[MUD-Dev] Outdoor and indoor 3d engines

[Adam Martin]

----- Original Message -----
From: <Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 10:43 AM
Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Jeff's Rant: A World Full of Wheel-Makers

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Dave Rickey [mailto:daver at mythicentertainment.com]
>> Sent: 21 May 2001 17:09
>> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
>> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Jeff's Rant: A World Full of Wheel-Makers

>> Frankly, iD's Quake engine was a step *back* for the concept of
>> engine liscensing, as John Carmack's refusal to do *anything* to
>> make it more flexible and insistence on rewriting it from scratch
>> with each version caused many projects using it to balloon in
>> budget or go under completely.  If I was looking for an engine to
>> make a new game, I would stay *far* away from it.  Name recognition
>> isn't what you want in an engine.

> Surely with MMORPGs, you have a more limited choice as you need an
> engine capable of rendering out door geometry which a BSP based
> engine (a la Quake 3, Unreal (not the latest unreleased one)
> etc. etc.) is entirely unsuited for?

> Of course not using BSP means that the gfx quality is generally
> below peoples expectations. Is there actually an engine available
> that can cover both indoor rendering and outdoor using a hybrid
> engine with proper portaling? I was thinking the Tribes 2 engine
> might be able to do it. In addition, Unreal 2 looks like it *might*
> be able to, although the videos I've seen didn't seem to support
> anything like a large enough outdoor area for an MMORPG.

I'm sure there are plenty, each with their caveats. Personally I
particularly like Drakan's engine, which not only stitched areas
together with effectively zero load times, but also was NOT BSP based,
so you got to hack things to pieces, damage the landscape, deform
things, etc. But it made areas generally valley-like, with occluded
(behind a door, or in a cave, or obscured by trees, etc) portals to
other areas (so it didn't have to keep rendering through the portals
into the neighbouring areas).

Have a look at:

  http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~ki/engines.html

for a good, long (but not complete) list.

Adam M

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