Olander here saying hello to you all.
I am endeavoring to make a visual book of my written book stories in the World of Anvarath.
Much of the pre-work and design testing/learning was done in the Aurora (NWN1) and Electron (NWN2) toolsets by Bioware then Obsidian respectively. I made a comprehensive toolset integrated addon that I called Olander's Realistic System (ORS) that I gave out to other hobbyists/developers to run their own 'Hard Core' Persistent Server....it was voted Hall of Fame by peers.
Link => https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/script/orsv51-olanders-realistic-systems
For about 4 years now I have been trying to remake the NWN1 game engine as a framework overlay in a base engine. Much success has happened in Unity v4.4 Pro through v5.4 Pro...v5.5 Pro is giving me fits currently. I have been also with some success making this in UE4.7 to v4.13...but the project corrupted and requiring a rebuild in v4.14.
Unity is just bug riddled and their new subscription methods are driving me away from this engine quickly. Converting NWScript (C Code-like) to C# has been both fun and interesting. Most every very useful function in the NWN Lexicon has been reverse engineered and used with success in the Unity game engine. A great experience.
UE4 is a very well polished engine. The features work and until recently project updates rarely break anything. UE4 Visual Scripting is solid and easy enough to translate my C/C# code to UE4 Language. UE4 C++ is different and a really large learning curve in my opinion. Doing something like Bioware did in NWN1...GetNearestObjectByTag or SetLocalObject are just crazy strange and far too difficult to do. Object communication is just plain crazy to get set up....especially in Visual Scripting.
I also gave Esenthel a solid go and although nice it is pure C++ and doing things in it is just plain strange. It was lacking some really decent features and the tutorials are so basic that it just a get started type of thing. Just kept hitting wall after wall.
So yesterday I finally downloaded Skyline (new about this for some time but was pressing on in Unity). I spent the entire day dragging and clicking. No crashes and I have to say...the statement about being comfortable and easy to use is very much true. Skyline reminds me A LOT of NWN2 (Electron Engine) but with vast improvements. I do not mind LUA at all since doing some modding in LoTRO so I am doing some learning and preparing to start figuring out what functions need to be made in Skyline for game play. So far Skyline has been a real breath of fresh air. So much so that I bought the commercial license today.
I look forward to making this journey in a really nice engine.
Cheers and Regards,
Olander
www.standsurestudio.com