Video Game Engine
A video game engine is a software framework used by developers, designers and artists to make video games or movie production. It provides the necessary tools and functionalities to design, develop and eventually deploy these projects to various existing platforms. As its core, a game engine offers a suit of feature pipelines such as rendering engines for 2D and 3D graphics, physicss engines to simulate movement and interactions, sound and animations. Each engine has its specific purpose and use case based on the projects requirements, and by that used by different extent of industries not only tied to movies and video games, but even concept work.
Use of Engines
As the advancement of modern video game engines, it introduces a wide range of possibilities for video game design, movie makers and environmental designers who use these to showcase their work in the best format depending on the engine and to publish them to the wider audience.
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Video Game Development
- Commonly these engines are developed for a specific reason to mainstream 2D / 3D games or both.
- Some of the common engines that are widely used are Unity built for 2D games, and Unreal Engine built for 3D games, though both of them support the pipelines for 2D and 3D.
- Provides a possibility to develop for various platforms like Mobile, Computer, Console, HTML.
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Prototyping
- These engines are also used by developers to prototype ideas to test game machanics, introduce concepts for movies or even to showcase environments and projects.
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Cross-Platform Development
- Many modern engines support multi-platform deployment, allowing games to be released on PCs, consoles, and mobile devices with minimal additional effort.
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Simulation and Training
- Game engines are employed in industries like military, healthcare, and education for creating realistic simulations and training programs.
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Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR):
- Game engines are also used to develop immersive VR and AR experiences, broadening the scope of interactive applications beyond traditional gaming.
- As an example simulating a planes cockpit to teach the consumer the expectations and make it available for them before learning in an actual one.
History
The history of video game engines is deeply intertwined with the evolution of video games, tracing back to the mid-20th century. Early experiments like “Tennis for Two” (1958) and “Spacewar!” (1962) were groundbreaking but were hard-coded for specific hardware, making them inflexible and difficult to adapt.
As the video game industry emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s with arcade classics like “Pong” (1972) and “Space Invaders” (1978), developers recognized the need for reusable software components. This led to the early development of game engines, with games like “Elite” (1984) featuring a basic 3D graphics engine.
A significant breakthrough came with id Software’s “Wolfenstein 3D” (1992), which introduced the concept of separating game code from engine code. This approach was further refined with “Doom” (1993), whose engine was licensed to other developers, establishing a commercial model for game engines.
The mid-1990s saw the advent of more sophisticated engines like the “Quake” engine, which enabled true 3D environments and supported extensive modding. By the early 2000s, engines such as Unreal Engine and Unity provided comprehensive toolsets and multi-platform support, making game development more efficient and accessible.
This is the brief history of games and the start of engines, remember this is a brief explanation its best to further research in regards to “Spacewar!”, and “Wolfenstein 3D”, which set the groundwork for the engines we know today as well as video games.
Please Read about the available engines on the website from Table of Contents.