SFML community forums
General => SFML projects => Topic started by: Blackwidou_ on December 05, 2019, 10:45:02 am
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Hello !
I'm posting this message today to talk to you about LeafEngine.
What is it ?
The LeafEngine is an optimized 2D video game engine that aims to overcome the current problems of the classic video game engine: optimize the games so that they can turn on toaster, do not turn his switch into oven
How ?
If I post this message here, I think you guessed it: C ++ and SFML!
Why this message ?
We would like to get in touch with video game developers to discuss the need they would have!
Thank's for your help :D
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Hi and welcome to the SFML forum! :)
From your post, it's not really clear if you have already developed some parts of LeafEngine, or if you want to build an engine and are looking for people who want to collaborate in the process. In case you already have something, could you maybe list some features?
Also, could you elaborate on your toaster/oven metaphor? :D
What are the goals of LeafEngine? What can it do that others can't?
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Hello Nexus,
Thanks for your answer !
We would like at first, to have feedback from developers of 2D video games, about the usefulness of our engine. We noticed that a lot of video games are developed on 3D-oriented games engines, and we would like to know why they chose these engines, rather than an engine such as godot (problem of optimization ?). Also, we would like to know the expectations that a developer would have of our engine.
Regarding the metaphor of the toaster / oven, it is to say that the games made with our engine should be able to turn on a pc of 2008 with a pentium, as a switch without it heats up for nothing.
The main goal of the project is to realize an optimized 2D video game engine with optimization tools for the developer.
Thanks !
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Game Engine in general are usually optimized. They are also most of the time developed with a game. There's a reason why people say "make a game, not an engine". One of the main reason why people uses a 3D engine to make 2D game is because, 2D is 3D but with just a dimension cut off. Ultimately, most of the feature of one can be applied in some way to the feature of the other one.
Do you have anything to show us? Because saying you want to make an optimized engine is great, but can you do it, and please defined optimized (performance, memory wise, etc.)
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This post may sound a bit harsh, please take it as suggestion and not criticism :)
Developing an engine is great, if your goal is learning or experimentation. You will have to deal with lots of different systems and need to design a scalable architecture as well as good APIs. You will encounter problem after problem, and most of them have been solved one way or another, and the Internet is at your fingertips for solutions.
There are however several downsides to developing your own engine, be it for a game or as a project for others.
- Resources. Developing an engine is -- depending on the scope and the abstraction level of underlying technologies -- a massive endeavour. It often takes several manyears to get to a point, where the engine is feature-rich enough to support different games. But eventually, this highly depends on your scope.
- Don't reinvent the wheel. Popular engines have often been around for many years, and likely provide many of the features that you are looking for. A lot of them are battle-tested by users over time, and have received continuous improvements, bugfixes and optimizations. You may want to check out if what you try to achieve is not readily available.
- Consider your audience. You express that you're interested in the needs and expectations of potential users, and I think this a very good step to clarify before you start implementing. You may not get enough significant answers in the SFML forum alone, I'd suggest you search in separate forums and platforms for people wanting to build games and the problems they encounter, or why they're unhappy with existing engines. Providing features that others don't already have and finding your niche may prove difficult. It's much more realistic if you provide a few tailored standalone features rather than a all-fits-one solution. For example, I wrote a library Thor (https://github.com/Bromeon/Thor), which provides modular components that can be used independently.
- Commitment. There have been countless "engine" projects on this forum, and most of them died after a short time and were never widely used. To be taken seriously by the community, you must show that you're willing to bring a project to a stable point, maintain it, engage in community discussions. Ideally you also have something to show (i.e. code -- from this or an earlier project of yours).
If you, against all odds, still want to build an engine: start small, but good (robust code, careful design, reasonable use cases). Try to convince by providing innovative and distinct features, not the 21th animated sprite -- together with SFML, you have quite some headroom (check also the Wiki and GitHub).
Last but not least: instead of spending your entire time on an engine, you may want to invest that into a game and build great gameplay and content. In the end, people who play a game usually don't care if it's powered by engine X or Y. And games also appeal to people who are not SFML developers ;)
Either way, good luck! 8)