help me pick a .net game engine
Author
After years of lurking i'm finally thinking of making a game (with an artist friend) . I know what it takes , i know what i want to do , we're just gonna be a copycat on most things , no one's ever gonna play it but hell we're gonna do it! With that said i'm a C# programmer and i never could get into C++ (well i could now that i know C# pretty well but i Really_Don't_Want_To) so i'm wondering wich game engine would suit my needs best.
With all the praise torque has received TorqueX is a natural choice and it being in beta is a non issue since it's a pretty long term project (we're going for a 3D RPG) so it'll long be out of beta before we're done but since .net graphic engines seems to have spawned left & right , or at least the devmaster engine database makes it look so, i'm wondering if maybe i'm missing a recent gem in my considerations? The only other engine in the list that attracted my attention was Unity wich costs 150ish so is in the same ballpark as torque but the version at that price doesn't include stand alone exe (only in web browser games) , the 1K$ licence does however if we want to upgrade but it's a big turn off to be limited to in browser games while developing.
Also i kinda expected that , since .net engines tend to be a recent trend , i'd find at least one that's future oriented and supports dx10. Anyone know of such an engine?
For now i'm strongly leaning toward Torque X but since it isn't free , and this is perfectly fine imoh for such a piece of software i don't mind paying to save myself all that work, i would like opinions before i hit the purchase button.
All help is apreciated!
Don't worry about not being able to get into C++. C# is perfectly suitable.
The big and obvious elephant in the room with respect to .NET game dev is the XNA framework, which isn't quite as encompassing as Torque, but it is pretty nice for what it does [which turns out to be quite a bit].
I can't say much about Torque's .net engine, as I have not used it, but You'll find an awful lot of .NET ports for popular C++ pieces. These ports are of varying quality, and many of them are just straight one-to-one wrappers of the C++ code, and are thus not really representative of the different styles that the .NET framework enables [such as the use of properties or events]. Personally, I find the API's that have a much more native .NET feel to be better than those that have a C++-to-.NET mapped feel. Actually, some APIs offer both.
A perfect example of this is Ogre3d's 'OgreDotNet', which offers a direct mapping of the C++ library in the form of a .NET wrapper, and also Ogre3d's 'MOgre' which has a much more native .NET feel to it. Personally, I'm tinkering with MOgre a bit at the moment, and am finding it quite useful for my purposes.
Bullet physics also offers a .NET version of Bullet, that is nearly a straight wrapper of the C++ code. Newton has a .NET'ish implementation as well, which actually can be found in a form that is already merged together with MOgre if you're interested into a big physics-graphics combo [that I haven't personally used, so I can't attest to it's value].
SDL also offers a .NET version. Also, something that I'd highly recommend looking into is Irrlicht, which comes in a .NET variant that is really quite mature.
Oh, and everything mentioned here is free.
The big and obvious elephant in the room with respect to .NET game dev is the XNA framework, which isn't quite as encompassing as Torque, but it is pretty nice for what it does [which turns out to be quite a bit].
I can't say much about Torque's .net engine, as I have not used it, but You'll find an awful lot of .NET ports for popular C++ pieces. These ports are of varying quality, and many of them are just straight one-to-one wrappers of the C++ code, and are thus not really representative of the different styles that the .NET framework enables [such as the use of properties or events]. Personally, I find the API's that have a much more native .NET feel to be better than those that have a C++-to-.NET mapped feel. Actually, some APIs offer both.
A perfect example of this is Ogre3d's 'OgreDotNet', which offers a direct mapping of the C++ library in the form of a .NET wrapper, and also Ogre3d's 'MOgre' which has a much more native .NET feel to it. Personally, I'm tinkering with MOgre a bit at the moment, and am finding it quite useful for my purposes.
Bullet physics also offers a .NET version of Bullet, that is nearly a straight wrapper of the C++ code. Newton has a .NET'ish implementation as well, which actually can be found in a form that is already merged together with MOgre if you're interested into a big physics-graphics combo [that I haven't personally used, so I can't attest to it's value].
SDL also offers a .NET version. Also, something that I'd highly recommend looking into is Irrlicht, which comes in a .NET variant that is really quite mature.
Oh, and everything mentioned here is free.
Author
I'm sorry i forgot to mention clearly but i'm looking for a full fledged game engine (not only graphics) so ogre ports & co aren't suitable , a pre made framework that ties multiple engines together and includes physics/graphics/input at least might do if it wraps the api together under a consistent interface.
TorqueX is based on XNA for info (no clue what unity is based on tho but the more it goes the more i'm sure i'll go for torque unless someone points a new one i never heard about). I don't care for coding for xbox but for what we're going to make being limited to xbox capabilities isn't gonna be an issue so XNA's under the hood instead of DX9c for example is a non issue.
I actually started toying around with xna a bit this night but if i can skip using it raw and having something even more abstract all the merrier.
TorqueX is based on XNA for info (no clue what unity is based on tho but the more it goes the more i'm sure i'll go for torque unless someone points a new one i never heard about). I don't care for coding for xbox but for what we're going to make being limited to xbox capabilities isn't gonna be an issue so XNA's under the hood instead of DX9c for example is a non issue.
I actually started toying around with xna a bit this night but if i can skip using it raw and having something even more abstract all the merrier.
I second the XNA framework for pure flexibility. As far as full engines go, Blade3D is due for their first commercial release in September, and Visual3D.NET is currently in open beta as well. They are both top quality engines with a team of pros behind the scenes.
For a comprehensive listing, have a look at my database under Engines/Libraries and choose Advanced Search to search by language and other categories.
Good luck!
For a comprehensive listing, have a look at my database under Engines/Libraries and choose Advanced Search to search by language and other categories.
Good luck!
Quote:Original post by ranakor
I'm sorry i forgot to mention clearly but i'm looking for a full fledged game engine (not only graphics) so ogre ports & co aren't suitable , a pre made framework that ties multiple engines together and includes physics/graphics/input at least might do if it wraps the api together under a consistent interface.
TorqueX is based on XNA for info (no clue what unity is based on tho but the more it goes the more i'm sure i'll go for torque unless someone points a new one i never heard about). I don't care for coding for xbox but for what we're going to make being limited to xbox capabilities isn't gonna be an issue so XNA's under the hood instead of DX9c for example is a non issue.
I actually started toying around with xna a bit this night but if i can skip using it raw and having something even more abstract all the merrier.
The Neoaxis Engine is another to consider. Tv3D has C# bindings but next to nothing documentation last I checked. There is Jad Engine but the complete version is built on Managed DX so is likely by extension defunct. However the feature set may be sufficient to your needs.
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