With no access to the source code, I don't see how you can expand it in any way. You`re at the dev's mercy to fix any engine bug.

Quote:With no access to the source code, I don't see how you can expand it in any way. You`re at the dev's mercy to fix any engine bug.

Right, but the OP has already stated that he has little to no programming experience. Do you see what I'm getting at? To be able to make use of the source code for an engine like Unity, you would have to already be a skilled programmer (or be working with someone who is).

I know what you're saying about being at the mercy of the developers, but choosing an engine is always about tradeoffs. For someone with little or no programming experience, an authoring tool such as Unity may be the best option overall (even then it'll be a challenge, since to do anything really interesting in Unity you pretty much have to get your hands dirty with some C# or &#106avascript).

I'm not trying to advocate for any particular engine; it just seems that the points you're making aren't particularly relevant to the OP's situation. (Maybe I'm misunderstanding though...)

I'm also interested in these engines. One worry I have is that generic engines might turn out not to be suitable for your needs in a way that won't be obvious until you've spent some time developing. For example, is the C4 engine designed for large scale top down strategy games? I notice most of their screen shots are indoor scenes or first/third person persective shots and they use voxels rather than height maps for terrain which I wouldn't need, I don't if that comes at a cost.

Some of the other tasks I'm keen to offload are writing the game GUI code and also pathfinding, navigation related stuff. I don't see these mentioned in the feature list for these engines, does anyone know if they offer any help there? Currently using CEGUI for gui elements which works well, I know I can integrate CEGUI with OGRE3D but I'm not sure about other engines.

Why don't you try 3DGameStudio?

Quote:Original post by JasRonq
Does anyone know good reason why any of these are bad choices? Are there major limitations to any of them? I need help in picking a final choice.

If you don't have programming experience don't touch Torque even with a ten-foot pole. ;) The source code is very cluttered and working with it is far from being pleasurable. Also it doesn't have integrated physics so you need to either integrate external engine or roll your own. Honestly in my experience developing with Torque was a real pain.

Unity on the other hand is very easy to start with. They have very good WYSIWYG editor and code-test cycle is very smooth. For bad parts you can see here - it's a list of things users would like to see included or improved, so it can tell you something about what is missing. Only major complaints I have is lack of debugger and very limited support for SVN. Other than that it was pleasure to use. They have a free 30-day trial version on their web page so I suggest you download it and see yourself whether it suits your needs.

I didn't try C4 so I can't tell anything about it. If I had to choose between Torque and Unity I would pick the latter without any hesitation.

Excellent, thank you Swiftcoder for some great info.

I should add at this point that I will be working in 3D but with a 3rd person, top down camera to facilitate one-Vs-many combat situations. As such, I do not need voxel terrain as overhangs and extreme (smooth) height changes would only hinder that. I plan on a low relief terrain that height maps would be best suited for. I suppose I should have dug deeper then as I assumed that C4 could do height maps as well as the advertised voxel terrain which is a selling point and so prominent. Can C4 do height map terrain as well, out of the box?

Also, compare that Unity can't do dynamic shadows, but C4 can, but C4 loses Intel gfx cards when It does. So if I avoided the use of dynamic shadows, and voxel terrain, then Unity and C4 are tech-wise about the same, and both are fully compatible. (Assuming that C4 can do height map terrain.) I have pretty much decided against Torque at this point as I have heard too much against it.

Unity's smooth fall backs though sound nice, on the other hand, C4 offers a for-life license and so potentially means those fall backs will be added, and at least obsoleted as current tech stays supported and new tech is added.

I do not plan to much in the engine's source, and so far, I would only even look at C4 as its the only one I;ve heard so far is clean and professional enough for a rookie to learn from.

C++ is hard. If you go with C4 not only do you have to learn how to use the C4 engine you have to jump in using advanced C++ features as well. If you don't have any programming experience I think you will find the situation unpleasant to say the least. In your situation I think you will find the point and click of Unity and only needing to learn a bit of scripting will let you make your game instead of having to fight a language. For probably 90% of people making games not having source isn't going to make or break a game.

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I have used torque now for a bit over 3 years now and I can say it has its ups and downs. I have never used T3D though so no comments there.
Personally, I really like the torque scripting language. Its reasonably fast and you could, if you want, write the entire game in script. TorqueScript is easy but if you're not a programmer you might end up making a lot of mistakes, its almost too forgiving a language. If you want to dig deep (customize the classes, do some nifty graphics tricks) you will have to go into the engine. Its doable but not too fun, especially if your not programmer to begin with.
To my opinion, the worst thing about torque is the community. If you want something done, do it yourself. Also the level of most people on the forums is amateur at best, leaving the threads swamped with useless comments.
As for your requests: T3D has physics but I've never used it so no idea. Integrated sound in torque is shit! but that is easily fixed by a sweet deal garagegames have with fmod. Input, never had any problems. AI, here you have a problem, or rather no solution. Thing of it is, I think you will have a hard time finding any engine with an out of the box AI solution that works since AI tend to be really specific to the kind of game you're making.

Thats my two cents about torque.


However, the reason I found this thread is because I'm looking at unity now. So if anyone has experience with both of these engines I would love to hear comments. I'm interested in using unity for an iPhone project, with the ability to later upscale the project for other platforms. So any comments about the iPhone capabilities and the "One-Click Deployment" feature would be appreciated.