Help me understand something--why is it the tendency for game/gfx engines to become all-encompassing?
All the major game engines on the platform have support for
* 3d audio
* physics of some kind
* networking
* touch input
* accelerometer apis
Many of them have their own languages (Unity), UI subsystems, and require you to architecture everything in ridiculous ways that are non-standard on the platform.
As somebody coming from a "normal software" iOS development background, this presents me with a huge learning curve to get up-to-speed on these things. I already know how to do touch events and accelerometer handling. Apple is introducing kickass APIs for game networking and such. All I want is to draw pretty 3D things to the screen and occasionally animate them; maybe some basic collision detection.
The reason for this all-encompassing effort, I believe, is that it gives the Developer everything they need to get started and get rolling .. while at the same time giving the Artist everything they need to get started as well. It doesn't matter what engine you use, if you've got Art assets that don't jive with what your engine expects, then you've got a massive, extraordinary headache, as a Developer.
Also, the point of having yet another accelerometer/input suite is platform compatability .. these engines aren't very useful if they restrict you to a single platform, so they go for as many platforms as possible .. well all of these platforms have to have a common input method, and thats why the engines have to account for it - so that a developer can target the Engine, not the Platform, and benefit from having all these other target architectures available to them ..
Disclaimer: I've built my own 3D engine for use on Android/iPhone/Plaszma/Linux-AngstromOE environments ..
It's probably noteworthy that Wolfgang was Rockstar's graphics lead for quite a while and is the editor of the ShaderX books, and Erwin is the simulation lead for Sony Computer Entertainment. Pretty strong pedigree.
All the major game engines on the platform have support for
* 3d audio
* physics of some kind
* networking
* touch input
* accelerometer apis
Many of them have their own languages (Unity), UI subsystems, and require you to architecture everything in ridiculous ways that are non-standard on the platform.
As somebody coming from a "normal software" iOS development background, this presents me with a huge learning curve to get up-to-speed on these things. I already know how to do touch events and accelerometer handling. Apple is introducing kickass APIs for game networking and such. All I want is to draw pretty 3D things to the screen and occasionally animate them; maybe some basic collision detection.