Havent heard anything on this in a while. Just wondering how things are going with this amazing tool!

nothing unusual about it...

They`re working on a new, awesome release. Just be patent. It will be worthwhile.

It's been a long time, again! Are we getting an update soon? I can't work with a scenario that freezes every now and then because of the incredible amount of garbage collection.
I can assure you that it's not due to the complexity of my levels. I can run the same level with 1/10 of its complexity and still get the same framerate and the same freezing issues. So far I've spent countless hours optimizing here and there with mesh and texture LODS, and yet no luck.



This is how it looks like, but it's unfortunately unplayable at this stage.

Keep reading.. it gets worse..

Couple of years back I was kindly asked to be a beta tester for this shader pack, because of the quality of my productions. Even though I've provided feedback, I've always got very little almost no support at all.

After all these years waiting (and I'm talking about 2 years at least) and being stuck in development..

-IF-

..this next version turns out to be incompatible with A7, there is simply no way I'm going to waste my money on A8 not because it's expensive, simply because it's not worth it.

Let me explain:

The only reason I've spent years using gamestudio was to prove that a good looking professional title could be done using such a cheap and (pardon me but it's the truth) mediocre tool.

Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xouz5CP-vjo&list=HL1347306773&feature=mh_lolz

There are comments of people that don't even want to believe this is done with gamestudio! That's a bad omen.

And infact, have you ever compared most of these gamestudio projects to other people's using alternative engines?
There is simply no contest! why? because this is so limited in terms of support, engine performances, skills requiered, efforts requiered, very common features such as decent shadow stencils still unavailable because of being bound to licenses. To get fast real time shadow stencils I have to spend 800 euros and buy pro- That's silly considering it's now the year 2012!

I asked for support (many times), I've only received arrogant replies of people assuming I'm a programmer so "go study and sort it out". Disappointing.

And I wonder, wasn't a third party engine supposed to be easy to use for making games? Now that I think about it, on the frontpage of Gamestudio, there's a review that clearly states "videogames development never been easier". Oops guess not?!

That's exactly why everyone nowadays migrated to Unity, UDK or similar.
However, you don't care apparently. So why should I?

I think you've just lost a customer, a very old one, infact, someone that has been around since A4- and I'm confident that you've already lost several others during the past few years- and that you'll lose many others in the near future.

It's not Shade-Cs fault that Gamestudio is going down.

I use the same Beta-Build as you and i activated all effects and i never noticed any Freezes caused by Shade-C.

yes it really take soo lang to get an update, and I dont even know if he stil works on it.

Damn! I hope thats just a rumor!?!

Just hang in there! I do the same. I build my game with the beta of Shade-C how far as i can. For me it will almost make no difference if i create my levels with the beta or the finished Shade-C...and if my Game ever sees the finish-line and hopefully can add Shade-C in its whole beauty.

Here you go, most recent version, just a couple of hours old. It's a development build, so don't expect ANY support from my side at the moment.

https://github.com/BoHHavoc/ShadeC-EVO

the link will always lead to the most current development build. Whenever i change something on Shade-C, i'll also upload it to github.

And once again, i can't stress this enough, i can't give ANY support right now as i'm busy with A LOT of projects (my master thesis is one of them) and i DO know that the build you can get on github is not perfect (at least it won't crash and should not have any major errors).

The reason i didn't post the link to github earlier is because it's still not finished and i don't want people screaming around "IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!1111". This happened a lot in the past (by PM and E-Mail) and it seems people forgot that i was doing all this for free (well at least that last part has changed now).

The reason i didn't send any more betas to testers was because i didn't had much time to actively fix bugs and therefore a beta test made no more sense.

Please feel free to CONTRIBUTE to Shade-C. If enough people start working on it, i will abandon the need for a license. I'm tired of all the rants as to why its not finished, yet NO ONE EVER helped out with improving the code. You were always free to improve it, the code was always there, yet no one did it...
And thats the whole reason why theres a license fee now. You are free to try, but once you start publishing screenshots/videos/games which use Shade-C, you have to get a license which is 100€ per seat or 100€ per team per game.
If you are one of the 3 guys who donated in the past and want to get a license, please get in contact for a special refund. I think i still have those 3 E-Mails from PayPal.

All Contributors who actively help IMPROVING Shade-C will get a free license. This can be in form of tutorials/examples, filling the wiki on github, writing a manual (doxygen?), improving the code, creating a demo level (which should be free to use for anyone who downloads it!), etc.

These are the users who are free to use Shade-C, as they already contributed in the past (models, tutorials, A8 license, etc):
rojart (THANKS!)
PadMalcom
darkinferno
PietroNifosi
If i forgot somebody, please get in contact.



/end of pseudo rant


If you guys want, i can always post in this thread once i publish a new version on github.

Some shots with 2 shadowcasting spotlights (softshadows), directional shadows using PSSM (softshadows), SSAO, Bloom and ScreenSpace Lensflares. Runs at ~250fps/~1ms on my old GeForce 9800GT . You can get the example on github

There is always Unity

paracharlie@ sure, there is! so please, don't waste your/our time, go for it!

BoH_Havoc@ mate, as always I'm amazed by your work man. Sorry my knowledge isn't (wasn't) enough to help you with developing this great product and I can't donate at the moment, but I'll be happy to help you with testing, finding bugs stuff. Please, keep Shade-C up!

I have to agree with Havoc on this one. I am a programmer, and I have just never been able to grasp shader programming (HLSL). I am tired of hearing "Its so easy, go learn, blah blah blah". The fact remains that for ME HLSL just doesnt compute with me for some reason. Now if there was a visual tool where I could visually add effects to create a shader (Like an HLSL version of photoshop) I could really get into that. But unfortunately there isnt, and try as I might I just cant learn HLSL. So I rely on contributors like Havoc here who CAN offer a great solution to my weak points. And if getting this help means I have to cough up a bit of cash then so be it! He's been doing a great service to the community and he's never asked of anything in return. In my opinion he's well earned my $100. If I could contribute in any way I would, but again I am very weak/inexperienced in HLSL so I just dont think I would be of much use.