Gosh, man, it is no matter of being smart but a matter of amount of work. Is it possible to build a whole city all alone? without tools? Try it yourself.

I didn't say it I want to do it without tools. I understand your point, but is not exactly the same. You build a city and your're done with the tools, but a game engine is the base of a game, its foundation; once you finish with it, you're not done with the tools.

Gosh II : "You build a city" ? try to build a city even if you have al vehicles and materials - you probably will do not build one house

A game engine is not just a tool for a game, that is what I'm trying to say and that's how I see it. But I guess you've just wanted to show me how hard and time consuming it is, so I understand.

However, if I were to get to the crux of your closing question...

Is it possible for an average guy to learn what it needs to learn in order to create a beautiful game without an existing game engine? A game that could look almost as beautiful as CryEngine/Unigine capabilities? Speaking just in terms of technology, not the art content that contribute to the beauty.

Is it possible with so many resources/knowledge available these days on the internet?

No. It's probably not possible for a way-above-average guy to make something look almost as beautiful as CryEngine/Unigine capabilities WITH an existing game engine. It requires an immense amount of technical know-how, hundreds of thousands of man-hours, and skilled artists.

I'm not saying this to deter you necessarily, but you won't get anything that impressive on your own no matter what you do. However, there's an ocean of space in between Pong and Crysis.

Yes, I know that it's also the art that makes things beautiful. I was strictly speaking from the technical side only, but I think somehow you was referring to that also when you've said that it's not possible, right?

So, if someone wants to just make a 3D game that comes close to the quality of a commercial engine, speaking only from the technical side of things, the programming side and not art or other content, he should try and use a commercial engine?

I think it totally depends on what you want.

If you want to make a game, then use an existing engine like Unity or (if you want the source) OGRE or Torque or any number of options.

If you want to make an engine, then well, make the engine.

I think writing your own engine has merit, if you want to earn the skills necessary to work on a project like that. I mean, someone has to write these engines, and its a great skill to have. Many AAA games use their own proprietary engines for their own reasons. It's not like every game uses Unreal or whatever. However, I doubt a one-man team could compete with the likes of CryEngine or even Unity. Though you may be able to finish something, just don't think it's going to be better then projects that had dozens of pros working on it for years.

Gosh, man, it is no matter of being smart but a matter of amount of work. Is it possible to build a whole city all alone? without tools? Try it yourself.

I didn't say it I want to do it without tools. I understand your point, but is not exactly the same. You build a city and your're done with the tools, but a game engine is the base of a game, its foundation; once you finish with it, you're not done with the tools.

Gosh II : "You build a city" ? try to build a city even if you have al vehicles and materials - you probably will do not build one house

A game engine is not just a tool for a game, that is what I'm trying to say and that's how I see it. But I guess you've just wanted to show me how hard and time consuming it is, so I understand.

The problem "with engine" or "without engine" is secondary

because even with engine it is like you are a fellow speaking "It is impossible to build a city alone?, well, i am considering that" and of course you did not do a small booth for a dog.

So reading this (no offence) is like suffer a stupidity buzzing around your (my) head. You got small chance to make something like decent roguelike or quake 2 scale game, if you are genius but the chances are also small

Thanks for your replies!

To be honest, I didn't thought about using an open-source engine as a possibility. My main problem was actually with commercial engines that you can use, their binary version without source. Sure, their provide a plugin system, but in case that's not enough you get stuck and you depend on them to add/change what you want.

Maybe I had to be more specific in the title and in my first post.

Sorry if I've sounded like being "Superman" considering building cities. But, I admit that, as any beginner, when knowing almost nothing about what involves in programming a 3D game, I feel like I can do it or that is worth it.

But, this is why I came here asking for advice, to see what are my options, other than using a company's commercial engine, so thank you for your help with that.

Now that I'm thinking on using an open-source engine, it sounds like a very good idea, but I have 2 questions:

1. In order to be able to modify it to do what you want, you still need an understanding on how the basic stuff work under the hood, right? So, is it better for me to write small games without an existing game engine just to learn the necessary skills to use a better one in the future? Or, I could just try and use it without doing that?

2. I do not know too much of these open-source game engines, but from what I see in terms of rendering quality they are not that great. Why is that? Bad art, less powerful rendering engine, or both? Improving or rewriting a rendering engine to be more high-quality and close to its time, is still not a task for one person?

If it takes 10 people 2 years to build a new engine, It's logical to say that it will take you 20 years (assuming you have the relevant experience/knowledge). However, that's only part of the picture - existing game engines are all based on previous iterations, and have real users who provide feedback which helps focus the engine team's efforts. You'll have none of that feedback, and will end up 'flying blind'.

But are you sure an engine is what you want? An engine is a multipurpose, reusable tool that provides everything you could conceivably need. Games don't need engines - if you're creating a Tetris clone you don't need to build an engine with mega-texturing capabilities that go unused along with multi-controller input support; you just need the bare minimum code to run Tetris.

Think about what you want to achieve, and only then worry about how to achieve it.

But are you sure an engine is what you want? An engine is a multipurpose, reusable tool that provides everything you could conceivably need.

That is what I was trying to say. I didn't thought on building a game engine, at least not a multipurpose, reusable tool that everyone of them tries to be.

I just want to build a game without a game engine. Of course, that involves in building the components that every engine has, but if the base system has only what I need and is build especially for that, that makes it a game engine? If the so called game engine can't live outside of my game, because is the actual game, does it make it a game engine?

I imagine is a lot of work and needs a lot of knowledge and time/years, but it should definitely not be compared with what the big companies do, with an actual game engine, right?

I've searched around before posting this topic and from my understanding just because you've made a game from scratch, doesn't mean you have an engine. A game engine is the reusable, configurable and generalized part that can be used to make other games, right?