In this issue, our eyes are mainly focussed on the Big Three (yes, on safari it’s the Big Five): Unity, Unreal, Cryengine. But just because everyone wants to see the big three doesn’t mean they’re the only ones out there roaming the steppes and deep jungles. Because there are also other (un)known specimens that might deserve our attention, at least briefly.

So let’s get out our bush knives and fight our way through the thicket of the Engine jungle. Maybe we’ll discover one or two strange, funny, stupid or already extinct species. Of course, there are many more than the ones we’ve discovered in this round, but after all, this is all about rekindling our thirst for exploration, isn’t it?

AnvilNext Engine

Originally known as Scimitar, Anvil is an engine developed by Ubisoft Montreal that was and still is mainly used for the in-house products “Prince of Persia” and “Assassin’s Creed”. Until “Assassin’s Creed: Revelations” (2011), the original Anvil Engine was still used. From “Assassin’s Creed III” (2012) onwards, the game engine was renamed AnvilNext. The reason for this is the supposedly drastic improvement in the engine’s graphical performance. With AnvilNext, a whole range of new features were added, such as a day-night cycle, pre-baked global illumination and volumetric fog.

The popularity of the engine is due to the fact that it enables a high degree of artificial intelligence and interaction with the environment in games.

Frame info
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Systems: cross-platform
Programming language: C , C#
Current version: 2.0
Licence : proprietary
Cost: Not for sale
https://montreal.ubisoft.com/en/

Blender Game Engine (R.I.P.)

How about a dead one? Most people probably know the programme more as 3D modelling software, which enjoys great popularity, if only for the reason that it is free. However, it may have escaped some people’s attention that Blender itself also contains a game engine. Its original name is Ketsji – it has since been given a much more boring name: Blender Game Engine. Hooray, how exciting!

The game engine didn’t even work until version 2.37a, but had to wait for the 2.41 update, which in turn was almost exclusively reserved for the game aspect. In April 2018, however, the components were removed with version 2.8 due to a lack of community development and too little use in general. However, work is said to be underway on an alternative – this will probably have relatively little to do with Blender, but hey, we wanted to mention it.

Framework information
Developer: Blender Foundation
Systems: cross-platform
Programming language: C, C , Python
Current version: 2.76b (3 Nov 2015)
Licence: GPL
Cost: free of charge
www.blender.org

Cafu Engine

No, not Café, but Cafu. This is an engine that is accessible to everyone and was primarily developed to support the developers of games and other 3D applications with its functions. Among other things, it is suitable for multiplayer, cross-platform and real-time 3D. Since December 2009, this copy including source code has been available to everyone. It can be downloaded from the official download page or even checked out directly from the Subversion repository with the corresponding command line command (svn checkout https://svn.lcube.de/dev123/projects/cafu/trunk Cafu). All within the framework of the GPL. Similar to other open projects of this type, the documentation is kept in a separate wiki, which can be supplemented or modified by users.

Framework information
Developer: Carsten Fuchs Software
Systems: platform-independent
Programming language: C , Lua
Current version: always ongoing
Licence: GPL
Costs: free of charge
www.cafu.de

Frostbite Engine

Of course, this one should not be missing among all the names. Anyone who has ever played games such as “Battlefield” or “FIFA” (or even funnier titles such as “Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare”) will already have played this engine and know that it has a lot to offer.

Its first version 1.0 was used solely for “Battlefield: Bad Company”, which also signalled its launch in 2008. It is currently used exclusively by EA and its associated studios and cannot be licensed by other developers. Yep, EA has the say here. However, many Frostbite functions can also be found in other engines. Cinemachine from Unity even comes from the same developer, with whom we also happened to conduct an interview. You can find it in this issue on page 21.

Frame info
Developer: Digital Illusions Creative
Entertainment (DICE)
Systems: Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360,
Playstation 3, Xbox One, Playstation 4
Programming language: C , C#
Current version: 3.0
Licence : proprietary
Cost: Not for sale
www.ea.com/frostbite

Hero Engine

This engine specialises primarily in the MMO category and therefore also has a unique feature: real-time editing with several people tinkering at the same time. It almost feels like Perforce in real time. The Simutronics engine is therefore particularly suitable for the production of online games. It was originally developed for the company’s own game “Hero’s Journey” (which was never released) and received numerous awards. Later, several companies bought licences to be able to use the engine for their own games. It also comes with integrated middleware such as SpeedTree and FaceGen.

Framework information
Developer: Simutronics
Systems: Microsoft Windows
Programming language: C , C#,
HeroScript Language (HSL)
Current version: 2.0 (stable)
Licence: proprietary
Cost: from 99.95 US dollars
www.heroengine.com

Wisp Engine

Small but mighty: Irrlicht was developed by a small team centred around Nikolaus Gebhardt. It is completely free, has a well-documented API and also comes with tutorials. Anyone who wants to can tinker with it and share the features they have built with everyone else. Irrlicht may celebrate its community on a small scale, but you can still take a look at some current projects.

Framework information
Developer: Nikolaus Gebhardt
Systems: Linux, Mac OS, Sun Solaris,
Microsoft Windows
Programming language: C
Current version: 1.8.4 (9 July 2016)
Licence: zlib (open source)
Costs: free of charge
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net

Lumberyard Engine

It will probably be in beta for all eternity, but with Amazon it has a big name behind it – perhaps it will make it to the actual release at some point. The engine is based on the well-known Cryengine, but has been further developed and modified during the course of development. The main trump card here is the excellent interaction with Amazon’s other services and Twitch functions.

The source code can also be used by end users, at least to a limited extent. It may be customised for the game, but not released publicly.

It is also not allowed to write your own engine. True to the motto: Look, but don’t touch!

Frame information
Developer: Amazon
Systems: Microsoft Windows,
Playstation 4, Xbox One, iOs, Android
Programming language: C , Lua
Current version: Beta 1.15
(Status: 27 July 2018)
Licence : proprietary
Costs: (initially) free of charge
https://aws.amazon.com/de/
lumberyard

Quake Engine

The mother of all 3D engines was developed by id Software in 1995 for the game of the same name “Quake” and probably paved the way for all game engines on the market today. It is the first 3D game engine that actually uses real three-dimensional models instead of two-dimensional sprites. The graphics engine has been continuously developed over the years and reused for a number of other computer games, including “Half-Life” and “Hexen II”.

Ioquake3 is a free FPS engine based on Quake 3 that is still being pushed by the community today.

Frame info
Developer: id Software
Systems: Windows, Linux, Mac OS
Programming language: QuakeC
Current version: 3.0
Licence: GPL
Costs: free of charge
https://ioquake3.org

Sauerbraten Engine

Yes, this exotic engine definitely deserves a mention just because of its name. How it got from its predecessor Cube Engine to Sauerbraten will probably never be completely clear (and do you really want to know? Really?). But the fact is that this is a free engine that offers the possibility to modify maps interactively. The special feature is that the maps are based on height fields and use a hierarchical octree structure. This keeps the working memory relatively low and greatly compresses the representation of the game world. However, it is not kept particularly up-to-date.

Framework information
Developer: Wouter “Aardappel”
van Oortmerssen
Systems: GNU/Linux, Mac OS X,
Microsoft Windows
Programming language: C
Current version: Collect Edition (2013)
Licence: zlib (open source)
Costs: free of charge
http://sauerbraten.org

Source Engine (2)

Remnants of the Quake Engine can be found here. Source made its debut after around five years of development in 2004 for the game “Half-Life 2” and with “Counter-Strike: Source”. It was therefore also the replacement for the previous Half-Life engine. It is mainly used in Valve’s in-house games.

However, the original Source Engine website is no longer available and the engine in its old form can no longer be licensed.

At the Game Developer Conference 2015, however, the successor model Source 2 was released, which was used to create the popular “MOBA Dota 2”, among others. The Source 2 engine is available to everyone free of charge. The only condition: If a game is to be published, it MUST be done via Steam.

Framework information
Developer: Valve
Systems: Windows, Mac OS,
Linux, Android
Programming language: C
Current version: 2.0
Licence : proprietary/available on Steam
Cost: (initially) free of charge
https://steamcommunity.com/
app/211?l=german

Tombstone Engine

The successor to the C4 Engine (may it rest in piece) lovingly welcomes its visitors on the homepage with a large picture of gravestones and a dead atmosphere. The screenshots to be marvelled at also show a creepy night-time atmosphere and graves, but we simply assume that Tombstone, despite its fitting name, also allows for other scenarios.

It is not free, but comes with a single licence type that includes the complete source code for the engine, tools and demo game. Also, once you buy it, you own it for life and can basically do whatever you want with it and produce as many games as you like until you’re buried in the ground … Maybe that’s where the name comes from?

Frame info
Developer: Terathon Software LLC
Systems: Playstation 4, Windows,
Mac OS, Linux
Programming language: C#
Current version: 2.5
Licence : Single licence
Cost: 450 Euro
http://tombstoneengine.com

You could actually put the predecessor of the Blackmagic Pocket 4K in almost any pocket with a small pancake or 16 mm lens. That’s a thing of the past, because despite all the progress, processing four times as many pixels into RAW recordings and the corresponding heat dissipation cannot be accommodated in such a compact housing. The new camera looks very similar to a DSLR and is even a little chunkier. When you first touch it, however, the low weight (720 g) is surprising, which is also associated with a certain feeling of a plastic box. But it is a composite material reinforced with carbon fibres, which should be able to withstand quite a lot – others use such material in cars. In any case, there have been no reports of damage to the housing from those who have been working with it for some time. A few Ursa Minis, on the other hand, have not survived tipping sideways with the handle attached without breaking the metal housing.
At best, the torsional strength of the Pocket 4K could be somewhat lower than that of metal. With heavy lenses or even motorised focus pullers, you should probably attach the lens to the support rather than the camera alone. The housing is not rainproof. A common problem with the predecessor was the fragile sockets, especially the tiny HDMI connection, which usually failed when used frequently. There are now better things here: HDMI in full size, a much more solid, latching 12-volt socket and mini-XLR for sound (mono) in addition to the usual 3.5 mm stereo jack. The batteries have also grown slightly, they now correspond to Canon LP-E6. BMD has retained the lens mount for Micro 4/3 (MFT). The active cooling is audible, but only in the immediate vicinity. The outlet for the significantly warmed air is not optimally positioned on the underside, as a larger tripod plate could jeopardise the cooling, especially if the camera is carelessly placed on textiles.

Despite the touchscreen, there are plenty of sensibly placed and clearly labelled controls, including three freely assignable function buttons, a photo button for stills and a quick switch to slow motion. However, the latter can lead to problems if it happens to be assigned the same frame rate as the one you are currently shooting with. If you then accidentally touch this button, the picture/sound synchronisation is no longer guaranteed – so it is better to set a clearly different frame rate so that it is noticeable. It is also to be hoped that the labelling will be more durable than on the old Pocket: anyone who has used it intensively must now be able to operate it blindly. There is no longer a socket for LANC (Control-L); remote control is only offered via Bluetooth app as with the Ursa Mini Pro. If desired, GPS data from the controlling device can be transferred to the metadata of the recording – e.g. on the tracks of rare animals.
Together with the well thought-out menu structure, from which manufacturers like Sony could still learn a lot, the Pocket 4K quickly grows into your (not too dainty) hand. The manual is available in several languages, including German. Apart from a few amusing translation errors such as “camera assistant” instead of “AC” for AC, it is well organised and easy to understand; there is even an introduction to DaVinci Resolve. The camera menus are currently limited to English, but translations are planned.

Monitor

The screen makes good use of the available space, has a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 and around 500 nits. Although it cannot compete with a Ninja V that is twice as bright, it is significantly brighter and sharper than its predecessor (which can hardly be operated without a viewfinder magnifier). Unfortunately, it cannot be tilted, making it difficult to work with it from very low or high positions. Nevertheless, this decision is understandable, as the camera was obviously designed to be robust. The fragile tilting mechanism of some other cameras and the continuous strain on the corresponding cabling is always a potential weak point.

The monitor offers clear displays of all important parameters, which lead directly to the corresponding setting when touched without a menu; of course, they can also be hidden. Loadable LUTs for the display allow image assessment – these can optionally be transferred to the recording if you need to deliver immediately presentable material. Contour sharpening, zebra and false colours can be switched on for control purposes, but there is no waveform, histogram or vectorscope here. When the menu is activated or in dark scenes, a slight light scattering can be seen in the bottom left-hand corner, but this is insignificant in practice.

Sensor and lenses

The sensor has also grown, even slightly beyond the usual size in MFT photo cameras such as the GH5 from Panasonic. While the latter has a sensor with a width of 17.3 mm and an aspect ratio of 1.33 to 1, the chip in the Pocket 4K is almost 19 mm wide, but only 10 mm high. It is clearly aimed at film and actually has real 4K pixels in the cinema standard of 4096 x 2160 – other camera manufacturers are happy if you don’t know the difference to UHD with 3840 x 2160. Now, neither means a true resolution of 2,000 lines with a Bayer pattern, but at least both formats are available natively without scaling. The sharpness of a Sony A7III with oversampling is not quite achieved, but subjectively the Pocket looks very sharp. With one small catch: BMD still does not use an OLPF (anti-aliasing filter), so part of the sharpness impression is likely to consist of false detail. however, 4K on a small chip is far less critical than HD because the resolution limit of many lenses already has an effect. We were only rarely able to detect moiré in natural subjects.

The larger sensor has consequences for the choice of lens: If you still have S-16 lenses from an old pocket, they are unfortunately no longer as suitable despite having the same mount. They vignette massively at 4K and can only be used for 2K or HDTV via windowing or with crop. MFT lenses, which are now available in an enormous selection with both autofocus and purely manual focus, do not cause any problems with the image field. With a crop factor of 1.9 instead of 2 (in relation to KB photos), they even have a slightly wider angle of view on the Pocket 4K. With appropriate lenses, autofocus is possible on an area tapped on the screen, but this is relatively slow and cannot be continuously tracked as with modern cameras.
The Panasonic 12-35mm/f2.8 or the Olympus 12-100mm/f4 can be used as universal lenses. Both are excellent lenses and have image stabilisation – with Olympus, the latter in the lens is rather the exception. For a film camera, the lack of internal image stabilisation is less important, as you usually use aids such as a gimbal or tripod and the stabilisation can then even interfere. With appropriate lenses, you can activate their stabilisation in the camera for hand-held shots, but this cannot replace a gimbal. All classic manual lenses can be adapted using an adapter if you love their look. However, you can hardly save any money with them now that the Sonys with E-mount are available and there is a corresponding run on good lenses. The lower speed of the zooms is generally unproblematic on the Pocket 4K, as the new sensor is significantly more light-sensitive than all previous BMD sensors.

For the first time with BMD, the sensor has two native ISO values, namely 400 and 3,200 ISO. Our tests showed that it is less noisy at 1,250 ISO than at 640 or 800, which are obviously only generated by amplification. Yes, the noise even seemed a touch lower than at 400, even if this is somewhat at the expense of the latitude in the highlights. Even at 1,600 ISO, the image is still quite usable, while 3,200 requires some noise filtering. The limit value of 25,600, on the other hand, is exactly that: borderline. The dynamic range is around 13 f-stops and therefore slightly below that of the Ursa Mini Pro, but this is still a very decent result, as our test subject shows. This dual ISO is explained excellently at FilmmakerIQ bit.ly/hess_dual_iso. The rolling shutter is acceptable, it is more on a par with other cinema cameras and is not as massive as with film cameras. The structure of the noise is different to that of BMD, it appears very homogeneous and the infamous fixed pattern noise is barely discernible. It is noticeable that in the waveform display of Resolve a clipping below the black level is recognisable in the noise, which we have not seen in this form with other cameras. After light noise filtering, a normal noise carpet can be recognised again. Not only is the light sensitivity impressive for a still quite small sensor in 4K, the colours are also fully convincing. BMD once again shows that it understands colour science: it shouldn’t be too difficult to match correctly exposed skin tones with an Arri, even if the Pocket can’t really keep up in the colours of the limits of its dynamic range.

Recording media

Only the Ursa Mini is similarly flexible when it comes to storage media: in addition to CFast and fast SD cards, you can also connect an external SSD via the USB-C port (note: not identical to Thunderbolt 3) and record directly to it. However, there still seem to be minor firmware problems, because at least with the popular Samsung T5, you should first start the camera (approx. 5 seconds) and only then connect the SSD. Sometimes a card should also be inserted in the SD slot first so that the SSD is recognised (both use the same bus). However, BMD is aware of the problem and a solution should be in the works. Sandisk should urgently solve another problem: Some of the current batches of proven SD cards no longer work in BMD’s cameras, not alone in the Pocket 4K. Be careful with repeat purchases!

USB-C use is even more elegant and less expensive than the separately purchased SSD recorder for the larger camera or tinkering, as presented in DP 03:18. This means that everything is available, from fast but more expensive media to inexpensive and widely used media to media with long runtimes. A place for the lightweight SSD with some Velcro can usually still be found; unfortunately, USB-C is not secured against slipping out. On sufficiently fast media, the Pocket can manage 4K DCI or UHD with 60 frames, and with HDTV in the crop window it goes up to 120 fps. Unfortunately, no intermediate format of 3K (as with RED) is offered, so that a Bayer sensor would also deliver the full HDTV resolution. Currently, recording is only possible in DNG or ProRes 422, but BMD has also announced BRaw (see DP 01:19) for this camera. As the camera does not allow parallel recording on multiple media, not all formats can be recorded uncompressed at higher frame rates.

Power supply

Even though the Pocket 4K achieves slightly longer runtimes with the larger batteries than its predecessor, the power requirement for small batteries typically used in DSLRs is critical. The battery supplied by BMD achieves 49 minutes of continuous recording on an internal card, the remaining runtime indicator decreases continuously, it displays a warning shortly before switching off and switches off properly. In contrast, a new battery from Patona, which was also used for testing, lasted 33 minutes and switched off at 80% without warning. We have not had any bad experiences with these third-party batteries on other devices, but it is simply the case that the Pocket draws more power than a standard DSLR.

Unlimited reliability only seems to exist with the rather expensive original batteries from Canon and those from BMD. However, BMD is currently experiencing supply bottlenecks not only with the cameras, but also with these batteries. Especially when using SSDs, which also draw their power from the camera via USB-C, it is strongly recommended to avoid using third-party batteries. One possible weak point appears to be the battery cover – its lock does not look very trustworthy, but the battery itself is secured against falling out by an additional lever. On the other hand, the cover is also easy to remove if you want to connect a more powerful battery (such as the Sony L series) externally using a dummy – the accessories industry has reacted quickly.
The Pocket also has a socket for an external 12 volt supply. Strictly speaking, it can be 12-20 volts, so that standard video batteries with D-Tap can be used without fear, although they can have up to 16.8 volts when freshly charged (nominal 14.4). The appropriate cable must be purchased separately. A power supply unit for this connection is included in the scope of delivery and also charges the internal battery; however, a separate charger is not included. When the camera is switched off, the battery can even be charged via USB. As long as a charged battery is in the camera, the power supply remains very reliable. If you have to change the external battery or someone unplugs the mains cable, recording continues without interruption.

Sound and timecode

The four internal microphones sound very good and have an amazing feature when using a zoom lens with an electronic connection: The sound is zoomed in! In the wide-angle position, the sound is more open and spacious; in the zoom position, it sounds closer and more intimate. Noise from the inputs is barely audible, but the fan becomes discreetly audible in a quiet environment. The mono XLR input offers switchable 48 volt phantom power – which places additional demands on the battery and costs around 10 minutes of battery life. The built-in loudspeaker is only used to determine the presence of sound. The output for headphones is usable this time, it has neither too much noise nor too much latency, as has been the case with some other BMD models.

Unfortunately, this is the end of the plus points: the 3.5 mm stereo input is far too insensitive and can only be used in front of the stage at a heavy metal concert without an external preamplifier, even with powerful microphones. However, a radio link with line output is sufficient. Whether this is a software error or a fundamental weakness could not yet be determined during our test. In addition, the inputs cannot be switched separately to line or micro level, they can only be switched together. This restriction is not obvious in the menu and can be confusing.

On the other hand, the use of external timecode generators is a good solution: you only have to briefly feed an LTC timecode into one of the inputs without assigning it to a track during recording. As soon as it is recognised, a jam sync is performed, indicated by a small symbol next to the TC in the monitor. The synchronisation is then stable for several hours as long as the power supply is maintained. Consequently, it is wisest to work with separate sound recording if you do not want to tether the camera to an external mixer. The Zoom Recorder F4, among others, demonstrates very good TC stability. The internal microphones can at least provide a good ambience or a guide sound if you want to create the sound with Pluraleyes or similar programmes.

Which gimbal?

The choice should not be a problem with such a light camera, but the wide housing causes problems. On most gimbals, the handle comes up against the tilt motor if you can’t move the pocket far enough with an additional plate and still balance it. The Ronin S from DJI is currently available at a favourable price, which can be used with an additional plate. An alternative is the Moza Air 2, which can be used together with the Half Rig from Smallrig. Neither of these have been tested by us due to a lack of availability, but the reports from experienced forum colleagues are positive.

Comment

The Pocket 4K should be used for exactly what it is: a compact, very light and unbeatably cheap camera for the image quality. If you consider the value of the licence for DaVinci Resolve Studio, it costs just 1,000 euros. It can be used just as well in a YouTube home studio as a B-camera or crash cam alongside an Arri, and is also excellent as backpack equipment for landscape and wildlife photography. However, with its lack of ND filters, no viewfinder, weak sound section and critical power supply, it will not replace an Ursa Mini Pro, which also offers more resolution and dynamic range. Otherwise, you would have to put together a monster rig that is neither more user-friendly nor much cheaper.