Creating a game engine

[shpilka]

I havebegun a Java game engine project http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/squeak-ge. If you want to join it, mail me ! (email address is available via this page)

[sunsett]

Just out of curiosity, why are you creating yet another engine?  What do you intend to do that Xith, Java3D, and jME don't already provide?

-Matt Hicks

[Amos Wenger]

Just out of curiosity, why are you creating yet another engine?  What do you intend to do that Xith, Java3D, and jME don't already provide?

Well, neither Xith3D, Java3D nor jME are "game engines", they are more or less graphic libs, adding some sound and math and behavior functionalities.

(From the CVS description.txt file :

The SQUEAK Game Engine is an engine for creating cross-platform PC 3D games. It will provide a object-oriented model for game objects, maps, and effects, an _accurate_ collision model, a physical model, a 3D sound object-oriented toolkit. It will also provide an extension model so it can be (a) extended to get a complete toolkit for creating a game of a specific kind (RPG, RTS, racing, etc.) and (b) game vendor can provide patches and add-ons with additional content by using existing or custom extension points (in fact, all game content, including object classes, is hold in separate files and can be easily extended / removed.
This project was started because existing game engines either were not free or did not provide things I needed. At first I started writing in C++ but quickly understood that it is not at all easy to write cross-platform applications in this language, and decided to rewrite it in Java and to use existing cross-platform toolkits (SWT <www.eclipse.org/swt> , JOGL <jogl.dev.java.net> and JOAL <joal.dev.java.net> ).
)

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[sunsett]

Well, neither Xith3D, Java3D nor jME are "game engines", they are more or less graphic libs, adding some sound and math and behavior functionalities.

Well, if SQUEAK is a game engine as per their definition you gave, then jME would also be a game engine as it provides all of those features as well.....

My question I think is still valid....nothing I have seen mentioned in that CVS description gives me any idea what it will provide that isn't already contained in a pre-existing game engine.

-Matt Hicks

[kevglass]

It provides.... another perspective

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is a matter of opinion as we've seen before - its really up to the author to decide in this case I think.

Kev

[sunsett]

I agree, I'm just trying to understand what benefits he intends to provide.

If for purely educational purposes that's great, but if he's trying to make something and get community interest (which is pretty obvious from this post), then I'd like to know what it offers me that I can't already get in an engine that is already written. :-P

-Matt Hicks