> it does fail in regards to UI/UX, though, since not having a user friendly visual editor is one of the larger mistakes that you can make
Keep in mind that for some of these projects having a visual editor might be outside of their scope - these are often "engine frameworks" (or as i like to call them "engine engines" :-P) for making your own engine and tools rather than complete turnkey solutions by themselves like Unreal or Unity. This approach gives more freedom to the developers but at the cost of having to make their own tools (though they still take care of the low level plumbing bits). The idea with those isn't to make a generic catch-all toolset like Unreal/Unity, but something that is specific to the project at hand. Note that sometimes they do offer some tools but they tend to be separate projects that use the framework like "your" tools would do rather than being part of the engine itself like in Unreal/Unity.
There are a bunch of those, though they are not as high profile as Unreal and Unity - two commercial ones you'll most likely have heard of would be Gamebryo[0] and RenderWare, though the former is nowadays mostly limping along and the latter was been shut down years ago after EA acquired them.
I think Sony's PhyreEngine is/was something like that but i'm not 100% certain as that is only via hearsay and not something i've seen myself.
> Keep in mind that for some of these projects having a visual editor might be outside of their scope - these are often "engine frameworks" (or as i like to call them "engine engines" :-P) for making your own engine and tools rather than complete turnkey solutions by themselves like Unreal or Unity.
That's a fair point! Though jMonkeyEngine actually uses LWJGL so i guess at this point we're talking about "engine engine engines". Of course, there is certainly merit to a layered and modular approach like that!
> This approach gives more freedom to the developers but at the cost of having to make their own tools (though they still take care of the low level plumbing bits).
This is excellent for when you have the time and resources (and the desire/motivation/discipline) to make your own tooling and end up with something bespoke, that fits your needs/project well.
But it's a non-starter for those who just want a usable package with batteries included, which i'd argue is the majority of the users and therefore will impact the popularity of the project negatively.
It's interesting to behold and is probably quite the learning experience, though i'm not sure whether Randy's game will come out first, or whether GNU Hurd will beat him to it.
> But it's a non-starter for those who just want a usable package with batteries included, which i'd argue is the majority of the users and therefore will impact the popularity of the project negatively.
Well, yeah, i think the popularity of Unity even at its earlier versions over -say- Irrlicht is a testament to that despite the latter containing pretty much everything one might need for a 3D game :-P.
But my point is that popularity here can be a red herring because frameworks like that never set out to provide the same solutions as Unreal/Unity and for someone who is looking for a framework to build on or use as opposed to an all-in-one solution like Unreal/Unity, the latter's popularity wont matter much (and there are such people - it is not uncommon to see developers who say that, e.g., they'd like Unity if they could use it as a library).
Keep in mind that for some of these projects having a visual editor might be outside of their scope - these are often "engine frameworks" (or as i like to call them "engine engines" :-P) for making your own engine and tools rather than complete turnkey solutions by themselves like Unreal or Unity. This approach gives more freedom to the developers but at the cost of having to make their own tools (though they still take care of the low level plumbing bits). The idea with those isn't to make a generic catch-all toolset like Unreal/Unity, but something that is specific to the project at hand. Note that sometimes they do offer some tools but they tend to be separate projects that use the framework like "your" tools would do rather than being part of the engine itself like in Unreal/Unity.
There are a bunch of those, though they are not as high profile as Unreal and Unity - two commercial ones you'll most likely have heard of would be Gamebryo[0] and RenderWare, though the former is nowadays mostly limping along and the latter was been shut down years ago after EA acquired them.
I think Sony's PhyreEngine is/was something like that but i'm not 100% certain as that is only via hearsay and not something i've seen myself.
[0] http://www.gamebryo.com/screenshots.php