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Game Engine

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TerraAnt:
First off, congratulations to the developers of this great game. Years ago I used to love to play XCom (I used to have so much more free time), and my hat goes off to those who decided to make that game into what you guys achieved here. Projects like this keep us, old gamers, coming back.
Before writing this post I went through some of the discussions on your forum, just to see what other people think of this game and any issues that might have popped up in the past. One of the posts mentioned something about the limitations of the Quake game engine (in particular, the fact that the size of the human bases is rather constrained). I was wondering if this issue has been resolved.
The reason I am asking is that, while reading that post, I remembered reading about a game engine that is free to use by anyone, and all based on 3D. I'm sure many members of this forum have heard of Blender 3D (www.blender.org). It is a free 3D model-generation software, described by some of its users as almost as good as Maya, and apparently comes with its own game creation engine. I've never used the program myself (don't have the time for it right now), but some of the animations and videos that I've seen come out of that thing look incredible. Here's a link to their art gallery page for those who would be interested in such things: www.blender.org/features-gallery/gallery/art-gallery.
I guess my question is if UFOAI could be ported, or somehow adapted, to run on Blender's game engine (maybe sometime in the future) and possibly alleviate some of the current limitations of the Quake engine. Here's a page I found that describes some of the features it uses: www.blender.org/features-gallery/features (game creation engine section is right at the bottom of the page).

stevenjackson:

When you say size of human bases is constrained.  What do you mean?
Number of base squares or the size of maps for base attacks?

Steve

TerraAnt:
I meant number of base squares (5x5). Personally I don't have a problem with that (certain limits make games more challenging), but there was a forum post where players expressed a wish to have that grid increased somewhat, considering that most of the grid space gets taken up really quickly with base facilities that are absolutely necessary for it to become operational. Space that gets left free doesn't offer much for customizing base layout or functionality (perhaps that was the reason for making the grid size only 5x5).
The discussion concerned itself with either increasing the grid size, or making it multilevel. If memory serves me right, one of the replies mentioned that Quake engine posed limitations on the grid size. That's why I wrote this post, in hopes that using a different game engine might alleviate some limitations the designers could be faced with when using Quake. I'm not a coder myself, so I have no idea if switching from Quake to Blender engine is even possible or too much work and hassle to bother with. I'm just thinking that if it is possible, it might be worth it if in the long run it means the design team gets a better tool to work with, instead of around it.

vedrit:
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Blender doestn actually make the game, but can be used to make the in-game stuff. Many of its features are there to make the models fit into the game as much as possible. I dont think that Blender would be the best idea for this project. Maybe for making weapons and other models, but not for the game itself

Doctor J:
Actually, the Blender people do have a game engine - it just isn't called Blender.  It's called CrystalSpace3D.  And since a lot of the frequently asked questions relate to problems and limitations of the archaic Quake2 engine, at least look at it before shooting the idea down.

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