Unit 67

Video game engines

Research

In this blog I will be researching games engines, the difference between licensed game engines and bespoke studio game engines.

What is a game engine?

A basic explanation of a game engine is a system design to create and develop video games.  Game engines can be used to create all kinds of video games weather they are 2D or 3D. The key features a game engine offer are a rendering engine for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine, sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localisation support and a scene graph.

Licensed game engines are the already created engines that anyone can use to create their own game, which is what I will be hoping to achieve. An example of a licensed game engine is Unreal, which has created many games such as gears of war.

Where as a bespoke game engine are the engines created specifically by the game creators for their game. That way they can create the editing features they want. An example of this is Frostbite engine, which was used to create battlefield.

Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games and was first created in 1998. The first game created using this engine was the first person shooter Unreal. The engine was initially created for first person shooters but has been successfully used to create stealth, MMORPG's and RPG games.

Unreal Engine 1
The engine was first released in 1998. This engine included rendering, collision detection, AI, visibility, networking, scripting and file system management. This engine implemented large parts of custom scripting language called UnrealScript. This engine took big strides forward after the release of Unreal Tournament, with good network performance.

Unreal Engine 2
The second version of the Engine made its debut with America's Army in 2002. This version of the Engine re-rote the core code and rendering engine. In the 2.5 update of the engine they improved the rendering performance and added vehicle physics and a particle system editor.

Unreal Engine 3
Unreal 3 was originally released with Gears of War in 2006. For the third update of the engine they added many advanced render supports such as HDRR, per-pixel lighting and dynamic shadows. The engine also has built on the tools in previous versions.

Frost Bite Game Engine

Frostbite game engine is developed by EA Digital Illusion CE, the creators of the Battlefield series. The engine is currently designed for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and One. Originally the engine was developed to create first person shooter but since then has been adapted into creating game genres such as racing and real time strategy and is widely used by a n umber of EA studios, this means that this engine is a bespoke engine.

Frostbite 1.0

The engine was first created in 2008 to create Battlefield: Bad Company. A big feature of the engine was the HDR Audio. HDR Audio enables players to hear clear and important sounds with out being muffled by a number of different sounds being used. An example of this is the gunshots being more clear than the backing music during gameplay. Destriuction 1.0 is another feature that enables the players to destroy certain objects like walls.

Frostbite 1.5
In 2009 the second update of Frostbite debuted with Battlefield 1943. A key feature was an upgrade to Destruction 1.0 with Destruction 2.0. Destruction 2.0 allows the player to destroy even more than just walls such as whole buildings. In 2010 Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was released also using Frostbite 1.5. This was the first game to bring the Frostbite engine to the windows platform. Frostbite 1.5 was also used for the multiplayer components of Medal of Honor but the destruction capabilities are much more limited.

Frostbite 2
In 2011 the first major update of the engine was released with Battlefield 3. This engine has the third update of Detruction with Destruction 3.0. Destruction 3.0 enhances the in game destruction with more reallistic and refined physics. Dice has largley focused on the upgrades and advances in the rendering technology focusing more on the animation, destruction, scale, rendering and audio.

Frostbite 3

This is the next generation version of Frostbite and will debut with Battlefield 4 on October 29 2013. Popular releases since then include Need for Speed: Rivals and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. The game eninge has upgraded on several different features including an improvement on its tessellation technology. It also includes the fourth upgrade on Destruction with Destruction 4.0, which enhances the destruction even more than the older upgrades.

                                                     Scratch

Scratch is a lisenced game engine that enables the user to create simple 2D games. Sprites can be used from the existing library or created by the user using a paint styled in programme creator or imported from other files. 

Scratch was first developed in 2003 by Lifelong Kindergarten group. The first official website for scratch was then released in 2006. In 2007 the website enabled the users to upload their games to the website for other people to play. This also updated the websites design and layout. Scratch 1.0 was available for download on the 8th January 2007. The scratch website continued to be updated untill the end of 2012 when Scratch 2.0 was released.