Realizing you're right actually caused me physical pain. I guess if I wasn't such a fucking aspergers I would've already switched engines.

Edit: but not to unity.

I know... it is also not my way to be a part of the majority. In fact - I never wanted to be.
But, as above written, it is not the engine which brings your animalic instincts to life - it is you - as the developer. And since I work with unity - I have no better tool for my work.
It is a modern system and you can compare the optical components and the fusional work flow with every modern program on the market. Look at poser 2012 / anime or look at the newer generation of adobe ( I use the master collection), sound booth , after effects, pshop... every tool is based on the same wflow principle.

And - just my opinion - you will become a true independent mr. cool just with your product, not with the tools you use.

... but I truly hate their "all with love" forum

it would be fun to know the approx. user quantities of 3dgs, unity and some other game engines too, for each edition (downloads of free, and licences sold yearly). and an estimation of the share of hobbyists, indie developers and companies. really good games are mainly done by teams, and not by a single person, it can also have an effect on how many games released made by an engine.

imo 3dgs is really cool for starting and learning 3d game making, and it's very easy to make small trial projects, and then assemble a simple game from your code and asset pieces. it's a bit old fashioned, reaching pro graphics quality requires complex 3d knowledge, but the price is acceptable also for hobbyists (like me) who live not at the richest part of the planet (I mean of commercial edition). maybe this group is the main target of 3dgs, and the pro edition is rather a shopwindow that shows it is a really professional tool (but in fact pro has some really professional features).

facing unity editor without any 3d knowledge can be a bit frustrating, and you have to deal with and organize a lot of asset and code packages, which needs some practice to be handled fine. but definitely much easier for 3d artists. imo its programming also cool, after I got some experience in delphi, java, and lite-c, I had no problem to do anything I wanted to solve. but for me the free edition is not suitable, and the pro price is well over my budget. but I would rather buy it instead of 3dgs pro.

for small developer teams, I think UDK, Esenthel or maybe Neoaxis also can be an option, but imo they require higher experiences. I like especially Esenthel because it offers both to start from small, and to make an MMO-RPG/FPS based on example game sources available in the shop for a little money (unfortunately its licensing will change to per seat from the current per commercial project).

Neoaxis unfortunately fails so endless much on documentation side... really a shame as I like the rest of it.

facing unity editor without any 3d knowledge can be a bit frustrating, and you have to deal with and organize a lot of asset and code packages


This is not to say , it's the best , but ...
In that point you can find the basic Third person tutorial that explains step by step to make the game stage by stage :
- adding the character
- adding the camera and adjust it
- adding a particle effect and adjust parameters
etc ...
It's really complete and also includes scripting code snippets and some ennemy and basic AI code.

For adding textures models, you have a complete browser panel and where you have created the project where you will be able to import pre defined stuff or simply create new sub categories and add all your stuff.

Well, that you that make a game, not totally the engine.
But yes, good features , easy to apply, more fluid workflow will bring more pleasure to make the game.
A good 3D editor not only the engine counts on people happiness i find , specially non programmers.

With 3DGS you can make lot of little games , or worlds zones loading levels or arcade etc ...
Not all 3DGS users have solide some game idea, and 3D graphic skills ... a lot are more programmers.
Let's hope some future version will attract more skilled team or people on the 3D graphics models and textures side ?

This also popular games that make 3D engines popular also

for me, who earlier made only tiny 2D games in Delphi and Java, it was much easier to start with 3dgs. earlier I worked for a few years as a CAD/CAM engineer, so the editors interface was also easy and clear. (normally it's easy for me to get familiar with unknown editors without tutorials, except Blender and DAZ Studio)

I found unity editor too complex and "too user friendly", did not know what are those hundreds of options, what I have to set and what can I ignore. making a new small project in unity is too complicated, a bit messy, and requires huge disk space, because of importing those packages, comparing to 3dgs where I can clearly use a few files only, and I'm not forced to organize my stuff by an editor, only simply in Total Commander and in my scripts. and I've ever wanted to write 100% own codes, not to use ready made scripts what I don't know deeply, e.g. for camera and character handling. in the other hand, if you don't want to program, only do some level design, and your game has no special game features, you can get a lot of resources for unity for free or for money, it is also a walkable way, but this is not my way.

okay now I'm more experienced, I can handle unity editor, and know most of the available options are what for, or where I can find the info, and I see unity's system is much more up-to-date and more advanced, but for my taste I can organize my work better in 3dgs than in unity, and currently I have in 3dgs what I need.

---

but what is more important, for me unity pro is too expensive, and the free edition does not offer: LOD, dynamic shadows, terrain lightmapping, water reflections, hdr. and these are needed for me, and get by 3dgs commercial whose price is acceptable.

moreover, in future I would not move to unity, I would choose rather Esenthel (it can be okay for one person development) or maybe UDK (but this would really require a developer team), depending on my project requirement.

as soon as you understood the principle of the unity editor... you are unstoppable.
You can everything script with UnityJava... but you can use the editor to spare your time und just use a drag an drop system. The game preview is such a great help to adjust every public variable at runtime. In GS - I always have a big waste of time in adjusting some parameters and then look at the result... just to adjust then a little bit more.
In Unity ... you do this in one single way.
Last year, I startet with a GS-project - and just the Panel-Work of the complex menu used about 20 hours. Now I took the pics, imported them in the asset folder... and did the same as with gs in unity... just in about 5 hours. This is a phenomenal earning of time. But to be honestly... I learned during 5 Months (2h per day) to understand the principle of unity.

I made my editor for 3dgs, because I need special AI related things to see visually at design time, so I can make my levels lightning fast now. this was also good for making my own standards for menu panels etc. of course this part could be much better... I also can work in unity fast, e.g. made mesh based tree shadows taking into account sun position within a few days (I mean a few work hours), but I simply won't pay so much money for unity pro to get the missing features...

okay I just played 10000000, made with unity, and I have to say: it's awesome.
fuck.

3gds pro 900 usd vs. unity pro 1500 usd: unity probably a better investment. if you can or have to invest in an advanced but easy to use engine, and want to earn money of your works as fast as possible. but there are other good options too in the market, which can be better sometimes than these 2 ones.

for toying, it does not matter what engine you use, you will definitely make crap.

for a bit more serious hobby development, it heavily depends on your requirements, spare time, and budget what to use. because of no tight deadlines and no AAA quality expected, you can use less advanced or less user friendly softwares, but the result not definitely will be shit. it can be nice and fun to play with, if you are talented.