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Re: A7 next gen workflow :
[Re: Doug]
#160839
10/17/07 18:36
10/17/07 18:36
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 7,121
Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
Machinery_Frank
Senior Expert
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Senior Expert
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 7,121
Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
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Hm, it was not really just that, a demo. I remember some fine screenshots of editors, node based shader editors and much more.
I dont want to say that you are totally wrong. Sure it was not a completed engine but it must have been more than only a NVidia demo. Otherwise they could not sell it to those publishers.
At the end, I agree with Broozar. There are fine and fast growing alternatives at the moment. The engine landscape is very exciting right now.
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Re: A7 next gen workflow :
[Re: Machinery_Frank]
#160840
10/17/07 20:14
10/17/07 20:14
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Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 5,377
USofA
fastlane69
Senior Expert
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Joined: Mar 2003
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Quote:
There are fine and fast growing alternatives at the moment. The engine landscape is very exciting right now.
And for that reason, volatile. How many new engines come on the scene, garner great support, and then become vaporware? How many engines have a robust enough business model to actually survive the 1 to 2 year development timeline of most games today? How many engines have all the features that 3DGS or Torque have in terms of networking, particles, GUI, graphics, sound, etc?
I agree that there are several solutions out there and several are free and better than 3DGS in one way or another.
But you have to admit that the one thing 3DGS (or to a lesser extent Torque) has that others don't is longevity. 3DGS has been around for a decade and there is no indication that it will not be around for another decade. You can't say the same about the great majority of the new engines that pop up each month.
The other thing it has is completeness... you can in fact make any game you want. Most of the engines that pop up on the "tools" forum are nothing more than a great new graphics rendered...they are in fact like cheerleaders... real pretty and you'd love to "hit that" but when you do you find out that that is all they are and you are left empty.
So yes, the engine landscape is very exciting IF you aren't planning on making a game.  If you are, you better hitch your horse to a solution that has the greatest chance of seeing your project through. 3DGS is not the only one that falls in this category, but there are damn few out there in the 1000 buck range that do. 
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Re: A7 next gen workflow :
[Re: fastlane69]
#160841
10/17/07 20:23
10/17/07 20:23
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Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 5,377
USofA
fastlane69
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Senior Expert
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Quote:
...So, what's my point? My point is this: If two or three guys can create the Project Offset engine in a couple years, *in their spare time*, why the hell can't a full-time company do just as well? o_O
Because what most people don't understand is that building and ENGINE and building a BUSINESS are two radically different things.
If Conitec wanted to create teh PO engine, do you really doubt that they technically couldn't do it? But here is what's going to happen: support for the current version of A7 will drop... development and bug fixes for the old version will halt... people will have nothing to do with Conitec until they come up with their new engine in 2 years (for example)...and when they DO come out with the new engine, they have to start all over again because it will have NOTHING to do with the company that we bought into.
My point is that it is easier to start from scratch when you don't have tens of thousands of people counting on you. If PO fails, no biggie, no harm done. If PO takes 3 more years, so be it, good for them. And furthermore AFAIK they are building an engine not a full Authorware solution.
So two or three people can create an engine, no argument there... but can those same two or three people turn it into a business that will guarantee the engines future development? THAT remains to be seen.
Quote:
That they would probably make the engine free or maybe some minor licencing fee or something..."
[...]
An engine is only priced "in the realm of crazy-talk" because nobody has had the kahonae's to tell a publisher "Naaa. We don't want your $2 million. We're doing this for fun, and want everyone to have access to the joy of making kick-ass looking games."
They did it for the same reason that I won't offer my MMOG code for free. I bet you these "2 million dollar guys" spent a lot of time and sweat equity building their engine. And then after all that, they should just give it away or pass up the offer to bank on what they worked on? Their only mistake is not realizing this earlier or trying to garner support for their engine by playing the "we're one of you!" card when they had no intention of doing do.
I don't agre that it's an "us against them" arguement. I think it's a "I've worked hard and I should get paid for it" and if the publishers are willing to dish out 2 mill for it then great!
Paul, I think your opinion would be a lot more valid when you've been made the offer and pass it up. Until then, you are on the moral high ground simply because you've never been on the ground these others have been!
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Re: A7 next gen workflow :
[Re: Machinery_Frank]
#160844
10/18/07 03:08
10/18/07 03:08
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 8,973
Bay Area
Doug
Senior Expert
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Senior Expert
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 8,973
Bay Area
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Quote:
Hm, it was not really just that, a demo. I remember some fine screenshots of editors, node based shader editors and much more.
I don't recall screen shots of the editors coming out until much later. And, even then, they were just prototypes on what they wanted to do (not something shipping).
Quote:
Sure it was not a completed engine but it must have been more than only a NVidia demo. Otherwise they could not sell it to those publishers.
Why not? They built huge hype about a true "Next Gen" engine. Everybody in the industry knew the name although, at the time, nobody had seen any actual working code. The name "Project Offset" alone is probably worth millions.
I'm not saying it was "just" a tech-demo. And I know from sources that they are now licensing the engine to other developers. But its been two years since the first video hit the web, plenty of time to turn a demo into a production level project.
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Re: A7 next gen workflow :
[Re: Doug]
#160845
10/18/07 07:17
10/18/07 07:17
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 7,121
Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
Machinery_Frank
Senior Expert
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Senior Expert
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 7,121
Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
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This makes much sense. Thank you for the insides, Doug. To switch back to the topic: I checked lots of engines and I often realize workflow-issues with importing, editing and so on. Gamestudio is quite fine has an established base of exporters and plugins. It just needs a real-time editor and working lightmapper. I think that we all agree that we cannot expect high level optimizations to get optimal fill-rates at graphic cards and something like that. We are aware that we get what we pay for. So I agree with Fastlane. But nevertheless there is something happening in the market. There already are some professional made games with Ogre as an example. The gap between AAA and indie market seems to become bigger and bigger. Some indie engines like Unity3d, Unigine, C4 and TGEA try to catch up. GarageGames fused with Instant Action, is funding games now and becomes a publisher. A lot of indie-publishers come up and some of them even deliver AAA quality, like Gamecock Media: http://www.gamecockmedia.com/The quality of games comes closer and closer to movie productions (and costs the same amount of money). The games business became the most hardest business at all. But the graphical possibilites are amazing. Modern techniques allow so much things that even artists can and want to have much more fun viewing their contents in real-time and not only in rendered scenes. This is a new bunch of potentional customers for Conitec - not only programmers - there are millions of hobby and pro artists out there scanning the engine market regularly, waiting for an easy tool to watch and present their contents.
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Re: A7 next gen workflow :
[Re: Machinery_Frank]
#160847
10/18/07 12:20
10/18/07 12:20
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 827
22�21'24"N 114�07'30"E
Frederick_Lim
User
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User
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 827
22�21'24"N 114�07'30"E
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Quote:
This is a new bunch of potentional customers for Conitec - not only programmers - there are millions of hobby and pro artists out there scanning the engine market regularly, waiting for an easy tool to watch and present their contents.
I think Conitec understood that. Gamestudio is not only for programmer, it has a complete click-together template system. Along with the FBX import, artists is easy to make their content in action. The problem is, how easy the tools for manipulate the assets...for instance, in WED, you cannot see multi-texture terrain or model with shader in real-time 
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Re: A7 next gen workflow :
[Re: Frederick_Lim]
#160848
10/18/07 20:34
10/18/07 20:34
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,320
Alberta, Canada
William
Expert
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Expert
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,320
Alberta, Canada
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With the new planned FBX developments, there will be a big difference for many artists. For example, you will build your entire scene in your FBX supporting program, export the models from it, and use Conitecs FBX importer to get it and place them all in WED. You really wouldn't need WED past assigning actions and the such.
Ventilators lightmapping tool also works fine, but once this FBX importer is in, and the new lightmapping capabilities of WED are in, you might not need to do your lightmapping in 3ds max and the such. This would save some time as using Ventilators plugin requires a bit of thought in properly setting up your files.
And I just have to agree with Fastlane on his last couple comments. I've started my project many years ago, and long behold, 3dgs still exists, it's still getting updates, and it has indeed implemented many things I needed and now use. Examples of this would be per-poly collision, shaders, multiple multiplayer improvments, ABT, ect. All of this did not exist when I naively started my project. Can you really say that the majority of the engines starting now will fix everything that you need through many years? All the power to the people creating these engines, I think it's great, but sometimes it's best to stick with proven.
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