3D Commercial vs. Professional edition..which one?

Hello,

I am new to video game development. I am very interested in 3D Game Studio. I am hoping someone can explain the important differences between the "Professional" and "Commercial" editions.

I am most interested in what the differences in these two features means:

Trial Mode Function:
Commerical=no, Professional=yes

Plugin/Engine SDK:
Commerical=open source, Professional=full license


I am also interested in what the difference in these features are:

Terrain:
Commercial=chunked, Professional=chunked+LOD

Level Editor:
Commerical=yes, Professional=distributable

Scene Manager:
Commercial=ABT, Professional=ABT+BSP

Levels of Detail:
Commerical= manual, Professional=automatic

Bones Animation:
Commerical=yes, Professsional=+weights

Logo Display:
Commerical=startup, Professional=customizable

Trial Mode Function:
Commerical=no, Professional=yes

Plugin/Engine SDK:
Commerical=open source, Professional=full license

Thank you for any insights.

Hello ^^

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Trial Mode Function:
Commerical=no, Professional=yes

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I am guessing that this means you can make a trial version of your game, or so called 'time bombed' or something similar

As the SDK, I am not sure...

Quote:

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Commercial=chunked, Professional=chunked+LOD

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I am not 100% sure how chunking works, but I believe that it divides the terrain up into sections of a certain size during runtime, making huge terrains possible. Terrain LOD, I am assuming would allow you to have several terrain LOD (level of detail) levels.

Quote:

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Commerical=yes, Professional=distributable

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I think this means you can distribute a premade level editor with your game

Quote:

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Commercial=ABT, Professional=ABT+BSP

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These are the way that scenes are managed. I am no expert on this, so maybe someone else could give some insight into the pros and cons of each? ^^

Quote:

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Commerical= manual, Professional=automatic

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This means that if you want different LOD steps. In commercial, you must manually model each LOD step. In pro version, I guess it is procedurally done

Quote:

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Commerical=yes, Professsional=+weights

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Bones are a tool used for rigging a character and 'arbitrarily' animating it in realtime. Vertex weights I think is simply a tool that allows several bones to share the same vertex, and each bone affectts it by a different amount, making smooth and advanced animations possible.

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Commerical=startup, Professional=customizable

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This may mean the startup screen of the engine itself. With pro it is fully customizable..

Hope it helps a little

Thanks,
Adoado