Hey guys December 13 has been a very bad day for me. I just lost a friend to the Unity vs. Unreal debate. I had enough of this! I want to make my own game engine now, no matter how much time it takes! I want to show him that I can do something with C++ and NEVER divert to C#! So my prime objective right now is to learn as much C++ as I can from this outstanding site, hone my skills, and make Ascension Game Engine. So please provide me with advice!
@FighterCoder
I want my engine to manage the basic ingredients of my game to make it run as I want it to, without licensing issues.
@MarketAnarchist
Yup. Thats an absolute start. As I prefer Windows, DX is the way to go. Basically if Unreal drops commercial license to sell my game, and just stick with the 5% royalty, I'd go with it :P aha! But I want more control over my game. Maybe after I make it (the 90% ) and then make a couple of prototypes with it (the 90% of the remaining 10% ) I'll know what more I want. Moreover, I'll have my very own library of reusable codes and functions! I really hope that if I make this engine, it grows into something big. The Linux of the game engines! Completely open source! Just that it shows my name in the credits always ;)
If you want to be cross-platform, I might suggest OpenGL. It is an incredibly powerful graphics API, and the programmable shaders are immensely helpful, especially the newly-added tessellation shaders. OpenGL Next Generation became Vulkan, a very powerful low-level graphics API.
If you want to be just Windows/Xbox, DirectX is the way to go.
While I don't expect to see full Vulkan support for years, it's something to keep your eye on. It's a very promising API.
And Unreal Engine is free to use. If you start making a profit, then you'll have to pay royalties. Many, many AAA game use Unreal Engine.
The graphics will probably take the longest part to work on, since you can fine tune that so much, and that's what people playing video games focus on the most.
Vulkan..yup yup... So vulkan is better than DX? And do normal GPU like the GTX 950 support it? So for Unreal, I don't have to buy a license to sell my game?
I really interesting on that, if you want a contribution i can spend some of my free time on this project ;-)
I have 15 years of experience on c++ programming (Linux and Windows) but i never worked on game programming project. In the future i would like to work on this area, may this is my start ;-)
Unreal is free to develop on, and you distribute your game for free if your game is free. You must pay royalties if you sell your game for money.
Vulkan is in its infancy. Just keep an eye on it. It is touted as better than DX and OpenGL, but we'll really only be able to see as products come out that use it.