Please post comments on the topic Development Blog Update - Unknown Worlds Podcast #26 here

wuhoo first post

this is big news, will probs change alot of discussions on this forum

the boundaries are now limitless

i have two questons, what is the engine called?

my suggestions - the Selection engine, or the evolution engine, the frontier engine, or the fade engine - borrowing from the games themes, or the unknown engine, borrowing from the company name.


and how will its system requirements compare to source?

it's hard to have doubts with your enthusiasm! From your explanations it seems like a good decision to have a engine finely tuned to NS rather than tuning NS to work on source...

I would also advise something directly connected to NS! Onos? ;p

It'll be interesting to see where this goes now that you're writing the whole engine.

Will the game's graphics be as good or better than they would be on Source?

some will probably see this as a set back, but i think its good news. The source engine can be slow (and a pain in the backside!) to develope on, its pipeline is poor when compared to others. I hope the switch allows a more streamlined developement process for the devs, good luck.

If this game ever comes out it's going to be so awesome.

Definitely "as good" and probably somewhat better. Definitely more appropriate for the NS universe and indoor environments (more to come here).

It's rather upsetting to know that NS2 will not be using the ValveHammer Editor after so many people have made custom maps for when the game is released; but atleast now the game is more open for modifications so for all we know you could make an even better map editor.

EDIT:
Engine Names: Selective / Open / Extraterrestrial

free pens if there is no bhopping on the new engine

But can it do physics? One of the things I always smiled about was the thought of things (marine bodies) reacting realistically to an Onos charge.

+1 vote for keeping the engine name local. Constellation Engine? Hive Engine? Course that might get a little confusing since you'd invariably be calling it just "Hive" by the next podcast. "What Hive? The hive in Hive or just Hive hive?" I like The Unknown Engine, or TUE for short.

Edit: Would love to see some maya-like controls make their way into the new editor, such as a manipulator for moving/rotating/scaling in the 3d view and a quick way to maximize whichever view you're currently working in and toggle quickly back to all 4 views (a quick tap of the spacebar in maya).

Holy crap, this is good news. I mean, I'm personally a big fan of companies developing games on their own engines because it's optimized just for THAT game. More universal engines like UE3 tend to have lots of issues (ie. lawsuit Epic vs Too Human devs). From past experience, I realized that Source engine doesn't have a much better netcode than it's predecessor, GoldSrc, if not worse. Source was intended to be used primarily for developing single player games. If the Unknown Engine can forget about unnecessary things like AI (like they said in the podcast) and really nail down the netcode, then NS2 will be one hell of a game. I don't think I've ever been more excited. Thanks UWE!

You guys make me nervous when you say things like "borrow" and "feels like". Be fearful of large corporate lawyers.

Good to see you finally announce this new engine Charlie! It's gonna rock!

We do have physics in the engine. At the moment we're using NVIDIA's PhysX middleware. The Unreal Engine also uses it, so I figure it's probably a decent choice. We also integrated the Bullet physics engine and we can switch between them easily, so we have the option to ship with either.

Both of those features are in the editor already. All of the editing operations can be done in the perspective view, and my goals is to make it so that you don't really need to use the orthographic views at all (I don't really like them personally).

I don't like the orthographic views either, but in a brush-based engine I think they are pretty much essential for precision world-sculpting.

Edit - The 'Nostromo' engine? I think somehow the engine name should link back to the influences of UWE's games, ie Alien.

If you are looking for an engine name (did Charlie suggest Maxor on the podcast?), how about Evolution Engine. Fits in well with the environment (but isn't too specific), doesn't have the same initials as any other 3D engines I know of, and unlikely to be confused with the old Harley Davidson motorcycle engines of the same name.

Edit: huge apologies to Invader Zim, who suggested this before me. No idea how I missed that!

"Wow!" That is what I thought when I heard the news.

Glad to hear it is resulting in accelerated pace, I feel that is important for your starting venture into a game beyond where Zen of Sudoku, though I really hope you get to release more casual games at some point - personally I am really getting into the "casual" scene, I like the price range, the amount of spare time spent, and how it seems geared towards specialized fun (I'm thinking of Audiosurf and Peggle as I type this).

Hmm, Name the Engine? Unknown World Creator - Makes me think of a whole galaxy to explore and geared towards the creative.

Definitely awesome news. Anything that helps to streamline your process just makes life easier.

My vote for the new engine name : The Origin Engine

What can I say, I'm just happy to see progress on NS2, just makes me happy lol

Wow, haven't listened to the podcast but apparently you're writing your own engine or something? I have some free time so maybe I'll download it. That's pretty big news.

Guys, guys, you're missing a hidden consequence of this announcement:

They're writing a brand new engine which will save resources by not including AI at all, since its purely multiplayer. That means -- No babblers! Gasp!

>.>

In all seriousness, great job team, and so far I've liked Origin and Evolution as suggestions for the engine name.

The Darwin Engine™ (or just "Darwin")
I'm half excited, half scared... I'm not doubting Max, that's not for me to do, but can he single handedly create a multiplayer game engine that is on par, or beyond that of Source? .. I'm hoping so
It does, however, seem like all the screenshots look like HL1 engine, but I'm not a coding tech-head so I don't know what that means in reality

+10, just hearing you talk about it made me enthusiastic.

LOL!

There sure are a lot of good name suggestions out there. A couple more:
NanoTec
Catalyst (Might have to fight ATI for that one though)
Leap
Blink

I like "Darwin" pretty well.

I'm mourning the loss of all your awesome Source tools right now, but at the same time I'm pretty pumped about the new engine. I mean I doubt you guys would screw up something this big. I can't wait to see what comes out when you have your very own engine. And I trust you guys when you say you won't slip into vaporware territory

I can also understand moving away from Source. I mean I've literally spent hours trying to get a model into that thing. Jeez.

great work guys, good to hear you're making lots of progress, can't wait to see some proper screenshots too!

as for a name, i think darwin is the best one so far - its tied in with the natural selection theme, and wont be confused with any other part of the game. if not, maybe beagle?

The Colbert Engine.

The Carnot Engine?

It's not related to NS, but if you guys start developing other games you can use it for that as well.

and for those who don't know, the Carnot Cycle is a cycle in a hypothetical heat engine (commonly called the carnot engine) and is the most efficent engine possible.

what about calling it the "ULTIMATE SWITCH" engine

wow what a shock, but it makes a lot of sense to just make an engine 100% focused on the needs of NS2.

It sounds like the editing tools will really be something - i've personally always found hammer very slow - where as with qradient you could whip up a basic map in a couple of hours.

Good Luck

Very interesting news!

I like the picture of the editor too.
I noticed it's Vista. :-)
I fear the Vista.

hehe nice work guys.. or should i say guy.. Flayra. what do you do.. it was quite funny listening to the pod cast and hearing that. we needed such and such, so Max did it . then we wanted to see people walk around, so Max disappeared for a week, then we wanted a new chain, so max made one... etc..

still.. your 'all' doing good work

call the engine 'maximize' its his baby.

I am totally stoked that you guys are designing your own engine. You both sound really pumped and I'm sure the improved morale will help get the game done quicker.

I'm with Invader Zim, Argh, and Cxwf for giving it the name "Evolution Engine."

Can't wait for some screenshots.

I've worked with Max, and I've seen Max work. I don't think you know who you're dealing with
He's seriously one of the best. These are good things.

If you look at the two links to previous news entries in the post you can see more "in-game" style shots of what the engine can do (could do that is, who knows what it can do now after another 9 months of development). It is visually at least an equal of source.

Hum…..
I don’t know, I’m not quite as excited about this news as other people seem to be. Having written a good portion of a graphics engine myself I know that there is soooo much that goes into it, that has almost nothing to do with the gameplay you want. Just starting with (skipping what you said you already got) full hardware rendering using sharders to do water and other effects, skybox’s with proper parallax, inverse kine, full surround sound audio, HDR, multiple core rendering, foliage(leaves and trees), soft particles (ie flamethrower), each of these are very very tough to get exactly “right” and vastly help the game look/feel (especially on older hardware it has to be very optimized).

I know during the NS1 stage there was tremendous problems with CPU/memory usage (although a lot of that was caused by the crappy HL engine), I am somewhat fearful of a repeat of this when NS2 goes live.

Also this is going to VASTLY increase the total download size, as you can’t assume they have the source engine already installed (and then just make modifications).

Overall I fear this is a step in the wrong direction .

I've just thought , if there is a UT3 Engine, why not THE NS2 ENGINE , simple and for all the family

Oh, one other editor feature request: settable hotkeys. Preferably saved in a user prefs file that can be backed up when reformatting.

Edit: and third-party plugin support!

OH MY GOD!!!!!

Huge news bomb guys. Thanks for coming clean.

Will NS2 still be using steam?

Graphics wise are you using DirectX or OpenGL? I'd love to see NS2 run natively on Linux

I'm surprised you built your own editor. As you're building almost from scratch it seems more intuitive to build levels of modern complexity in a modelling app like Max/lightwave/Blender/XSI, levering their geometry tools then add in gameplay elements later with some kind of utility. I wonder why no one else seems doing that already...

Unreal's physics never felt as good as Havoc IMHO (possibly. because it was more realistic then the dramatised havoc exaggerations).

I had thought that having DI affect lighting sounded like a big deal for Source. Knowing you had this in your back pocket explains it ^^

*excited*

Will it run on Linux?

Edit: ChromeAngel, you win this time

One question, Source models and custom props are still compatible with this new engine? I mean, if the models are still compossed of .mdl and .vtf files.

Reuse can be more of a hassle than a help, I think you are doing the right decision (was actually wondering if you would do something like this a year back, due to specialized features like commander mode).

As for a name, as I assume that your engine won't be made for that much reuse (as unreal engines / Source, etc.) that could be reflected in a non-generalized name. If you only make the engine for NS2, then why not just the NS2 engine? Or is that too boring =b
Otherwise... The Gorge Engine, gorge always need some love.

Wow. I look deeply forward to playing around with this software. Will you still be releasing it on steam if you aren't using their source engine?

I don't know about this. Granted, I don't know much about creating an engine, but it seems quite ambitious to have one person do the work that in other studios has taken a whole team several years.

I know you said no to freak out BUT I CAN'T HALP IT.

That said, we'll just have to trust you. It is good to hear you're making more progress.

As for the name, I like Darwin. It's also a good starting point for similar names like Beagle or Finch.

[I have zero tech knowledge so I could be talking out of my ass]

I'd guess that using your own engine means less hassle implementing more of your features but I'd have thought that making your own engine would take more time that overcoming those problems.

Max has experience making an engine right- I think he was a lead coder on Titan Quest? That's at least something.

I don't like listenening to podcasts so maybe this has been answered but- can resources that you've already made be ported straight across to the new engine?

And my usual pessimist final comment- disappointing that it's summer 2008 and we're only now finding out what engine you're working on.

But fingers crossed, I want NS2 to be a big success.

That's exactly what I thought. Having one guy working on both, the engine and the game will slow you down. I don't know much about engine coding, but I guess a previous poster was right: you will have to add so many tiny pieces to the engine that need more attention as they should. It will cost you months.

I don't think that creating a new engine is the right decision. Switching to an existing one would make sense.

I wish you the best of luck and hope I'm wrong.

BTW: Getting a native linux version would be really nice

The new map creating software is using VTF/MDL files so yes the majority of artwork and stuff created can be easily used with the new system.

If I understood well in the podcast ( my understanding of spoken english is limited ), Max said that this "new" engine is mainly the Source engine with some adjustements on his own, due to the SE has a lot of tools and stuff intended to single player games that they really don't need.
So fortunately, this engine shift doesn't mean necessarily a huge delay in NS2 development.

Personally I believe the engine name should be something retarded like 'broken' or 'nubtard' or 'screw you' engine. Anything that after you win the game of the year awards you will win, when other programmers ask what engine you made it on you get to tell them.


As for how does one guy do what takes a whole team 7 years in 3 months, I took computer science classes, as like everything else in the world, most people are dumb. Those who arn't excel ALOT.

A cross between the Crysis and hammer editor would be great :O Can't wait to see what new things you can do in the editor.

Well this is a hefty blow to your potential mapping community but it has its pluses for your internal development pipeline.


Learning new tools for a new engine when there are so many other Source games and mods out there you can map for using your existing skills is going to be a ######. A lot of people won't make the jump to the new engine so in terms of post-release growth via custom map content, it's a bit of a shot in the foot. As much as I loved mapping for NS and the creative freedom a sci-fi setting gives you, I only have so much time and I probably won't be spending it on learning a new editor if it is dramatically different to Hammer. There are some bonuses to your editor that Hammer does not have, so it's not completely doom and gloom, but definitely unsettling for most mappers until we hear more information.

The editor looks a lot like Hammer, but in terms of functionality I guess we'll just have to wait. Also as a mapper I am extremely hesitant to be ploughing my time and effort into a relatively new level creator which will undoubtedly have teething problems. Game-breaking updates to Hammer is bad enough, but your software is going to be much younger and much less tested than Hammer has been (since your level creator will only be tested by one game's team of mappers versus many Valve games and even more external games teams and mods). With only one guy covering all the programming, it's difficult to see how Max is going to find the time to fix his engine and the game and the level editor. This is not a small concern.


In short I'd like to hear more on the features the new engine and map editor will support, and how the hell Max thinks he's going to achieve all of this single-handed without burning himself out and into an early grave.