What FULLY FEATURED, 3D Game Engines are available for XNA Game Studio?

simonjohnroberts — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:47:21 GMT

Ok, So I aim here to further analyse the ZMan's excellent Game Engine details with regards to a very specific, but highly prevalent set of requirements.

To develop a practical 3D physics enabled Game that runs on the XBOX (With acceptable speed) with these engines I did some tests.

Just basic stuff, load a model, make it move, try out the shaders, check the performance, check the running memory footprint and garbage stats, check the base footprint of the engine was small enough to make a community game, check the code was reasonable, etc...

Please be aware that this is just for "fully-featured", 3D only, Physics included, Bells and whistles game engines/frameworks.
I am not affiliated with any company, just a dude trying to get his head around what is really out there for some fast-to-market development.

Min requirements:

Deploys to XBOX
Xbox Debugging
Has a small enough base footprint to allow the development of a title for say medium and full priced community games (so circa 50Mb or less)
Supports boned, skinned models and at least some animation support
customisable endpoints to plug-in own shaders (it's a nice to have)
Shadows (Ideally, some levels of detail, as shadows can be expensive)
Render at FPS playable speeds (60+) 99% of the time.
Terrain generation support, and relevant mesh collision testing
License-free physics support
collision support (ideally primitives: box, capsule, sphere and maybe mesh? if it's not too expensive)
Intellegent physics load handling (quad tree or similar)
Ideally Multithreaded
An excellent lack of garbage. For those who do not yet understand why this is SO important there as some quite excellent articles on the compact framework referenced from these forums. I quite like this simple checklist http://www.ziggyware.com/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=12&thread_id=18211

This review is XBOX specific, I reiterate.

Using the ZMans listing:

Commercial

Blade3d - v1.0 Released November 2008 -
Tried it, still in BETA, barely works on the XBOX, super slow compared to other solutions performances.
Unusable for my needs in this form. They are working on it but it's just NOT there yet. If anyone knows better Let Me Know
Visual3d.net - currently in beta (beta 3.1 released Novermber 08)
Doesn't work on the XBOX right now, at this point not likely to in the future. If this changes? Let Me Know
TorqueX - 1.0 was 2d only. 2.0 release adds 3d. TorqueX Game Builder available (for free for Creators club members) to help build 2D games from a drag and drop UI.
The editor is buggy as heckedy, the underlying code and syntax is soupy, I tried it for a week before just giving up under the strain of it crashing all the time. Undoubtedly powerful, I just couldn't hack it. I could not even put together a basic scene DIRECTLY in XML, without the silly editor ruining the syntax and crashing. Very poor indeed.
So I have to really exempt them from the results.
If anyone has got some good TorqueX3D results for this study Let Me Know

Free/Open Source

Ox - a 3d version of the ButterMilk 2d engine -
Loved this, shame about the shadows, otherwise super. Quite simply put, excellent so far.
I intend to address the fixing of this shadow issue myself, fate and friends willing.
QuickStart 3D Game Engine -
After a re-testing of QuickStart I suggest that my original opinion remains unaltered.
It seems I confusingly tested the old version , which had scalability issues, but some stunning graphics 'nice-to-haves'.

So: The new QuickStart Engine v0.196 : is a lot more 'feature lean'.
The new version seems to have some garbage issues on the 360. I pair the demo down to around 20 physics objects to get it working "reasonably".
Definately worth a look over, if not a complete solution. The newest (and most likely last version) is the v0.196 release and no new releases are planned.
X-Engine: 3D Graphics and Physics Engine for XNA -
No XBOX support, big shame, quite a meaty offering all in. If this changes? Let Me Know
BetaCell
No XBOX physics, nice piece of kit though, Forum is filled with spam unfortunately
Not really in our category, but worth a hat tip. good work and worth a look over.

Thrust - part engine part framework -
An enigma, just can't get my hands on it.
Not in development anymore AIUI, no complete solution, shows a COMING SOON...
I'm keeping an eye out. anyone know anything?
Start a post in the GENERAL forum and give me a nudge. (No general discussion in the FAQ forum) or Let Me Know
The Ship Game and the Robot Game starter kits contain enough code to make a decent 3d engine though they are not documented as such. -
A very good point Zman, unsure about REAL XBOX physics, but the support is there from the community, and the robot game is pretty darn fully featured, as too is the ship example, but they arent generic templates, I'm certainly going to look these over again a couple of times, I recommend you do the same if this is the route you are going.
EGGEngine -
A little more info on this one: Currently Portal Games are working to have a nice polished beta released to the public.
I will be let you know what i find after testing it out. I am frankly excited at what I might find.
They do plan to release EGGEngine for some amount of money (although a low price point), but the Beta will be free.
Looks very promising indeed.
Kodu - (OK, I added this, sorry ZMan)
I just can't resist mentioning this, Microsoft research have done an amazing job on developing this Mini-programming engine.
And although it can't be made to create RETAIL games for the community platform, it does fulfil all my other areas.
Plus, I have bought and tested it, so here's some findings:
It's quite simply amazing...
Amazing shader work, excellent resource handling (seemingly, I'm having trouble generating metrics right now).
Although the language is purely visual and lacks maybe some basic logic operators (small moan), it is REALLY extensible and best of all you can share your worlds. Brilliant.
Oh, And it's $5 ish. 400 measly points. I bought it in a heartbeat. I have 4,3 & 2 year olds. They are going to love it. A 'MUST TRY'.

In addition to the work done reviewing the ZMan hotlist above:

I have also been through EVERY other resource I could find, Paid for or not, Under $1k.There are actually probably more than 50 serious offerings of some nature or other. Many non XNA, non C#, or just way out of most peoples reach.

Amongst the tons of dead projects and almost finished ideas, there are some diamonds.
I would suggest ZMan nailed the Usual Suspects in his list, but there are some other notable projects and, given time, I will endeavour to list them here.

Firefly is one such notable project. There is some movement on this project AIUI. Update possibly to follow.

I may collate a more, up-to-date, completer? list of the really relevant "full-featured" projects, available today but the Ziggyware XNA Game Engines list is pretty comprehensive, if a little behind. And I've got a game to finish, so don't hold your breath.

Codeplex and Sourceforge are of course excellent resources, long may they remain.

I have bought subscriptions for Visual 3D .Net, Blade3D and tried the TorqueX3D too, so save your money, if you trying to follow the path I'm outlining.
They are all great products, but not suited to the task at hand. TorqueX3D is a free download to premium members via the XNA Partner portal.

So there you have it. My findings are as follows. (For the development of quick, 3D games; as outlined above.)

Currently Ox Game Engine is the best engine I have tested.

Recommended: OX Game Engine

Upsides: Open source, excellent features, Jiggle physics, reasonable scene editor.

Downsides: Documentation and learning curve are steep. Lacks shadow support on the XBOX.
but all in: Ox Game Engine is the clear winner.

HTH someone else save some time.

CyberMan

p.s.

Might I say, that while an incredibly illucidating process, I really do hope you now don't feel quite the same nagging doubt I did; that you would be missing something if you didn't do this process yourself. I've done it for you. I'm not saying I've done a good job and I'm not looking for thanks, just go do something for global warming (that was my intention here), or world peace, or something positive with your saved time instead, that'd be fine.

There are thousands of results in the (true, laughably non-specific) searches I provide here for Sourceforge and (quite a few on) Codeplex.
Hence me taking this time to wade through (a lot of) it all.

Despite many dead ends, testing was nevertheless rewarding, and has restored my faith in XNA, Community development, Independant open source projects, and even in supposedly unapproachable corporate giants like MS, they were great, pretty much everyone has been suprisingly helpful, along the way. IMHO, a few peoples opinions 'out there' should relax a little, mine has. It is difficult to remain stone-faced in the face of such dedication, effort and support. Well done to everyone.

I really welcome Any Feedback. I would love to find a resource I haven't already. I'll let the world know if I can.
A massive thanks to the gaming houses who have already made up-to-date and invaluable corrections to this resource.
Thanks again.

p.p.s.

I know it's a little off topic but: Particular hats off to the WPF 3D dev team at MS for their work enabling 2D controls mapped 3D objects, Amazing work: Daniel Lehenbauer and Kurt Berglund: Interactive 2D controls... Would love to use these in a game one day! ok, its WPF, I know... but it's so cool...

What Game Engines are available for XNA Game Studio?

The ZMan — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:14:56 GMT

Commercial

~~Blade3d - v1.0 Released November 2008.~~ Died July 2009
Visual3d.net - always seems to be in beta.
TorqueX - 1.0 was 2d only. 2.0 release adds 3d. TorqueX Game Builder available (for free for Creators club members) to help build 2D games from a drag and drop UI.
SunBurn (Rendering engine). There is a discount for Premium members.

Free/Open Source

Flat Red Ball - 2.5d game engine thats been around since the Managed DirectX days. Very well updated and supported.
Ox - a 3d version of the ButterMilk 2d engine
QuickStart 3D Game Engine - now at v0.2 (http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/38853.aspx)
X-Engine: 3D Graphics and Physics Engine for XNA
BetaCell
Thrust - part engine part framework
The Ship Game and the Robot Game starter kits contain enough code to make a decent 3d engine though they are not documented as such.
EGGEngine

Specialist/Niche/Partial engines

Mercury Particle Engine (Particle rendering only)

Physics Engines
See the Physics Engines FAQ

Other lists:
Ziggyware XNA Game Engines

If you have any more or want to add some details please reply to this thread. No general discussion in the FAQ forum though...

FAQs

What FULLY FEATURED, 3D Game Engines are available for XNA Game Studio?

What Game Engines are available for XNA Game Studio?