deciding on a game engine...

[tom120934]

Thanks for the explanation.

Better than a game engine, you should consider using a 3D engine. Of course, there is much more coding tasks involved, but you'll get a better control on what to do within the scene.

What is your "dream computer" ? Even if you plan to purchase dual Xeon, I doubt the render times will be negligible. Which hardware do you use currently to render ? What is the average render time for a picture ?

[multimediaman]

well, as soon as I enable Light Tracer as the advanced rendering option, that boosts render times all the way up to about 4-6 minutes for a simple scene like this ...

I also use 3dsmax 7 at home, and the mental ray version I've got sorta sucks, to put it lightly.

I was thinking something like a Boxxtech's 8400 SE...
DUAL XEON X5482 3.2GHz, 12MB cache, 1600 MHz FSB (Quad-Core)
8GB FBDIMM DDR2 800 REG ECC
Autodesk 3D Studio Max 2008 Standalone

seems like it would be quite an awesome machine to work on.

Right now I'm using a Pentium 4 at 2.4Ghz, and I have 512Mb of ram... and 3dsmax 7, as mentioned earlier.

the machine I watched at the Autodesk 2008 Launch Tour had vastly similar specs to the dual quadcore I'd mentioned, and it could render in a couple seconds what takes my machine about 1:15 to render (a 640x480 scene with a couple boxes and other primitives, solid material, in mental ray, with Global Illumination and Final Gather enabled, changed to "Preview" Quality, all other settings left at default.)

[schaefft]

Why not using the nextgen engine of gta4? Release for the ps3 and xbox360 planned in april and Im pretty sure theyll release it for pc in october too.

[Johnas]

I wouldn't be so sure about releasing it for PC. Lots of trouble were caused by the Hot Coffee mod on pc so might be that they don't do it for pc. Which would be stupid thing to do since pc users keeps GTA's alive with all the mods. Just thinking out loud but I don't want to keep my wishes too high

If it comes for pc and is easy to mod, I know I will mod the heck out of it

[multimediaman]

the GTA IV engine seems worthy, but is it worthy enough?

I'd like to see mods that have been built and functional before I decide whether to look into the engine or not.

Plus, isn't coding new cutscenes and getting events to trigger kind of a pain with the previous GTA's? doesn't seem like there's too many mission sets or anything more than just appearance mods for the game

[Johnas]

Originally Posted by multimediaman

Plus, isn't coding new cutscenes and getting events to trigger kind of a pain with the previous GTA's? doesn't seem like there's too many mission sets or anything more than just appearance mods for the game

That's what I've heard and I wont think it will be easier in IV

[advan]

You could try Source engine. Created by Valve and used for games such as Half-Life 2, counter-strike and so on. Racing games have been made with source engine as well, and i think the SDK is free too.

Welcome to Steam

[DenimTiger]

Unreal 3 has been responsible for quite a few games on many platforms already. Ever heard of Gears of War?

That being said, one of the features flaunted in the tech demos was the scalability of the engine, being flexible enough to create complex interiors and expansive exteriors as well. It's a heavily shader-intensive engine, lots of blurring, shimmering and cinematic effects.

If you want to create an entire city to drive around in then your best bet would be an engine geared more toward realism and less stylisation, unless this is an explicit requirement.

Also, U3 is expensive, dude. Licensing fees for current-gen engines can bankrupt individuals.

Whatever you choose though, good luck