I've had the most luck with Irrlicht, but that's not saying much. The main point about Irrlicht that I like is how the GUI elements can be serialized to XML.
Depends, do you mean commercial? If so, I'd say Source for physics, Anvil for AI, and graphics would be the CryEngine. Beyond that I don't really have an opinion.
Unity3D is still quite a good tool. The fundation of it is written in a low level engine I think. I like the component based game object idea it uses. The event handling is quite good and given just a little knowledge in C#, you can grasp how the components interact in mere weeks.
Linux support is quite hard if it's not open source, for there are distros aplenty.
Their community has a lot of kids thinking its sorcery that can be used to craft MMOs within short time and with people who want to help (read: do it for them) for free. Also, it seems selling assets is more popular than making games with it.
@xander337,
I would say Euphoria (GTA IV etc.) had the best physics engine I've played. Especially the way it dynamically figures out car crashes so that each one is different...
@Code Assasin,
If you don't mind your game being Windows-only (like most other games) then go for Dark GDK. I want to say "roll your own" but if you just want to make games, there's no point adding another 3-4 years to your development time...
I've actually never played any game that uses it, I can definitely see where it would be a heck of a lot better for animation physics though. For all the other stuff I still prefer Source :P
but if you just want to make games, there's no point adding another 3-4 years to your development time...
Hate to bring this up again, but this should be qualified.
You should learn the fundamentals before working in a game engine, it is just like a fish flopping about on a keyboard trying to play minecraft- nothing is understood.
Wow, this thread has been dead for almost two months.
I was talking about using an existing game engine as opposed to making your own. Making your own will take longer, and if you just want to make games, you may as well use game engine that's already been written.
Yes, as I thought you had, having talked to codeassassin, he was under the impression that he shouldn't spend time learning fundamental c++. Because of that misunderstanding I felt it necessary to resurrect the thread..