i am talking about realtime shadows for entire games. not advanced predfined blendmaps.
ever tried to apply those shader on entire projects and not only test models and small scenes. this is a whole different story.


and pricing aint a big argument since there are cheaper engines available as well.
the point is not if 800 or 1000bucks are a lot. the point is: do i get enough for my money. are the tools worth 800bucks?
sure, if you have the time to write every single tiny shitcodepiece your own and money aint the issue, then you can also get any crap engine you want.
if on the other hand you are mortal and time has some value for you i would have to make decisions.

if i pay a modeler by hours and provide him with crap tools, then i cant complain about the high price.

i am not talking about hobby gamemaking or some testing most people do with gs. i am talking about releasing games that are worth to be bought.
and as a matter of fact the list of released gs games aint that good compared to the other engines. so the price cant be that much of a reason.
there is still no meassureable improvement within gs compared to all the other engines. and this also has nothing to do with one click button trashtalk argument.
this is called workflow and if every single change you wanna make takes endless setups, preparations and lots of time it simply harms the workflow.

you can create everything with gs. but you can create everything with every engine on this planet as well. so this is not what we are talking about.

the question is: is gs worht the money?

and i say no. and with every updateless month even less.
compare it to other engines to see what you get there and decide if its worth it.
i am not a big torque fan to be honest for a lot of reasons.
but i am losing more and more reasons to like gs.

i liked this engine 2 years ago quite a bit. but its the same engine like 2 years ago! and thats just sad.

no wonder the community is dead. at least compared to what it was just a few years back. being ofline for just one week back then ment thousands of new posts, projects, ideas, contributions and so on.
now its less then hundred.

this are things that shouldnt be ignored.

cheos

I was talking about realtime shadows two, and I was using those shaders on entire projects.

as far as $800 Im not sure how many smart people buy the pro version when the comm. version is almost just as good and can compete with engines like torque3d and Unity3d (engine wise, editors are better 3rd party in my opinion anyways)

@JustOneOldMan:



Wrong. They changed the license. So now you can make and distribute also other types of realtime applications.

But you are not allowed to distribute their editors ( without to pay a extra fee ). Alternatively you can write and distribute your own editors. This is allowed.

Actually Gamestudio's collision detection is a bit weak too. Like the physics engine it uses ODE/OPCODE, it is limited to ellipsoids (support for other convex shapes would be nice) and it is very hard to achieve a character controller which doesn't suffer from gliding jerks and getting stuck problems. In most other engines I know a good character controller is much easier to achieve. There also is bad design like c_trace() using the mesh of the first animation frame for collision detection which can lead to a lot of problems.

Yeah, the community doesn't seem to be that active anymore. And not only that, jcl also doesn't seem to find new employees to fill the positions of the people who left. Or did he? Having George and the son of the WED author working on some stuff part time doesn't seem to be a real replacement.

Doesn't look too good to me. Which is a pity because I really like(d) Gamestudio.

PS: I still would pick Gamestudio over Torque without thinking twice. GarageGames' business practices are despicable. Their products never have lived up to their big mouthed marketing so far.

The real Gamestudio alternative for people who want an engine with easy scripting is Unity.

@Losticmate : don't be too fan boy for 3DGS

Try Unity, see how easy you put shaders, physics, try the World editor, put and pait/deform a terrain, look at object properties.
And how great is the interface : you drop a physic feature and you see the panel physics on teh object properties.
You can attach a camera to an object visually etc ...


And for game making : casual games or others , go to their site, to see that they're very good ones.Even more Iphone version of Unity sells lot fo games and artists using it , said , they've never could do it without Unity
I can prototype some capsule FPS with physics, smooth camera
in some minutes.


Try it (follow some simple tutorials)
Im' not fan boy for Unity 3D ; i like A7 and Blitz3D and some.

And Unity it's not also the best 3D engine, but it totally different in terms of Workflow and it shows A8 would need a
lot of rework and totally new Wordl Editor (All in One).

I target Casual/arcade games and i don't want to waste lot of time in code other than necessary game logic.
I don't need all latest shaders or shadows, but some basic like water, normal map, toon, specular, reflective ...
And i want an all in one editor, powerfull and advanced that make me gain lot of time.
Unity Indie brings me that

My impression about A7 where tools like GED are made by users, it's like a software in maintainance to survive some time before disappearing.
I hope not,but it needs a totally rewrites of WED : a new editor all in one with modern interface , smoother , faster and All in one in the world edior (enought of MED or GED).

Go Conitec, break the editor, supress BSP,MED,GED , and bring a new shining Wordl Editor with new interface

Just my personnal thaughts.

"And Unity it's not also the best 3D engine, but it totally different in terms of Workflow..."

And that´s nice.
Imagine every engine relies on the same basics - this would be pure horror to me.
Mostly I do it the other way around: Prototyping in Unity, production in A7.
Why?
Because I have access to some low level functions, that are as much as important as "AAA+" grafics and workflow.

As example: When you want to make a simple breakout clone in Unity, the community advise you
to use physics.
Wtf? This leads to a lot of overhead in the final product, just for a bouncing ball...
Not very staightforward if you ask me.

Same goes for some rather basic challenges. Insteat of giving the direct access, a lot of engines are using nested objects.
They take a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Some time ago, a lot of users were crying about the fact that you can use realtime reflections only in A6 Pro. Now they are a commercial feature. And nothing has changed.

In fact I like Jcl´s approach not to jump on every bandwagon.

Bsp is another example. For one of my current projects, I can´t think of a better scene management.

It´s like saying: No one needs a PC, just because there are some Mac users.

I don´t want to defend any engine - just consider different requirements.
A lot of developers don´t use engines like T3D, GS or Unity - insteat of that they are writing
their own. And guess what: Often this is the best solution for them.

My conclusion:
!Each Master to his own technique!

i agree
i think i've lost about 2weeks on the camera / movement coding, and actually i've nothing on my hand. (i mean i'm still learning )
but it's also true that i wanna know what the code doing when i press a key :P
so i prefear to code it by my self.

i've purchased bitzmax too
i like it 'cause it's easy to code, but the engine is.. frustrating, so i think for the eye and programming satisfaction, A7 is the right choise.

i didn't know Unity 3D...

Torque is a pile of crap...

www.abyssalengine.com
this is a real solid engine... and so is Unity.. but most people are too stupid to know how to use professional engines.

Oh I'm not, as said before, if i had the money I'd get unity3d pro instantly. Granted I'd still use a7 for some projects, my thing is everyone acts like a7 is a horrible engine when in reality they just don't know how to push it to it's limits correctly, and are looking for a "click here to add shadows" button. seeing as how you can do everything with com that you can do with unity pro or torque 3d, at `1/8th of the price it is a pretty damn nice deal.

Use the engine that can do what you want to do with it for the budget you have.

@Arkonsail :
The engine looks pretty basic and the price are really hight :
450$ for the first price
I target causual/arcade market, i'm not sure to sell and win money, so 450 $ is too high.

If i had no choice , i would start learning programming and using Ogre3D !

@fogMan :
!Each Master to his own technique! Indeed

But users paying each update of an engine , want to pay real
improvments over the time also !

A7 is a good engine, not the top workflow, not the best physics, or collision system (we would need precise collision ray detction on animated characters not approximative),
some problems, but A7 still can produce good things when users put hard work in it.

Hope a lot A8 to make really new and shine