I've wondered this for a while now, and I'm curious why it hasn't been addressed. First off I'd like to say that I don't intend to flame jcl or any of conitec and start a thread saying "the engine is crap" or something like that, so please don't post that kind of stuff here. I do however wish to start a debate with conitec about a real game demo. Well, I guess I should get to the point.

My question is, why not make a true Game Demo with 3DGS using engine provided functions without plugins or anything, just using engine specific commands? I would like to see Conitec do something like this to test their functions and show off to future customers what the engine is really capable of. I don't think that a demo in a small room or closed in area shows much in the engine's capability. I have thought about this for some time and I want to know why a true GS demo hasn't been made. I'd like to see one that shows off the limits of what 3DGS can do so that we can get a true answer for what GS is really capable of. If there are some faulty script or rendering technology, and if there is not. From my experience with 3DGS (our previous game and now our current one, the previous took 2 years to complete, overall I've been working with 3DGS for about 3+ years) I've experienced slowdowns with simple engine functions and having a number of entities that the engine seems to not be capable of rendering at a good framerate, which seems to be GS specific.

I would like to know if the reason I've ran into such problems is because my coding or game-making skills are inefficient or if it really is a problem with the engine. As I mentioned before I don't want this to be completely one-sided and a discussion of "how bad the engine is", I just want proof of whether I'm a bad game-maker or if there are some problems with 3DGS.

To get down to it I really would like to see a full game demo, something like the neoaxis engine demo which would really show off 3DGS' skill. Something that really utilizes nice graphics, networking, ai, panels, on-screen entities, shaders, sounds, media objects, and all areas of 3DGS' basis and said capability, no plugins involved. Would this at all be possible? I think it would help make the creators (and users) feel better about if they have valid arguments on their part, and if there are issues with the engine, it would give conitec a good bug list and help them in their bug fixing area. I won't bring personal opinions into this topic yet, but I would like some straight answers from both sides, both opinions, and to see if others agree with me. Is a real game demo too much to ask?

(I won't be able to post everyday because of home networking issues, but I do plan on watching this thread)

In fact , it asks lot of time and patience if you want to make something good.
But i agree, some others engine i think have paid some guys/team to make for them some reasonnable quality models/levels/textures for their demo.

The best would be to find the more people we could find in the community that have some good experience and to give to each just one task.

For example :
Scripters 1 : camera
scripter 2 : some particle effects
scripter 3 : fading in/out visibility of 3D models depending on distance of view.
asset modeler 1 : a house
asset modeler 2 : another house
character modeler 1 : 1 NPC character , next gen with talk and iddle animation
vegetation modler/texturer : some 3 trees
vegetation modler/texturer 2 : some 3 plants
etc ..
etc ..

This way i think we could create all necessary 3D models , and have all scripts , shaders to make a good demo.

You should post a vote to the community , to see how many people is interested ? (to see if it is really necessary or not)

I sort of agree, but I've noticed that projects like this fail most of the time, I recall one a couple of years back that got nowhere. I think the only way we could get a real community project would be for Conitec to pay people to do something, and I wouldn't push for that, I could understand if they did not want to pay for a free demo. I would not.

I do think, however, that we should start something similar. Generally George does most of the stuff for them, but I don't think he'd want to undertake a full scale game demo. It would probably be easier for Conitec to do the demo. I would like to see something made from conitec that utilizes the full potential of 3DGS, the only thing even remotely similar was the A5 tech demo, but it didn't provide game coding, it was (like it's name implies) a tech demo.

I would like to hear from jcl or someone from conitec on this matter though, I'm hoping to get somewhere with this.

I cannot speak for Conitec because I am no member of them. Generally, though, it seems that the manpower Conitec has, is used solely on Gamestudio. If you would make one or more of them work on a high quality demo, this would decrease the development of Gamestudio.

So, Conitecs policy in the past was: if you make a demo which has a certain degree of quality, Conitec bought it and presented it to the public (or they specifically hired people to do that).

Community projects are very rare and more rarely successful. I dont think that this is a business model for such a production. If there is a group of skilled people: do a very nice demo, talk with Conitec for the financial part and do it. You need skilled people for a skilled demo. Period. The same with games and all that stuff, btw.

Such demos are also very visual-driven (at least nowadays), so you need a clear image what you want to do from a designer perspective, so you first need people who are skilled enough to develop a train-of-thought for the visuals of such a demo. This could be done by sketches (good ones!), a storyboard, a document, etc. So, if this fails, you should'nt proceed. The Venice and the WW2 demos are not really that what you can call a good demo, but they are nice to look at for the first 20 seconds until you see that they are "dead" and not taking much advantages from the engine.

In fact some of us could produce such litlle demos ,
small piece of environment, 1 or 2 animated models or only a level , that would include shaders(specualr, normal map , glow etc ...)
some particle effects , or full screen ones,
and why not some vey nice panels to add some little interactivity ?

Well , i think it's not priority at that moment

The question is: what is needed most? Everything has its advantages and downsides. If you want to give beginners and other people a clue how to use special features, you can make mini demos with an example how a feature is used. E.g. a demo for the new decals with lots of different approaches how to use them.

Otherwise, I think this is wasted time and doesn't show the real power of the engine. If someone makes a kick-ass interactive or non-interactive demo that blows you away (visuals, sounds, design, physics, etc.) you have something that is nice, but rather complicated to make and to pay for, too.

That is true from one standpoint, however, this would be an awesome bug fixing area, which Conitec really needs. So far there are only people providing some fixes for some bugs, but if Conitec experienced most of them firsthand, they could fix them as soon as they ran across them. Really, it would throw production ahead, plus it would help show some of the things that alot of users complain about, and prove them to be real or not.

*Warning, personal opinion ahead*
I think it's a great idea to add new features to the engine, but I think what is already there should be tweaked before adding more stuff. There are certain features that are inefficient and turned out being released with big bugs. For instance, A6.60 still has quite a few problems in MED, WED, and some code issues.

conitec cvan't find the bugs, when they program and tets it's ok for them.
We are the best way to debug with betas versions

And i think conitec guys have more important features to do than wasting months in a demo.

One thing that could be done i think , would be not a playable demo, but a running demo showing featues of the 3D engine.
A demo that would play in chain different little scenes and effects.
that way every guy of the community could bring some little scene to add to the demo.
For example a house in a terrain with water shader and normal mapping on the house (the camera would travel to show all that closely).

Well , i don't think the demo is really necessary !

I don't agree.

We can't do game demos ourselves. It's not only a question of manpower. I'm just not good with level design and if you had to look at my textures and models, you'd run away.

We're ordering demos from external teams, such as the carlevel or the venice and warehouse demos. However an overall demo that display every feature of the engine would greatly exceed our financial budget.