Hello,
I am interested in buying the A7 pro for commercial purposes, but was wondering how good the engine really is compared to others like Unity,3Drad,Shiva,torque .. etc (I like the C-lite scripting language and the engine looks very capable...) Any thoughts ?!

Good question. Are you more a programmer or an artist? A7 provides a great engine and language with features which allow you to be creative as a programmer, whereas someone less keen as a programmer will prefer something like Unity or Torque, which provides more modern built-in graphical features with much less effort and an easier content-creation pipeline.

If you can get into shader programming (which is my favourite part of programming, and is quite easy to learn with the workshop) you'll quickly learn that A7 gives you a good interface to innovate and do whatever you want, whether it has been done before or not. This in particular is why I prefer A7 over anything else.

I hope this is helpful

Jibb

A7 has a very simple scripting system that enables you to write complex 2D and 3D applications very quickly. I am only 15 years old and have found A7 to be rather simple to work with, despite the fact that I am working with complicated systems (3d graphics, vector math, networks). Don't let those words scare you, it is much easier to work with than a *normal* development system like the Microsoft Visual products.

Essentially, A7 is a rapid prototyping engine that lets you get good results fast, like Delphi.

Now, the including tools (WED, MED, SED) aren't perfect and some say they leave something to be desired, but you can download the trial version to try them if you're not sure. If you don't like the included tools, A7 lets you use external tools (Blender, 3DS Max, Maya, 3D World Creator, etc.) to create your game/application assets, and you can use your favorite text editor to create code.

If you don't have the time to download and experiment with a trial version, you can view some shots from the Gallery at the 3D Gamestudio homepage.

That really is an understatement. The tools simply suck. I agree though that the engine itself is quite nice and capable.

SED's pretty solid though, and something we take for granted. UDK (that is, Unreal Engine 3 and its Development Kit) doesn't even have a script-editor, let alone one with an integrated compiler.

Jibb

I have to disagree here, I actually like some of the tools, specifically SED and WED. WED is a lot like World Craft, which I'm very used to. It has all the functions you need to build great looking levels, even if it doesn't come with a lot of cool extras. Some people may not like the WAD texture system, but I've never really cared about it myself.

I'm not really an artist, but concerning MED I've heard its not as good as Blender, Maya, etc. For one the skinning system is awkward :\ While I can understand a *real* artist not being satisfied with MED, it has fulfilled my needs so far.

SED has been a little buggy for me at times, but I really appreciate the simplicity of it and the mini-documentation bar at the bottom of the interface can be extremely helpful.

Tools dont suck. They are around avarage.

besides, you can choose to not to use the wad system, you can add folders to texture manager.

And yes, the command help thing a great feature of SED. SED is good.

Yes, SED is good enough as a simple script editor.

WED and MED are horrible usability nightmares though. If you are into retro-style Quake editing (which was state of the art 14 years ago) they may be ok for you but not if you have ever used something more modern.

At this point, I have to agree, WED and MED are horrible.
Well, I give SED 8.5/10, and I give MED and SED 3/10

What do you guys hate about WED and MED? They seem like perfectly fine tools to me (well, ok, not MED: artists, you should use something else here)