Unigine CEO offers game engine to Wasteland 2 for free

[Brigand231]

so it`s a nice offer, but very risky IMHO

So was backing this project (for some), but we had faith and confidence in it and an excellent producer/consumer relationship with Brian. We believe in him and Wasteland 2.

As you say, we don't have any relationship with this engine and no emotional investment in it. I don't think its owner would have offered if it wasn't up to the task, but I'm not willing to gamble our game on it when you put it in that light. I was also beginning to wonder if support was on the table to go with it or If sixteen months down the road Brian and the guys "need" a feature that they can't work out themselves and ask for help to be told "what else do you want for free, please deposit $X for the first five minutes" I don't think we would be happy campers.

I remember replaying BG2 and telling msyelf if they just changed the pictures for everything the bows could become guns and Irenicus could be Finster... How little it would take to change the game if I knew how just by changing fixed images and text. I'm not suggesting something crazy like trying to borrow the Infinity engine, but agree that if we could have an engine that old with decent graphics, optional pausing at each turn to give orders or "real time" combat with ease, and an epic storyline we're going to be ok with whatever we do end up going with.
This is going to be a long 18 months at least to start, knowing as little as we do. We've survived the first 24 hours so far.

[Drool]

If we're going to trust Brian and his team to make the game, I think it's safe to trust their ability to pick an engine.

[Ekaros]

the demos not looking bad, but don`t let demos foul you.

it`s not about graphics, it`s more about what support you can get for it and is it capable of handling everythig wasteland will need. like AI, the dialogue options and all the sandbox world. or does it work well on all kind of hardware?

and since it`s not widely used, you can`t really judge it right now. while for example unity has a huge community and you can see tons of examples what it is capable of and you can see it`s flaws more clearly as well.

so it`s a nice offer, but very risky IMHO

I don't think there is any engine to handle AI, dialogue, combat and such as they vision it. But those areas are the key point of game, something which they should be ready to invest our money in. Not having to make graphical engine and troubleshoot it is a good thing. Still, you can't expect to find something ready made for genre which hasn't had games out in a long while.

They got the 6 months to do other parts of engine, making tools is crucial part of pre-production.

[Brother None]

so it`s a nice offer, but very risky IMHO

As mentioned somewhere above, inXile is not accepting the offer for a free engine license. They're interested in buying in on source code and continued support throughout development (at a reduced price).

[scout]

If we're going to trust Brian and his team to make the game, I think it's safe to trust their ability to pick an engine.

^^^agree.
they will be putting out a vision document soon that explain alot of what they intend to do. can't wait for that.

[Korrvin]

If we're going to trust Brian and his team to make the game, I think it's safe to trust their ability to pick an engine.

^^^agree.
they will be putting out a vision document soon that explain alot of what they intend to do. can't wait for that.

Me too, but don't forget that many vision documents end up to be a pure dream if not executed well or haven't given time to fully come to life.

As I said before, sooner they choose the engine - more time they will have to hammer out all those bugs that most certainly will be there. I don't like oversimplified views, but this is not that hard problem. It all boils to:
1. Can we make the gameworld with this engine fast enough, allowing rest of the devs to work on it as soon as possible?
2. Is there sufficient tools for what we want?
3. How our other RPG tools (dialog/quest tools from Obsidian and maybe some from inxile) work together with the engine?
4. Do we have access to the source code and how hard it is to adapt it for the game?
5. How good is the support from the creator of the engine?

True, there could be some hidden problems that I'm not aware atm, but more or less that's it, although any single point mentioned above could be a deal breaker.

[Orko]

Because Unreal 3 was made with first person games in mind, so everything looks great and super detailed in camera's near distance, but there are some characteristic problems (such as texture popping) which may render it inappropriate for a top-down game which doesn't need objects and textures shown so close and detailed.

Unigine seems to handle very fast top-down camera movement nicely, so if it's flexible enough to support extending via scripting languages (e.g. Python and LUA) which can ease mission scripting, dialog handling etc at great extent (similar to Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, which utilized Half-Life 2 engine but used Python for quest scripting, character attributes etc), it should be the prime candidate for W2 engine.

I would like to point out that Firaxis uses the Unreal 3 engine for their X-Com: Enemy unknown. And thats a turn based top down game.
Here you can see how an Engine, primary devoloped for FPS games, can be used in diferent ways.

[MaximB]

so it`s a nice offer, but very risky IMHO

As mentioned somewhere above, inXile is not accepting the offer for a free engine license. They're interested in buying in on source code and continued support throughout development (at a reduced price).

Those are even better news !
I would love to see inXile use Unigine and getting the support and code so they can change it to their needs.

And about Unreal 3 (and engine), Epic fucked the Linux port although everything was almost ported by Ryan (who also ported all other unreal games), and basically done.
So F Epic and their UDK engine.

(sorry for the bad English)

[sorophx]

Here you can see how an Engine, primary devoloped for FPS games, can be used in diferent ways.

it's not necessarily the best way to go. maybe Firaxis just didn't want to spend money on another engine and went with what they had. maybe their programmers are just really good with that particular engine. still, if an engine was designed for FPS games, chances are most teams wouldn't be able to get everything they needed out of it in such a short time period.

don't forget that the engine has to be flexible enough to support easy implementation of dialogue, complex scripts - all required for an RPG, it's not only about turn-based combat.

[Censo]

What is included in this proposal? Do they provide sources as well or libraries only? With sources for free and with support from Unigine authors for some reasonable fee it could be a good choice.

[cdoublejj]

Interesting. Oil Rush wasn't the best of games from the looks of it, but it does run great and look beautiful.

Very interested in knowing if it'll be a candidate. Of course, inXile doesn't have to be cheap about the engine if they have a better candidate, but if it fits the needs, it's a nice way to open up more budget for design and graphics work.

Hell yeah, plus it is cross platform!

[Brother None]

What is included in this proposal? Do they provide sources as well or libraries only? With sources for free and with support from Unigine authors for some reasonable fee it could be a good choice.

Libraries only. They're talking about how much source seats/support would cost.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Could someone explain exactly how this engine would be useful for a turn-based game? And I don't mean "real time with pause." pauses aren't "turns." Chess is a turn-based game. I fail to see how a turn based game will benefit from "real time with pause." Or, is there some way to use this graphics engine to give you a real turn based game?

[suz]

Could someone explain exactly how this engine would be useful for a turn-based game? And I don't mean "real time with pause." pauses aren't "turns." Chess is a turn-based game. I fail to see how a turn based game will benefit from "real time with pause." Or, is there some way to use this graphics engine to give you a real turn based game?

Any real time engine can be chiseled down to turn based.

While pauses aren't "turns", what you basically do is logically "pause" all pieces other than currently moving piece, and only "unpause" pieces the current piece interacts with - shoots at for example.

[Brigand231]

Think of it like filming a movie one line at a time. The cameras and equipment are in place with the ability to film anything and everything at once, the crew has all their film and they _could_ all be active at once. Instead, the director is filming a close up on each actor/prop as they deliver their lines. As far as the viewer's perspective, the rest is unseen, but it _is_ there and ready to go. That's how the engine works, it puts all those pieces into place - it is aware of all the actors and props (agents), their wardrobe, and their inventories. It's a lot to be responsible for and keep track of. Even if the camera is only focusing on one actor at a time and the microphone is only recording one voice. The engine fills the role of the director and is aware of 100% of the big picture and the current scene.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Could someone explain exactly how this engine would be useful for a turn-based game? And I don't mean "real time with pause." pauses aren't "turns." Chess is a turn-based game. I fail to see how a turn based game will benefit from "real time with pause." Or, is there some way to use this graphics engine to give you a real turn based game?

Any real time engine can be chiseled down to turn based.

While pauses aren't "turns", what you basically do is logically "pause" all pieces other than currently moving piece, and only "unpause" pieces the current piece interacts with - shoots at for example.

I can't argue with Brian Fargo et al if that is the kind of game they want to design. More power to them. But it's not what the original game is. Wasteland is flexible with time. It seems like an engine like this would have a fixed time perspective, i.e. 'real time" when not paused. Wasteland emulates time on an action basis. Something like that could allow for motion capture, or e.g. motion blur for displaying relatively fast motion. I don't know if the Unigine engine is capable of that or not.

[Color Blotch]

All engines are real time, because all the players happen to be real time also. You have to constantly render graphical scene, constantly update all the changes and side effects, constantly read interactions with user interface. The only way to have a resemblance of a "turn based" engine is to have the game run in text terminal, where you type your line then get a response, turn by turn. I sure hope this isn't the kind of game you want Brian to make. As for implementing turn based game mechanics, does anyone really consider moving a single actor on a scene while keeping others in place a some kind of technically challenging task for any given engine? That's very unwise of you if you do.

[Brother None]

Or, is there some way to use this graphics engine to give you a real turn based game?

I don't think you understand how game engines work. Things like camera angle or the way combat is structured are not dependent on the way the core engine works, at all, not with modern engines. You could run a top-down turn-based game on Source if you wanted to. Sometimes engines aren't ideal for it, but it's usually possible.

[Deathstyk]

i do love how many people seem to think that a "3d engine" will somehow turn wl2 into a first person shooter.
or seemed to think that they would be using an outdated or antiquated game engine to make the game.
dont get me wrong, old games are awesome. but when brian said he wanted to make an old style game, im pretty sure he meant more in the way of gameplay and feel to it, otherwise he might as well be taking pictures with a childs toy camera when he has an SLR in hand.
cant wait for some screenshots after they finally get the engine/design all figured out. id love to see what the game will look like, concept art means little to nothing when it comes to the looks just shows what they want to get across, not how they will do it.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

Or, is there some way to use this graphics engine to give you a real turn based game?

I don't think you understand how game engines work. Things like camera angle or the way combat is structured are not dependent on the way the core engine works, at all, not with modern engines. You could run a top-down turn-based game on Source if you wanted to. Sometimes engines aren't ideal for it, but it's usually possible.

You're right. I don't understand how game engines work, mostly. So, some of my questions might be dumb and some of my suggestions might be silly.

So if "things like camera angle or the way combat is structured," i.e. things like top town or turn based, don't depend on the core engine, then I have some questions about the Unigine engine.

Can this engine display a still image or a motion capture image or a short animated loop (like a gif animation) or a slideshow for the picture?

It seems pretty obvious to me that a less animated picture should take less computer resources than a still picture, but maybe I am wrong?

In any case, my model is Wasteland, it's 817k and it displays a simple user interface (encounter/inventory/roster/world map) that works well with a small program. Can a simple user interface like that be ported/implemented into a more complicated engine like Unigine? Nevermind whether it's a good idea, I am asking for a thought experiment; IMO the WL UI can definitely be improved upon with better graphics, and a similar UI could be handy as a heads-up display, or regarded as nostalgic or recognizable to WL1 fans.

I'm mainly curious about the potential for mods this kind of engine has or if any of the above could be accomplished by a mod, since you imply that user interface stuff is "not dependent on the way the core engine works."