The field of 3D graphics engines is largely thought to be the domain of huge game studios and seasoned industry geniuses.

But there is a huge under ground movement by hobbyist that most people don’t know about. These hobbyist are creating 3D Renderers and some times even full game engines from scratch in their spare time. Some of which rival even the cutting edge industry Game Engines. The distinction between Game Engine and Renderer is often over looked, and most of what you find these hobbyist doing are Renderers. The difference is a vast amount of code. Thus, full on game engines are few and often die early. So the hobbyist game engine scene has only a hand full of mature engines.

One new comer on the scene how ever is showing that it is here to stay with it’s drastically re-written new release. The team behind Black Engine is pushing hard and fast to have a fully functional 3D game engine in the next few months. The new release features a drastic change in ideology and makes the leap from simple real time rendered to flexible framework for a game engine. Out of the roughly 11,000 lines of code in the new release less then 1,000 were ported from the last release, the rest is completely rewritten. The engine is now cross-platform for Windows and Unix/Linux systems and features a robust code base for development of game material on top of it. Any game enthusiasts, programmers, or people just interested in what a few dedicated individuals can do with no formal support should check out this new release.