ESSENTIAL ENGINES GUIDE | BUILD BIGWORLD
CREATOR: BIGWORLD TECHNOLOGY PLATFORMS: BROWSER, PC, XBOX 360, PS3, IOS GAMES: WORLD OF TANKS, COPERNICUS (UPCOMING), TIAN XIA II
WWW.BIGWORLDTECH.COM
BigWorld is a middleware platform that specialises in massively multiplayer and online games development, with core components of the product including server, client, plug-ins, supports and tools such as particle, model and world editors.
Built to help with the development of PC and
browser games, as well as being available on iOS, Xbox 360 and PS3 via network API, the engine has been used to create games such as
Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks and Chinese MMO’s Tian Xia II and Kingdom Heroes 2 Online. BigWorld Server also offers a solution to enabling games to scale rapidly to support hundreds of
HEROENGINE
CREATOR: IDEA FABRIK PLATFORMS: PC, MAC, LINUX, MOBILE SEEN IN: STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC
WWW.HEROENGINE.COM
Idea Farbrik’s HeroEngine is a development platform tailored especially for MMOs, and most famously used in BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic. The middleware comes with
a windows client, world server and integrated suite of tools.
Idea Farbik COO Neil Harris says that the platform provides a “tightly integrated server system” to help produce stable environment crucial to an MMO world that needs to handle thousands of concurrent users. Its creators also offer small developers a free-to-
use HeroEngine license, the HeroCloud, that handles all hosting and bandwidth, taking 30 per cent of net revenues once games start taking advantage of the services and make money.
SHIVA
CREATOR: STONETRIP PLATFORMS: BROWSER, PC, MAC, LINUX, IOS, ANDROID, BLACKBERRY, WII, XBOX 360, PS3 SEEN IN: EARTH AND LEGEND, THE NECRONOMICON HORROR, SUPERSONIC
WWW.STONETRIP.COM
ShiVa is a 3D real-time cross-platform engine that comes complete with a sound library, ‘advanced’ shading systems, physics engine and HUD rendering, whilst it is also extendable with plug-ins like PhysX, Fmod and ARtoolkit. Targeted at both indie developers and mid-sized
studios, ShiVa comes in basic and advanced editions, with the latter featuring a more robust set of development tools for its users such as asset management, optimisation software and performance profiling. Stronetrip’s VP of communications Fabien Le
Vavasseur claims that it was one of the first engine firms to adopt the royalty-free model back in 2007, following in the footsteps of Flash. He says that the software’s pricing is now calculated to target specific budgets, depending on the developer’s size and project.
DEVELOP-ONLINE.NET
He adds that the company is constantly looking to keep up with where the industry is heading, to make sure its ShiVa engine remains relevant to devs. “We are constantly working on the engine to
provide better performance and quality; this has always been Stonetrip’s goal and it’s what drives us,” says Le Vavasseur. “We also work hard to stay up to date with all the biggest gaming platforms, such as the PS3 and Xbox 360. We continue to strive and succeed to secure the best performance from each.” Not content with what they currently offer
developers, the technology outfit is also moving toward further improvements and potentially extended platform support for next-generation systems such as the Wii U, although that company has yet to decide on what devices it will be backing.
Harris says that the engine is currently being used on an unnanounced Zenimax Online title, and also claims that since revealing HeroCloud in 2010, 5,000 games have been made with HeroEngine. With the games engine market continuing to
become more fragmented and specialised, Harris says one of the key challenges facing the vendor and the entire sector is in providing a single optimal solution for projects. “There are many different kinds of games – an
engine that optimises rendering is usually not very good at an MMO because of the different kinds of needs of an MMO game,” he explains. “Social games make use of Flash, which is widely
available, but at a much lower end of graphics performance. Engineering involves trade-offs to optimise performance for specific projects.”
Harris says that Idea Fabrik is currently working
on a revised rendering engine for its client, whilst on the business side it is integrating billing, marketing and analytics platforms. He also said the company will begin to roll out Hero clients on other devices such as Mac and smartphones to customers in the next year.
thousands of players. Bigworld social media director Matt Daly says that with the rapid expansion of the games industry’s collective target market, there are many more people playing games simultaneously. “One of the biggest-font items on BigWorld’s
roadmap is interoperability between BigWorld Server and the new platforms that are going to make it increasingly possible to bring more users simultaneously into an experience, re-defining the concept of ‘massive’ in gaming,” he says. With so many developers now also creating games on their own or in small teams, the engine vendor last year released the Indie Edition of its platform to tap into the emerging market. Daly says this has received strong interest and adoption from the indie development community, with the company keen to support devs wherever the market is headed.
“BigWorld’s roadmap tends to be composed partially
of what current and future clients will need. Increasing focus is being put on mobile and browser,” he states. “Thankfully, BigWorld Server is quite extensible and can be piped in relatively easily into any front-end. This has allowed BigWorld to be fairly agile with its client development roadmap.“
“While a decision hasn’t been made, our long time experience with Wii U would lead me to believe that it will be updated,” says Le Vavasseur. “We have just released the new BlackBerry
PlayBook/QNX support and there is more new console support coming soon. New support updates are always released free of charge.”
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