As such, as well as a robust COLLADA import pipeline, all assets are updated live in-engine from external tools, allowing for zero-second asset iteration. The world editor has also been completely rewritten, offering advanced editors for materials, decals and, most interestingly, rivers and roads. That doesn’t mean that high-end graphical effects have been overlooked, though. The lighting model has been upgraded to a hybrid lighting model which it calls ‘light pre-pass rendering’ that the firm says is ‘similar to CryEngine’s’, supporting advanced effects such as screen-space ambient occlusion and light rays, soft particles and advanced wetness and precipitation shaders. Although high-end features are a focal point for Torque 3D, the company is still putting as much focus as ever on low-end hardware, specifically netbooks, citing good performance on Intel 950 chipsets. The mass-market penetration is also targeted with the engine’s new Web Publishing features, based on technology GarageGames developed for its InstantAction web portal, which offers native performance through browsers. Contact: 245 West 5th Ave. Eugene, OR 97401, United States Phone: 541-345-3040 E-mail: licensing@garagegames.com www.garagegames.com

OGRE(Object-oriented Graphics Rendering Engine)

Web:orge.sourceforge.net OGRE是用C++编写的，以现场为导向，灵活的三维引擎，它主要用于那些利用硬件加速的3D图形应用程序。它的类库提取了所有基础系统库的细节，如Direct3D和OpenGL ，并提供了一个基于世界对象和其他直观类的界面 支持插件等形式来完成新的功能，这点优于Irrlicht，但入门不易

OSG(Open Scene Graph)

Irrlicht(鬼火)

高性能的实时3-D引擎，用C++编写，也可用于.Net语言。它采用跨平台设计，使用D3D ，OpenGL与自己的软件渲染。其功能特点可以与商业3D引擎相比。 有自己专用的场景编辑器；但扩充功能不易，对于新手来说，也是难得的入门快，学习快的引擎.

Delta3D

一个功能齐全的游戏引擎，可用于游戏，模拟或其他图形应用。其模块化设计集成了其他的开源项目，如‘开放场景图’，‘开放动力学引擎’，‘人物动画库’和‘OpenAL’ 。Delta3D把这些开源项目集成到一个易于使用的应用程序编程接口中.

NeoEngine

一个全功能的用C++编写的开源3D三维游戏引擎。该引擎是多平台的，包括OpenGL和DirectX渲染功能，支持Windows ，Linux和Mac OS X系统，它提供了场景管理，顶点和像素着色，骨骼动画和物理，脚本以及一个完全集成的工具链。

Bullet

三维游戏多重物理库，提供最先进的碰撞检测，柔软身体和刚体动力学。这个游戏引擎被许多AAA级的游戏公司用在PS3 ，Xbox 360 ，任天堂的Wii、以及PC上 。这个库可以免费用于商业用途.

RealmForge

.NET3D游戏引擎Visual3D.NET的前身。 Visual3D.NET的组成包括Visual3D框架，一个游戏引擎，运行时系统，.Net 2.0应用框架，XNA框架，以及Visual3D设计师，一个类似于Visual Studio 2005的可定制的可视化设计工作区，和其他开发工具.

Power Render

是一个为游戏和3D图形准备的软件开发工具包。它为开发者提供了一个API，为艺术家准备了一些工具，这些工具可以实时预览3ds Max、Maya和Lightwave的模型。新版本还可以预览高动态范围成像并支持OpenEXR文件格式。

Crystal Space

在UNIX ，Windows和Mac OS X系统下使用的开源3-D SDK，它使用OpenGL或软件来渲染，特色有：曲面，容积雾，动态彩色光线，地形引擎，LOD技术和程序帖图等等

OpenSteer

Steering Behaviors for Autonomous Characters OpenSteer is a C++ library to help construct steering behaviors for autonomous characters in games and animation. In addition to the library, OpenSteer provides an OpenGL-based application called OpenSteerDemo which displays predefined demonstrations of steering behaviors. The user can quickly prototype, visualize, annotate and debug new steering behaviors by writing a plug-in for OpenSteerDemo. OpenSteer provides a toolkit of steering behaviors, defined in terms of an abstract mobile agent called a “vehicle.” Sample code is provided, including a simple vehicle implementation and examples of combining simple steering behaviors to produce more complex behavior. OpenSteer’s classes have been designed to flexibly integrate with existing game engines by either layering or inheritance. OpenSteerDemo’s plug-in framework allows a game AI programmer to quickly prototype behaviors during game design, and to develop behaviors before the main game engine is finished. OpenSteerDemo allows the user to interactively adjust aspects of the simulation. The user can: start, stop and single step time, select the vehicle/ character/ agent of interest, adjust the camera’s view and its tracking behavior.

顽皮狗(唯一的独占平台引擎)

干净漂亮的环境，其中富含大量的动态物体，每一个还有自己的物理效果，更加平滑，更多的环境互动，光照上也有让人吃惊的进步，还有人工智能的进步，游戏与动画中间的切换几乎看不出来，还有支持合作与对战……简直就是一个怪物！

RAGE

代表系列:Rockstar（下称R星）乒乓球、GTA4系列、午夜：洛杉矶、Red Dead Redemption（译注：TBA）…… 世界地图流缓冲技术、复杂人工智能管理、天气特效、快速网络代码与众多游戏方式，这些在GTA4中都表现的很明显。而且它对合作插件兼容性非常好。Euphoria是NaturalMotion的一个动态动画引擎，和RAGE引擎非常贴合，就好像它俩是一个娘胎里出来的一样（但是Euphoria与卢卡斯Art的星战：原力就结合的不是那么好了），同样，RAGE与Erwin Coumans的子弹物理引擎也结合的非常完美.

Dead

代表系列：死亡空间，但丁的地狱（译注：撒花，撒花……)

Unreal(虚幻引擎)

代表系列：战争机器，质量效应，生化奇兵，虚幻竞技场，赤钢铁（？），无主之地，兄弟连，镜之边缘，异端世界，彩虹6号…… 虚幻最诱人的地方在于：你用虚幻开发游戏前前后后的开销相当于你自己从头做一个引擎的开销。虚幻还订立了次世代画面的标杆。

Avalanche(雪崩引擎)

代表系列：Just Cause, Just Cause 2, The Hunter

CRY

代表系列：孤岛惊魂、孤岛危机、孤岛危机：弹头、孤岛危机2、永恒之塔……

IW(Infinity Ward)

代表系列：使命2，使命4，使命5，使命MW2，007……

Anvil

代表系列：刺客信条，波斯王子4，肖恩怀特滑雪游戏，刺客信条2……

EGO

代表系列：尘土飞扬系列、Grid、闪点行动：龙腾……

Geo-Mod

代表系列：红色派系

godot

gameplayMore

黑莓制造商RIM宣布推出跨平台、开源的3D引擎Gameplay。这种3D引擎针对移动平台游戏开发者。