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Do you prefer using 3d authoring tools/Engined or hard code your games?

By 3d auth,, / engine i mean like FPSC, Unity etc,,,

hardcoding I mean creating engine and everything using code c++/DBpro or anything.

What is the drawbacks/benefits of the two?

Here is mine.

1. 3d tools
Benefit. Fast game creation
Drawback: you are more bound and technical issues maybe could be solved more easy if you had source code to work with, but now you have to work around it, try coming up with another solution

2. Hard coding
Benefit: not bound, you can make about just anything that pops up in your head, full control over the engine. Easier to debug since you know what you have done, easier to find the source to the error
Drawback: takes longer time

I prefer hard coding. The benefit I would say is that you have more control and you're only coding what you need, plus there's more satisfaction (you've built the components yourself, so you can feel pride when they come together). The drawback is it requires more work from the ground up, you've got to make the engine before you've got to get started and that process can mean squashing a lot of annoying bugs...but I suppose at least they're mainly your own bugs and you can fix them.

I've not played with 3D Authoring tools as much as other people, but I'd say the benefit if you can jump right in - of course you'll create scripts catered to your game play - in same engines like Torque you may decide to edit the source code, but in general you can get away with scripting. Generally you get access to a level editor so it's more artist friendly and you save time by not reinventing the wheel.

Drawback: less control, so you might be a bit limited...depends on the engine, I mean Unity3D has a lot of control - but say if you wanted to approach the engine differently to Unity you can either choose a different engine or make your own. When you do have access to the engine source code, if you want to make changes you've got a lot of unfamiliar code (after all, you didn't write it) and you've got to go through a whole reference document just to understand what they've done (like Torque).


At least that's my take...given my limited experience of alternative 3D engine, there could be a few inaccuracies.

Definitely hard coding for me. Even if my project doesn't succeed I still enjoy the core programming of things more than anything. In fact, the gameplay programming is what usually leads to me quitting, because I'm always trying to get it to be perfect which simply isn't possible for most games. Shaders can be a deterrent though, they are frustrating to program when you don't know what you're doing

Hard coding for me, I can create the level editor to exactly suit my workflow and because I coded it I know exactly what its doing and how its doing it. there's no "I'd love to do this but the program doesn't have the features to do it easily" I just put the features in there and they're good to go.
My level editor is like a fps. I walk around on the terrain press q to open new models. the new model snaps to my player object position and then i use the mouse click to clone stamp it wherever i want. same goes for terrain editing. i can scroll out and look down on the player object as a cursor and raise lower my terrain.
Minecraft is the only level editor ive seen similar to my design. but I dont want blocks
my story edit mode will be as simple as walk around, click on character add story data, mark location, object,character etc.

its so much easier to create it from the ground up rather than have to learn functions and scripting for someone elses logic process.

hard code all the way.