engine for modding outdoor and indoor stuff

Kevin Albers

I'm looking into game engines for doing some mod-type stuff. At first I'd use it just to show off some porftolio stuff, but I might end up making an actual mod at some point. I'd like to use an engine that 1- has a great renderer that can show off current-gen assets and 2- has a relatively friendly editor. I've been learning/using the Unreal engine a bit, but I'm not totally sold on it...don't really like the editor, or anything other than the renderer really, though the renderer is plenty nice.
I'm interested in the CryEngine stuff, since it looks great and seems like the editor is a lot friendlier. However, I'm definately wanting to do some indoor 'dungeon' type stuff, and I don't know if that engine is set up to do nice elaborate indoor levels...at times it seems more like a dedicated jungle simulator (or maybe I just haven't come across cool indoor mods using it).
Any suggestions?

Vonklaus

I would definitely recommend the Cryengine. The biggest limitation with the Cryengine 2 is that they don't have deferred rendering in. If you wait for Crysis 2 you will have accsess to the 3rd itereration of the engine. That would be the engine that you can do anything with.

If you want to make a mod that people will actually play, I would try the Cryengine and if you wait for Cryengine 3 I think that would be your best choice.

oalexis

I enjoy using cryengine, but indoor environments are more of a pain in the ass due to the limited amount of lights you can use without using visareas

cholden

I love ut3 for dungeon stuff. It's just so easy to drop in assets, and immediately be running around in it. Looking forward to dumping junk in Torchlight when those guy's stop dicking around and release the editor.

man_o_mule

cholden wrote: »

I love ut3 for dungeon stuff. It's just so easy to drop in assets, and immediately be running around in it. Looking forward to dumping junk in Torchlight when those guy's stop dicking around and release the editor.

I'd agree. UT3 is a great engine. plus showing that you have experience working with it is great as there are MANY studios that use it.

and they said the torchlight editor should be out by Monday. Not exactly next gen stuff, but it looks very very promising.

Mongrelman

Keep in mind I haven't done this stuff myself, but going through the 3Dbuzz videos that came with UT3 collector's edition, UT3 seems like a great place to start and has plenty of help available (tutorials, forums, people who use it etc.).

Kevin Albers

I just saw that the Unreal engine is now FREE (!!!) for small projects that generate less than 5k in revenue. Certainly makes it seem like a better investment of time to learn the engine for portfolio purposes in the short term, if it could be used for an actual indie game.