To my information Conitec is not really depending on Gamestudio. It is more some sort of toy - a good toy - but the money to run the whole company comes from elsewhere (Galep and co).

Not sure if "my information" is correct, though.

If it wasn't someone like Locoweed I didn't payed attention to this thread since too many newcomers are easily blaming things not being aware of their own shortcomings...

Well, I don't think that Gamestudio is dying since there are obviously way too many visible and invisible users. Who says that it is not vital just because there are less big commercial projects out there? I admit that through the "big" engine-licensing paragdigm shift forced by Unity some people were going elsewhere but that is just because these are engines have a total different background in money, dev team size and professionals, using it.

That is the point,.. I think it is way too easy to blame a company with lower user base and lower budget for their engine while comparing it with high priced middlewares (e.g. SpeedTree) and/or higher priced engines in mind (obviously) for which their developers has tons of people as human resources and for which they put tons of $$$ into exclusively licensed middleware (e.g. Unity3D with Umbra Occlusion Culling, Beast Lightmapping, FMod - to use this you pay min. 1000$).

I would like to know what is exactly faster with your dll programming. And what you did to your visuals with dll's that is not possible with Gamestudio. And what -reasonable- features you (I mean Locoweed, not the others!!) really want to have into the engine. The Lite-C compiler compiles obviously slower code than a VS compiled code, so, let's do not compare this.

Best regards,
-Christian

P.S: @Rakscha: if you want OOP, do it in C++!

@Rackscha, ive always had that dream also, which is why i tend to love seeing big projects that seem as if they'll be completed, i just hate seeing when they ask for assists and they get a "how much can you pay me" by the same community thats saying they want to see completed projects

@Firoball: doesnt sound too surprising

I just dont wish to show our project until we are personally pleased with it, so far the comments on screens have been great but, we see the flawsm we're our biggest crits lol

Don't get me wrong, I really like a lot of things about the 3DGS engine. I just wish they could make an update that improved the performance up a notch some how.

As far as other engines, the Unity engine seems quite intriquing to me, but until we finish our current game I don't have a lot of time for engine testing at the moment.

or d, or c#, or if you don't need super duper performance something like python.

http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/
http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/defective.html
http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/picture.html

@ventilator: haha.. yeah. I don't like C++ too, and personally, I would like to bind a JAVA app to my Gamestudio app because I love JAVA ... but that is another story. And I fear the overhead... but it would be so awesome!

yes, a java binding would be nice.

this c++ fqa (and also the c++ faq) is very interesting by the way, also if you like c++ you can learn a lot from it.

That's obviously a stylistic choice and depends on the artists, not the engine's capabilities. My game KarBOOM has a kind-of cartoony style, but you can see it also has unique multi-texturing, environment-mapped normal mapping, sharp shadows and particle shadows, too (how many games have you played where the particles cast shadows?). I look at other engines and think how much harder it would be to write the same effects for those engines, and what kind of cost to performance/visuals it would be to just use their built-in effects. Online will be released to GS users soon, and so far everything has gone very smoothly.
Have you tried mat_bones? On my old PC with a GeForce 9600GT I had nearly 5 million bones-animated polygons on-screen at the same time with diffuse lighting and textures.
What shadow system are you using at the moment? I would not recommend using a built-in shadow system in any engine. They generally sacrifice performance or visual fidelity for generality, but most games could really benefit from shadows made with the game itself in mind.

Jibb

About cartoonish, it's beacause the major part of users are
passionnated coders, and they don't target realistic
last next gen graphics .
Even if they could use better models and textures some times

And don't forget there are kids alos using the engine, so they are happy when they successfully make a playable game even with basic models and textures !

They have been amazing games of 3DGS in the past
Good looking games on A8 only relies on people behind that
make an effort to produce good looking homogenous levels and models.

Some links :
RPG Action game

Galedor

A8, is not hold by 10 or 20 people behind, like Dark Basic Pro, but it works really well, if you know what style of project to do and if you know your limitations in game creating

You'll neven create Oblivion game, so much much work on it,
so much hours and hours and thousand of people and indirect
paid people to do all the assets, textures etc ...
and all testing.

Be realistic also !
For casual games, if you know how to do it , you can go very far with A8, but are you sure to be strong and keep working on a project without discourage yourself ?
That's the main question also !

I kno how to do Next Gen models, i have the license and tools,
i oculd do some FF7 style game with next gen characters
and fixed/travelling cameras for 3D levels , with a simple
combat system !
the challenge would be to have fun tactical fights, vey good HUD look, good story, etc ... lot lot lot of work !


I already said it for A8 what i would like would better be :
- WED complete terrai editor like in Unity
- .Net programming of the engine directly for commercial version
- Integration of another free multiplayer API that would work
lot better
- possiblity to program easily your on additionnal panels
for your own tools that would run on WED (like Unity tools)

The last bad point :
Forecast things take more than one year without being made
Well i know there is not 4 or 5 people under the engine, but
why not putting or pay some people to create tools or program
some forecast things ???

Appart from that A8 is good for all beginners and lot better than others packages like Dark Basic Pro for example that is lot more slow and that don't have any world Editor to create
your world and attach script !

And the recent adoptio nof Nvidia Physics is a really good thing.
A library for collision detection using Nvidia Physics is on forecast.
I think it will solve lot of problems, and will allow
to use collisions in a lot more easy way !

Even more :
You can see on Iphone games that looks incredibly good and lot better than A8 !
And Iphone don't have all the power of a PC and all the PC shaders also !

so why it is possible ?

Simply because they use talented 3D artists to make the models
, textures, choose and appropriate lightening etc ....

And don't forget if you use clever LOD , you can have really good performances with A8 !
LOD changes all the performances

It's like some AAA games on PS3 using really good tricks like shaders on some objects , and baked normal map and lightening on others (Drake 2 on PS3) !
Lot of times the floor is simple textures baked on some areas also !
And i have other game examples where you are tricked
and don't see it caus you are running all the time !!

So use LOD, bake textures and lightening some times,
and use tricks also !

Well A8 is what is is, for programmers first !
And with a talented 3D artist if your game target is not too much like to compete with last AAA game you can really get somewhere and make a good game with it !