A while ago I responded to a question on Quora regarding which languages are required to develop a game engine. In this post, I want to expand on my answer.

The one thing to keep in mind while developing a game engine is EFFICIENCY. And it was the closeness of C++ to the bare metal that finalized my decision to use it as the primary language of Untold Engine. The other motive was my desires to learn C++ at a deeper level.

Collision Detection is the most expensive operation in a game engine. A proper Collision Detection System must detect a collision, compute the where the collision occurred between two convex entities and compute the collision responses. Furthermore, to efficiently detect collision among several entities, a game engine should parse the scene and divided the detection between two stages: Broad and Narrow Phase stages.

Such operations require the implementations of a Boundary Volume Hierarchy algorithm and a GJK algorithm. These are expensive operations, and they must be computed within a fraction of a game-tick.

Therefore, whatever primary language you decide to use in your engine, make sure that it is a fast and efficient language. The last thing you want is for your game engine to waste valuable time in the collision detection due to the inefficiency of the language.

Aside from the game engine, you must also develop an application that acts as a bridge between your engine and 3D modeling software, such as Blender 3D. The primary purpose of this application is to export rendering data of a 3D model from Blender and make it accessible for the engine to use. To develop such an application, you need to learn Python-Blender scripting.

During the development of the Untold Engine, I had to develop this application, which I call Digital Asset Exporter (DAE). The DAE not only exports rendering information but also 3D animation data which the engine can use.

Depending on the 3D Modeling tool which you decide to use, you may have to learn a different second language such as javascript. For example, if you choose to use Cheetah3D, you will need to develop the DAE using Javascript.

Well, I hope this helps.