S2 Engine HD

The new version of S2 engine is available. 200€ (until 1 March 2011)
http://www.profenix.com/eng/index.html

Anyone used it? It all looks great but there's no trial.

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdVti2U6fdg[/video]

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dQ5tmx_H04[/video]

Looks very impressive and dynamic))
AI looks very dummy, but just for a beta version looks great!

The homepage is soo much better than what 3dgs has....

For me not only the home page, but result on the video are better then what A8 can do now, even if the result on video made on beta unrealized yet version! Watch the second video, it looks great.

The trick of that video is HDR (high dynamic range rendering), which is nearly finished for gamestudio (look at forecast)

You are right, but not only the HDR. There are some guys which had HDR even in A7.
The trick for me there, is that everything is well trumpeted. Thats what GS doesn't have. But GS has LITE-C, which is the only great plus here for me.

if i remember correctly Sorcerer (aka XNASorcerer) used the engine, and knows the developers... he is the one that could give real info

But this engine will be realized only in February, how could Sorcerer (aka XNASorcerer) use it?

This is S2. Before that there where also S1.

He most probably means that.

Even on the old day i found this engine pretty good.

But sorry, have you seen the price ???
Same price as Unity PRO it seems.

And the basic version don't seem to have proramming and seem really limited.
If i had to choose i would take Unity that have Mobile support
, wbeplayer support, consoles etc ...
And that is a solid engine now !

---------------

Like anyways, before saying : Whoooaaaa, great etc ....
Let them make some demo of the engine or a game made with it, like the last demo of Unity for example ; first of all

It's like Unity demo only some Next Gen effects and lightening only realistic textures.

-They could have done C# support like Unity, but they have their own script (it is realiable of does it have bugs ??)

- Can you import animated models form Blender or FBX without problems ???

- Is the editor complete with terrain and vegetation painting like in Unity ??

- Does it runbs smooth on some medium PC or does it asks too much power ??

- About shaodows, does it have fastest shadows ?

- How are shaders easy to apply ? Does it have enought standard shaders ?

- For documentation are you sure to find enought for all stuff
like FPS, 3 Rd person, vehicle (how to import models, program them) , etc ....

Well lot of things to check before saying : It's great !
And like i said for same Price i would take Unity that is 20 or more people behind and a real company instead of an engine made by a lonewolf.

Let's wait one year to see what will happen on forums ?
How many people using it ? how many projects will go far ? what problems will face people using it ?

Well for nowthe forum is totally empty !

I'll try a demo fo the engine if there is one someday perhaps !

Hi guys,

I'm from Profenix Studio.
In these days we are discussing about the offers we have put on the site. We are checking the feedback from various community on the web before fixing definitelly the prices and the linceses. From now it is clear that the prices (exspecially the PRO version) are too high. We will publish the definitive licenses and prices when releasing the engine officially.

It looks very interesting, though without a demo, there's no way to know if it would suit me (or others). Hopefully this will change someday, as many engines have trial versions.

Yes, of course. There will be a trial version. The fact there isn't still a trial depends on the fact that we haven't officcially released the engine yet.

Great, looking forward to trying it out

What I really dislike is the fact that the 200€ basic thing has no C++ support. Seriously? Thats really nothing good at all, the price of the pro version isn't that high compared to the fact that you get the full source code and can hack around in the engine kernel to fit the engine more and better to your game (thats something Unity and GameStudio are missing).
Anyway, while you are discussing the final prices, please consider making the C++ interface public to all versions, this will surely generate you much more users!

And not only this, the version with C++ interface isn't available on the engine launch. Not a good decision imo.

This demo looks pretty, probably the best of all indie engines. The visuals are great, nice shaders, post processing and even translucency effects on some materials.

I like the presentation a lot.

The Wiki looks a bit empty though as the only source of documentation.
And this is an important point.

Technology for developers gets a lot of attention by presentation, but it gets sold only by an easy access to it. There are simply too many free options available. So there must be a possibility to get into it fast, easily and .. it might sound strange ... but I think it must happen with some affection, some fun, some love. Developers want to fall in love with their tools.

But the easiest way to achieve this is to guide them fast into it with tutorials, videos, manual and good tools. It would also help to have some very easy beginner code samples and an easy way to play with it.

You shouldn't sell basic Tutorials imo:

http://eshop.gamedevres.com/store/

Funny, you sell a "Free Lowpoly Hammer" for $36.55? ^^

Apart from "to be free or not free", isn't it called "Hummer"?
http://www.automobile-riekmann.at/verkauf/hummer_m-998_1986_gruen.htm

Well, I still don't have it on my hands, but after talking to the S2 developer, I can say a few things about it:

Next videos will be about Workflow! And they say that it is very similar to Cryengine.

The script language is proprietary, but it is very similyar to c-script.
Those videos were running on a machine with these specs:
Athlon64 with Geforce GTS 250 at 1280X720 resolution at 25-30 fps.

The terrain system was improved. We can now paint mountains
valleys, trees, grass, rocks, materias, etc, in rea time. It also has a batching/instacing system that allows to have thousand of trees and plants on screen and mantain fps.

There is a road system that allows us to change road curves, width, textures, etc, in real time.

It has a very good GUI system implemented.

The engine will have templates for several types of game. The first one that is ready( or almost ready ) is a FPS template, the next one will be a racing game template. So, this engine is not only for FPS games.

It has an AI system and also, Path finding is automatic for terrains. And we can also define forbidden and waypoint areas.

It has frustrum culling, Hardware occlusion.

For physics, it has implemented physX with: rigid bodies, joints, vehicles, buoyancy, ragdolls, sweep tests. In the next future it will have soft bodies, particle systems and cloths. And he is thinking about APEX also.
For those that don't know what APEX is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JtAdTon0JA&feature=related , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF7Iq9pzKRk&feature=player_embedded


When the engine comes out, it will be a trial version.

Like it have been said , the doumentation, easy access to make
your own game wil be really important.
Not only the price, C++ access are importants.

I don't know, but C4 engine have lot of special shaders also ready to use and some Voxel terrain system that you don't find on other engines, even some AAA engines.

What i find incredible is to pay for tutorials ???
I hope this is user selled tutorials ?
It reminds me actual games selling , where you pay the game
, but you must pay more for Characters addon, story addon etc .... !
I hope this engine not taking this commercial way.


Things like 3rd camera script should be free ??????
Even more why paying if some user will make that tutorial
for free ?????

The engine looks a lot like Gamecore :
Money seems to be the first priority , make money first.
For users request and problems, we will see later like Gamecore !
with only written promises and words !!!

Well only future will tell !
But i prefer to wait lot of months to see how things and community for this engines will turn ??


Well let's wait for some real demo to test it and the tools.

To answer quetsions like : does it have LOD ? does it have things or tools to help manage or make LOD ?
etc ...

And let's wait to see if commercial version is better than Unity Free edition , that allow lot of things and C# accees to the engine !

I am new to game programing and is about to take 3dgs very seriously only because of it is made easy newbie friendly language so iam ready to sucrifice better engines. So my question is...
As the pictures in s2engine website i don't know whatever tricks they used like hdrr or etc is it possible to get same quality with 3dgs using all tools, shaders and effects 3dgs provids?
Please answer thank you

@romin2011:
http://www.opserver.de/ubb7/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=352817#Post352817

Well, S2 HD developer just add two videos showing how to edit a terrain, add trees, grass, rocks, roads, etc.

Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkxH5rqEtjc

Well the road editor seems as good as the one of Torque 3D !
The editor for vegetation is as good as in Unity.
The trees seems to ahev a shadow : it is a fast shadow system
(texture projection) or slow (realtime computed shadows) ?

Well let's wait a demo to really see if the engine is not too slow !

Another video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcYz8OrwfaQ&feature=feedu

Well not bad.

Unity have also a user made system allowing put textures directy on terrain (texture projection).
Very usefull to have very fast simulated shadows !

The object tool allowing a group of objects to adapt to terrain
is a simple variation of grass editor.
you can also do already that in Unity just by changing the meshes : Use stones instead of grass on a new brush object for terrain

I see nothing that would make me buy it , nothing really new !
But a good alternative for people that would not want Unity or Torque 3D or simply for A8 users that don't have such world editor !


Why don't they put a real demo to see how such scene would run on standard PC ???

Yes, you can do that in Unity, but dont forget: The Unity terrain is oldschool, no advanced shaders, trees and terrain dont use bump mapping. And if you paint a few variations dense enough you will get into performance trouble easily.

Your example to paint stones just like grass works indeed, but you cannot layer it on top of each other.

So when S2 handles this with better performance, it could be a winner. But I would like to see it in action to judge this.

It would begreat if wed were as easy as this looks like!sorry for my english
xxxxxxx

Well i know someone was working for some Normal map for terrain shader for Unity ! If it don't exist i think it will come naturally soon !

But well we must be realistic, normal map is not very necessary for terrain perhaps.
Some even AAA games uses simple terrain multitexture without normal maps, normal maps ares used for characters and some assets.

Well it depends in fact , for example the great Follout 3 uses
normal map on top on terrain multitexture shader.
I don't know if it is really the case for S2 engine ?

I admit it seems a good engine , after that you have to compare price, features also
(and let's wait or a demo t osee how it is optimised , how it handles geometry ???)

Even more with Unity it's a big team behind so expect great updates with consecutive features !
And it is a proven engine now for Iphone game dev !
Don't forget that points !

Ratchet, please this is not a comparition topic. Man,I love Unity also.
But, this topic is about the engine called S2 HD.
So, if you want to talk about Unity, there is a lot of topics about it.

Instead of talking about the topic, you are repeating what everyone already knows about Unity.

Yes you are right ! thanks for correcting me

The only thing i can say to S2 Egine is : "BRING ON A DEMO"
And we'll talk later

I am waiting for a demo as well.:)

By the way, I was thinking that we were going to start a fight...rsssss Refreshing attitude! Thanks for that!

Interesting engine. Unfortunately i have to pay 2000 Euro for S2 HD Pro, because i need the C++ SDK. That's too much for me.

ich finde es auch nicht gerade sehr gut das man sich nicht mal die tutorials anschauen kann ohne die s2 engine zu kaufen .... sehr merkwürdige verkaufsstrategie ....

Hi,

BASIC and PRO version prices will be updated before releasing. They will be cheaper. PRO will be about 400 euros.
A free trial version is scheduled for the next month, after engine releasing.

I dont see why S2 should not be compared with Unity , 3dgs or any other engine as long as the comparison does not turn into a flame war
It is a simple "relative utility" application

I agree.
But take in mind that Unity has been produced by a big and faster growing company with many engineers and programmers.
S2ENGINE HD is relatively young product produced by a young and small Italian team. In italy is more difficult for a small team to grow as fast as an english, germany, american, french, Danish, ... team.
Only a very big passion of the team and the faith of users could make the difference in this case.

I am Italian,too but end users do not care about such thing
They simply want to purchase the best engine around or at least the one that most suit their needs

About the size of the team, this is an interesting topic
Why is it so important ?
First of all , I am not an artist, maybe I can not appreciate some graphic details but the demo's of all modern engines are, in my opinion, more or less equivalent
The skill of the artist is more important than the engine

The true differences are in term of:

01) FPS
02) Stability
03) Workflow
04) Comprehensive and exhaustive set of commands and tools

Here the size of the team plays an important role
I dont particulary like Unity but it is a matter of fact that it wins hands down as far as the above items are concerned
In my opinion a huge team is a must for the "optimization" of the features rather than the implementation of the features themselves
In other words
It is right to compare engines but you must play with them for some months of so before posting a review
Going through the list of features and watching demos can be deceiving

This is not completely true.

You forgive documentation and support. This is an important topic because it is the main way the team have to show the engine capabilities and how best use it.
Documentation, tutorials, videos, licenses, forum, support, templates, Team size is important for these.

Yes I forgot doumentation, tutorial , forum
These are also key topics in favour of a big team

Yes, I agree with that. When you look at one-man shows like C4, Esenthel or Leadwerks then you can see, that even the smallest team can produce great results.

But when you want to have a complete polished product then it makes sense to have people dedicated to special tasks. It can make sense that one guy works only on the render part (like Carmack does at id-Software). Another one can make tools. And then there should be help by a few people to make tutorials, additional documentation and demos.

So maybe a team of 3-5 people might be an ideal solution. More people could slow down because of too much communication between them.

C4 is a one only man project but it is around since a long time
Same for 3dgs , it is still one of the best engine thanks to its long experience
Leadwerks is another matter
It would be my favourite engine but it is extremely slow
Some people claim that it works well with modern hardware
From my experience it is not true...it is slow...full stop
The question is
Why is Leadwerks so slow vs Unity ?
Well in my company software engineers claim that they spend , lets say 30 % of their time for the project and the 70 % left for optimization and debugging
A small team should focus on simple user friendly ,rock solid and fast game engine rather than trying to compete with the big teams

maybe the reason is that leadwerks is written in blitzmax? i googled some benchmarks and at a first glance it seems to be a bit slower than c#.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK5lhVMrCZk&feature=feedu

Another video. If you jump to 4:40, you will see the game running. And by 10:34, you can see how to change day time to night. Very nice!

<3

what i must do if i want the sun in the north? What i must do when i want to change the sun color? Ohh were is the script its only look like "click click start"!
The lod steps aren't nice you can see "a load line"! if the shadows far/near away they look nice but not from the middle. I see nothing you can't do if you work hart with gamestudio but mabye is S2 HD easier than gamestudio...
xxxxxxx

It just need a REAL demo with ennemies like a real game !

Just to sse how the engine handles more animated models driven by their AI, and to see how do they sooting collision system
works (very old like A8 ; or good like any today shooter polygon precision ) !
Another things does it have ragdoll , and how do you have to implement it ? (visually by editor or by code ?)

Anyway good little engine and nice editor !
Just a real demo to see how it runs and what PC is needed !

First: I see nothing you can't do if you work hart with gamestudio ...

Well, I also don't see nothing that I can not do if I work hard with any engine, even the ones that I created.

About wanting the sun in the north? Well, just rotate your pc/notebook toward north. rsss If you had paid attention to the video, you would see that there is a panel on the right side...

Do you really want the guy to post on a +/- 10 minutes video, all the features that the engine has?


You can also see the features here: http://www.profenix.com/eng/editorHD.html

In the editor you can change a variety of parameters at any time of day: the density of the clouds, the intensity of sunlight, the fog density, the intensity of god rays, the intensity of rain, the flash frequency, the density of water and its color, the water bump and many others

Script? Here:

just rotate your pc/notebook toward north
Well you've made my day at least

More seriously, S2 engine seems to be now available !

But, i find very strange and suspicious that there is no download to try the engine : like perhaps hidding problems
and performance or bugs in the tools !

And i really odn't like tehir activation system, where it scans your PC config to deliver a unique key
It reminds me the game Spore of Electronic Arts that had lot of bad feedback by using such system !!

And for a 3D engine, for commercial use , anyone knows that you can't sell something without a real license !
So why such so restrictive and very very annoying protection ?

Well... i'm still waiting for a demo !

A runtime demo for us to test the performance will be released at the end of April, and a few days after that, a trial version will also be released.

The trial version is out. You have to fill a form requesting it, and after 1, 2 days you 'll receive a link a passwords to download.

The link is: http://www.profenix.com/eng/

I am downloading right now.( 250 MB )

Not sure if anyone has talked about this here or not, but has anyone looked at the license for this engine? Unless you purchase the, as yet unavailable, Full version, then they set restrictions such as how much you can charge for your game or whatever you create with S2! Here's the link:

http://www.profenix.com/eng/licenseHD.html

Oh...Great...I can sell it for 15€...

I find the prices nice for indie market !
And even with Pro are you sure to produce a title that could reach 49 Euros like some big AAA companies ?

Why not givig a free download trial to the engine like A8 ? Strange ? Really ?
Do they thik people owning A8, Torque 3D or Unity will spend time registering ot use the engine or wait for a link to download it ?
Bad strategy , like Gamecore engine ...

What shows an engine is doing good, is the forums !
When the forums are buzzy with lot of people, this only shows
people uses the engine and the engines attracts people.
For now S2 engine forums are empty like hell ??

-------------

What is lacking in this engine is mobile like Iphone or Android support !

Even small engines like Drak Basic Pro are going to deliver support for mobile platforms :

DB Pro for mobile

Blitz Basic for mobile

It's the new direction indeed !

Some of us use a real-time 3D development kit for things other than creating indie games. For example, I may create a one-off real-time 3D application for a client ... something that is not sold in a store or online, but used by a company for a particular purpose. Would S2 restrict my price for this application?

In any case, I live in a free market society. I do not like anyone telling me that I can not sell something above a certain price that I have spent my time and effort on creating. That should be my business, not theirs.

I agree with that point of non gaming product for big societies like internal simulations or advertising games or educational !

--------------------------------

I'm interested in game making not simulations or other things !
I've got A8 and i target little indie games (like some in Steam) so i don't need a lot for now all terrain and FPS stuff !

Some points i don't know :
- it is easy to import animated models from Blender ?
- can we make some other thing than FPS ?
- it is easy to manage collisions ?
- it is easy to script ?
- can it run on lower hardware by avoiding last gen shaders ?

I'll wait for some demos made by users if they appear ?

it's like unity 3D, lot of users put demos of their games, that really count to promote the engine also !

I'll wait for users game made, to really test what can be done !!

I've just received my download link to the trial and is a bit... ehm, weird, it even lacks a windows bar icon

@Painkiller :
You'are an FPS specialits , so don't hesitate to try at making some FPS, test for example to import some animated and static models from your 3DGS FPS to this engine.
And you could tell us how this engine is doing in terms of power and Workflow, scripting ?

Or post some interesting screenshots why not !

bah, I've just uninstalled it. The editor really gives a unfinished feeling, there is no manual, you have to go instead to the online wiki and register on it to find info about how to use the engine. Also the FPS demo runs for me at 17 fps, that's terribly slow! on my PC I can play Metro 2033 with DX11 and full settings at 30 fps. Also I've installed OpenAL drivers but I get no sound from the engine! There is a configuration program to select engine resolution, fullscreen, ... settings but when I start the editor they are just ignored. Probably the most disappointing engine I've ever tested.

Ok it's not a surprise for me !

Why do they want to register people just to try it ?
Caus it's bad actually, you can't make it run at decent speed for all people having standard 3D cards ?

So why advertising it , thay should optimise it, bring documentation, fix serious bugs before selling it !

Smells like Gamecore, some closed thing and closed forums and closed demos, you pay, and that's it



So we can forget this engine for now !

Its been quite a while since i have posted here, just had to say some good things about s2hd. It runs very well on my machine! AMD Phenom X6 and nVidia 570FX card. Never dropped below vsynced 60fps. There is a video tutorial that you do not have to register on the wiki for but as of today they have opened up a few more ares of the wiki to the public. Some of the lighting, water and particle effects are the best i have ever seen in an engine at this price level. Not to say they could not be duplicated in any engine, they are just nice professional included effects. The editor is a bit unfinished, i noticed the mouse pointer sprite has two stray pixels in it lol. Keep in mind that Profenix has been around for many years with the s2 engine which was ahead of its time as far as lighting, shadows, etc.. The lack of a user manual is annoying but the editor is layed out well enough to get a working level put together. Oh, i also had no sound at first, went back into the config app and selected the first default sound option and now sound plays fine now. There has been an update already for the collada importer. Seems like they are working hard. The forums are dead but as i have trolled them for a few months now, questions do get answered quickly. All in all i think it will be a good engine, just needs some time. I will probably purchase a license if it drops to about $150 US just seems a little pricey yet considering the beta state.

It runs very well on my machine! AMD Phenom X6 and nVidia 570FX card

Are you kidding ?
You need today PC to run it ?? Can't it run fast on a Ge Force GTX ?? and more older CPU ?

Even on a old PC i run great Unity 3D demos and some good Unreal 3games or SDK demos !
Seriously, lot of programmers could assemble latest beautifull
rendering shaders, but tthat's lot of power consumming if you can't optimise them and your engine.

The author should finish it enougth far before selling it and making money !
And why a closed demo, it is thta bad ? seriously !


Let's wait end of year to see if forums are less dead , and how many things will be done, and if optimisation (culling techniques, lod, shader optimisation) will be done ?
How many users will be on forums posting projects ?
Will they success programming a game ?
And only FPS ?

The comment of Painkiller that i knwo is a serious guy are enought to know what is the state of this engine for now !

Let's wait for now !
Like the fisrt version of S2 engine, it don't have convinced, i think it will be like LeaderWearks engine, slow and not convincing !

Well man, you give lots of opinion about a software that you even not tried yet. It almost seems like you are angry with them.

And yes, it runs very well on my card, a geforce GTX.

Now, if you want to know anything else, go there, regist yourself, download the trial version, and go look for yourself. seriously !

I don't understand the logic in having a new engine run well on old hardware. Just image if console games also had to run on 10 year old consoles. New PS3 titles also had to run on PS consoles. It just seems counter productive to me.

a PC which can run Metro 2033 or Crysis 2 at max settings is old hardware?

yes - there is newer hardware!

Na, just joking^^

@painkiller, had to go back and read your earlier post. i agree, should run much better. i'm going to run it on some other hardware and see what i get. my laptop is an i5 with 360m and i have a athlon x2 desktop with a hd5770 card. i'll post how those do.

I wonder whether it makes really sense to assume that some engines target new hardware only
Take for example Leadwerks (btw I like it)
It is known as a good engine but for new hardware only
Well I make some tests
If Leadwerks runs at, let say , 60 fps , Unity runs at 300 fps
If Unity runs at 60 fps , leadwerks runs at 3 fps
Every body can see the differnce between 60 and 3 fps but even though nobody can see the difference between 60 and 300 fps it is not right to claim that Leadwerks is good for modern hardware

Leadwerks is much slower than Unity, that's it either for new and old PC's

I tend to agree with Ratchet
Nowadays , thanks to modern API it is not so difficult anymore to implement advanced features
Even a small team can do it

The point is code optimization

Not only code optimization, but also memory management, scene management, culling, streaming, organizing a database of tens of thousands of game entities and fastly accessing to it via optimized data trees and so on.

Actually a renderer is just a renderer. The pure sense of an engine is to do what I wrote and much more.

Because of that I was not perfectly happy with Unity when I compare it to Vision3d or UDK. The optimization and culling was not that impressive. But they are addressing it and already announced a lot of these optimizations in the next few versions. That is the right way to go.

That's the big point

And avoiding a really free demo, is only to hide the problems !!

Even LeadWerks engine propose a really free demo, you click download and that's it !
They allow you to really teste it as it is and make your own opinion !

No Hidding nothing here with some subscription page and
author making too much attention at who they send the demo ! It really smells like Gamecore