The comparison does not work because paint provides everything you need to paint per pixel. Imagine the paintbrush size was limited to a minimum of 20pixel for some technical reason and you have to use a 600/600 image frame. This makes it unnecessary harder to create the same image.
Imagine a car without a reverse gear. Would make parking a lot harder. nothing is impossible, especially when its up to games. But would you buy the car or the paint tool with that limitations, if all other dont have them?
you pay for tools when you buy the engine today. all of them can display pixels onscreen. thats like selling a paint tool with the features "colors". this days are gone!
indy game developer face another point: manpower. we dont have huge teams or you wont find the needed specialist for a field you lack. its a lot easier to paint the mona lisa with photoshop (layers, filters and so on). therefor you will find a loooooot more teammembers you can hire or you can create it yourself.
Having a spoon to dig out a hole makes it harder to survive if all other competitors have shovels or machines.
I am sorry but its not that easy. Its not all about imagination, detication and talent. those things help for sure but this is not what i am paying for when i order gamestudio. this is not what i get from conitec. all they need to deliver are tools. tools that can compete with the market.
nobody will use paint if he can have paintshop. nobody will pay 1500dollar to get paint if he can have photoshop for that money. and nobody will pay 800bucks for an engine that can not compete on the market.
no wsyiwyg editor, no multiplatorms, no working phsyic, no realtime shadows, no exporters/importers, no material editor, no AI, no multiplayer, no up to date lod system.......
That's a good argument, but the thing is that a lot of people don't have $800 to spend on PhotoShop, or $1,500 to spend on an engine. So, if they want to try to make a game they have to make do with, and learn how to work with, less expensive products.
If you go to the link below and click on the License tab, you'll see the price of the Indie version is $295, but you'll be quite limited in what you can do with the Indie version. For instance you can only use script with it, among other things. To really benefit from the engine you have to buy Commercial, which is $1,495.
But, check sections 3 and 4 of the license. You have to be very careful what you make, and what platform you make it for, or it will cost you another undisclosed amount. Your game can't be construed to be a simulator or virtual world (isn't that what a game is?), and you can't even make a starter or tutorial kit without extra charges.
If you're a team planning on putting out a AAA product, then you'd expect to pay that. But if you're a hobbyist or would like to try selling some little $5 game, that may be way out of your range. GS, and other products like it, are what those people will likely be buying.
So yes, they'll be doing their best to make the Mona Lisa with MS Paint, basically. It will take more time and effort, but if you want to dig a hole and you can't afford a backhoe, sometimes you have to make do with a spoon...
no wsyiwyg editor, no multiplatorms, no working phsyic, no realtime shadows, no exporters/importers, no material editor, no AI, no multiplayer, no up to date lod system.......
uh.... A7 has all of that... except maybe for the inclusive AI, but im not quite sure what your saying it doesnt have.
Quite agree, all you have to do is script them. Then you can have endless terrains, ingame editors and so on...
or you could write everything in c++ and have your own engine. i thought the basic idea of buying an engine is to make your life easier and not more complicated.
as for the points from above. wysiwyg editor: you cant even see the ingame ammount of albedo in WED. not talking about shadows, materials, animation, lights.
physic: not talking about a few crates falling down. if you have ever tried to use a cylinder for example, gs will make you kill yourself. turning ph objects on and off is a mayham and trying more then a few of them at a time.... not nice.
multiplayer: even managing a simple 32p game is hell. mmo is impossible. though you can cancel this point. multiplayer is a pain in any engine and i dont want to be too picky here.
having poping up lod stages nowadays might be ok for you but i doubt its anyway near state of art. lod in general is done very poor. you are not flexible enough here. but at least gs has lod.
...
gs has shaders for example. but using them on borad scale like needed today is still not working. gs has shadows for example. but using them ingame for more then 2 models is impossible. having a whole level shaded correctly cant be done by gs in realtime.
i am talking about issues people complain since a5 and those are still not fixed or anywhere near ok.
wanna know what the only big fix was since a5 that work at least a bit: collision detection.
compared to all the new engines gs is loosing ground very fast. every engine has issues. no need to talk about that. but none of the others is changing thaaaaaaaaaaat slow like gs does.
who the hell needs bsp today?!
you can pick any change and addon list from 2007 here and i am sure not more then 20% of the suggestions made in it where realized till today.
talking about pr and marketing. having a upcoming feature list that can be compared with nostradamus novel doesnt sound like a good marketing plan to me. without the "magazine" we wouldnt even know about changes.
i know that all this ranting aint new nor does it help since conitec will probably ignore everything like this, but if you are honest no other engine copareable with gs hast changed that less in the last 3 years.
sure is gs stable and working. no new features no new problems.
as far as i am concerned torque beats gs with every new update a lot more. and torque aint even the best indy engine out there!
quote]or you could write everything in c++ and have your own engine. i thought the basic idea of buying an engine is to make your life easier and not more complicated..[/quote]
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wysiwyg editor: you cant even see the ingame ammount of albedo in WED. not talking about shadows, materials, animation, lights.
Thats why WED isnt considered a7's wysiwyg editor, GED is.
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physic: not talking about a few crates falling down. if you have ever tried to use a cylinder for example, gs will make you kill yourself. turning ph objects on and off is a mayham and trying more then a few of them at a time.... not nice.
Works fine for me and many others
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multiplayer: even managing a simple 32p game is hell. mmo is impossible. though you can cancel this point. multiplayer is a pain in any engine and i dont want to be too picky here.
not great in many engines (most actually) but there are several adequate solutions to this third party wise.
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having poping up lod stages nowadays might be ok for you but i doubt its anyway near state of art. lod in general is done very poor. you are not flexible enough here. but at least gs has lod..
If you have decent lod it's not an issue in the least and shouldnt even be visible in difference
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gs has shaders for example. but using them on borad scale like needed today is still not working. gs has shadows for example. but using them ingame for more then 2 models is impossible. having a whole level shaded correctly cant be done by gs in realtime.
What exactly are your talking about? shadow mapping is done exactly the same in this engine as it is in any, using shaders and its not that complicated, Being not even closed to a shader guru, i was able to make (albiet, not great) ssao:
(looked much better by the time i was done with it) , and I was able to modify the shader workshop to make this :
not to mention, if its not possible then how exactly do you explain shade-c or slins dynamic shadowmapping solutions?
Bottom line you get more bang for you buck with a7 imho. you can do anything the Torque 3D, Unity, etc. can do for $200 as opposed to the $1500 you need for both those engines to still have those features. So yeah, if I had 1.5k to throw around, I'd probably get Unity3D so that I can have many plug and play push 1 button to create features, but until I am rolling in the dough, I'll stick with A7
In fact some of us , don't want to spend code in things done , done and redone !
For example, there has been lot of terrain tools made in lot of 3D engines : Blitz3D, Ogre3D etc ... there is not secret about how to create quickly a terrain editor ! Terrain editor should be included in any 3D engine
Why A7 don't have that directly in WED ?
It is so much work when you make 3D characters : - Hig poly model with all details (hours and hours) - low poly model - normal map - lot of time getting rids of normal map sometimes - texturing good - specular map - rigging - lot of time tweaking animations - make objects or clothes for the character
Well is just a tiny part of a RPG game for example. You have all other things : NPC,Buildings, outdoor plants, trees etc ... etc ...
I don't think you wan't to spend time writing tools or functionnalities if you have alreday experimented how much time is needed to make serious 3D art.
Example : Why do you think Square Enix have baught Unreal 3 engine for their titles ? It's a prooven ready to go engine , with all tools you need, already Next Gen (Unreal Tournament games are only advertisements games for the engine to sell it to companies).
In fact there is lot of people that LIKE TO CODE here At this people i would like to say : Forget coding for some time and try to make all 3D art complete next gen and perhasp you'll understand ?
with all tools you need, already Next Gen (Unreal Tournament games are only advertisements games for the engine to sell it to companies).
It does not have all the tools you need an that list of stuff that you said you want a7 to do has nothing to do with an engine. creating art isnt the engines job, why do you think if you look at professional artists for level design/ charcter design on youtube, etc. they are always using 3ds max and maya. Art is not the job of the the engine.
@lostclimate : I never said i wanted A7 to do that list Read better : I said it's the job of the 3D artist and its LOT LOT LOT OF TIME CONSUMMING ! That's why we don't need to code a terrain editor or a shader !
Square ENix have choosen Unreal 3 to gain lot of time caus they have with it : -Terrain editor -Shaders -Physic editor -wysiwyg Editor That way , square Enox need less less more programmers caus they have the engine and the tools in int like the complete terrain editor.
FOr Unity try it's physics !
Without tutorial : I drop physics features from a list on some cubes and i could change mass or check some flags on the physic properties panel of the objects. It worked as a breezze : THIS IS WORKFLOW
No coding. When you make more sophisticated things and event you'll need to code, but you put basic physics,constraints etc ... quickly and visually : you gain lot more time.
For shaders, i seen the code , but im' interested at 0% to invest time in writing or coding them. Unity just propose a list of shaders in object properties: you choose one and here you go
