What 3D Engine are people using now?

Started by Amon, November 10, 2018, 07:19:25

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Qube

Quote from: MikeHart on November 13, 2018, 08:12:29
Also what is a huge wall that gets in the way is.. . people expected a cross platform tool these days. For one person that does it only part time, it is almost impossible to support.
I think cross platform is expected because indie's selling a game need every sale they can get, although I agree that Windows sales of games greatly dwarf those of Linux and Mac. Personally I like an engine that supports multiple platforms as I prefer developing on a Mac.

Quote from: MikeHart on November 13, 2018, 08:12:29
Nevermind that unity destroyed the market with their free license.
Yeah and it allowed thousands of people to buy a game template, change the graphics and pump it out as something they've done themselves. I bought a license to get rid of the "Made with Unity" splash screen and also use dark mode over the over bright default skin.

I still think there is a market for paid for Blitz3D type tools. AGK is proof of that.
Mac Studio M1 Max ( 10 core CPU - 24 core GPU ), 32GB LPDDR5, 512GB SSD,
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Until the next time.

Derron

Quote from: GaborD on November 13, 2018, 06:08:32
Yeah indeed. I have been dreaming of something like that for many years.
Now noone even tries anymore, I guess this is the downside of the big guys gobbling up the entire market by throwing free stuff around for the lower end users. Engines are not worth developing unless you are either one of the big guys who can make back the money on the pro end or already have an established audience from the old days.
So we are stuck with these bloated monsters that run like molasses or with mostly unfinished stuff.
NB was so close to greatness.. argh. C3D would have gotten there... double argh. I am getting too old for this crap. Triple argh.  ;D

So why don't you write a "graphics engine" on top of BlitzMax NG? It favors a syntax we all learned to love. NG comes with SDL so you could use that, or you help Brucey bringing in "BGFX" which would provide a solid render chain already.
It is up to you (and your knowledge of how a "easy but advanced" render-pipeline has to be) to create the tool you want to use.

Brucey is a one-man-wonder when it comes to coding certain stuff, but knowledge and especially time to devote for a project is limited - it helps if people with special abilities jump in (documentation writers, sound gurus, GFX wonder-boys and girls, ...). If a one-man-band (we NG contributors are only small lamps next to the flood light of Brucey) tries to do everything alone you end up with something like AGK: it provides what Qube described so nicely: half-arsed stuff. It should never be the intention of a (game) programming toolchain to led the developers/users bend around the chain ("you can use FBX but for materials you need to export it first as XYZ"). Offer convenience and flexibility. And especially these benefit aspects are the most time consuming as they are far away from being "barebone".

While I appreciate efforts of others (like AGK) I do not see why they should be "superior" to NG (talking about Mac, Linux, Windows). BlitzMax offers the more flexible language and thanks to Brucey a lot of modules to use. It just lacks a modern "framework" for games programming. And this is where others could chime in - describing to Brucey what is "needed" for a certain thing (basic functionality - like eg. the SDL framework offering "graphic contexts"). If a team would build up around this - you could create something which is how you like it to be and this without having to decide everything on your own, to build and test everything on your own. The people with certain knowledge should not be forced to also test stuff thoroughfully, to write the most proper and elaborative documentaion for 3rd party users (the normal game-developer).

So why am I promoting NG so much? Of course because I use BlitzMax for a teenagers life long now and because I like Brucey - and because it is _free_ and _opensource_ and _matured_ - it just lacks some love here and there (see above, modern game programming technologies). If NG attracted more people again (because the basics are working and providing modern functionalities) then the economical environment would grow too - leading to 3rd party tools, ideas, modules, IDEs or even better plugins for existing IDEs.


bye
Ron

RemiD

what you want (graphics engine with functions names similar to Blitz3d + shaders), already exists with blitzmax+openb3d or blitzmax+bigbang (engine by Bobysait)

the thing is if you want regular fixes / updates / addons, the developper needs to be paid in some way to dedicate enough time to that...

Naughty Alien

Quote


Brucey is a one-man-wonder when it comes to coding certain stuff, but knowledge and especially time to devote for a project is limited - it helps if people with special abilities jump in (documentation writers, sound gurus, GFX wonder-boys and girls, ...). If a one-man-band (we NG contributors are only small lamps next to the flood light of Brucey) tries to do everything alone you end up with something like AGK: it provides what Qube described so nicely: half-arsed stuff. It should never be the intention of a (game) programming toolchain to led the developers/users bend around the chain ("you can use FBX but for materials you need to export it first as XYZ"). Offer convenience and flexibility. And especially these benefit aspects are the most time consuming as they are far away from being "barebone".


...did i understood this correctly? I mean, AGK is one man show? Yes? No?

Steve Elliott

#49
Quote
...did i understood this correctly? I mean, AGK is one man show? Yes? No?

AGK is not a one man show - NG is.

https://www.thegamecreators.com/team
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MikeHart

Quote from: Steve Elliott on November 13, 2018, 12:55:50
Quote
...did i understood this correctly? I mean, AGK is one man show? Yes? No?

AGK is not a one man show - NG is.

https://www.thegamecreators.com/team


There was and still is only one man working on the AGK code, Paul.

Derron

OpenB3D is .. a bit bugged and surely misses things (accessibility or so?), else I cannot imagine why people prefer Blitz3D to BlitzMax(NG)+OpenB3D as it means to also allow Linux/Mac - and some more advanced visual looks than most here come up with their Blitz3D-products/games. Sure, assets help a lot there but still they look "DirectX7-ish" (think you understand what I mean). The gamekits should assist the "average joe" coder in creating some nice looking stuff "out of the box" - and if that means "EnableAmbientOcclusion()" then yes, add it - with the option to finegrain for advanced users.

For NG I was not talking about something 3rd party but something more or less officially included (so like "Max2D" - or Graphics3D in Blitz3D which I never used). I am also pretty sure that all of you miss things here and there in Blitz3D, AGK, Unity, ... which could be tackled when writing your own graphics lib for eg. NG. Of course it could utilize existing stuff (BGFX, SDL ...) to avoid having to handle all the low-level stuff. Keyword is "convenience". Average coders should not need to know about potential texture format support - they should have a "LoadTexture(url)" and voila...works for most common formats.

And what does it need else? Some talented artists (GaborD has posted some awesome shots) to show others what is "possible" (hopefully with "only a handful of commands"). Visuals is what attracts people. If you do not want to use Godot, Unity, UE ... then you look what games can be made with a toolchain. Of course most of these users won't be able to do similar games as it needs more than just the programming language / toolchain (=> asset creators!) still these users are what makes the community grow then (people ask questions, old pro's answer if they can). Also these users are needed to find out what is needed for "convenient" use (the old users know how to circumvent certain issues). Means the newbie helps to improve accessibilty to a tool/language and the modules. Economically these newbies are of interest too - as some of them might be interested in paying for some stuff here and there (modules, assets, tools, ...).
Newbies are also needed for increased awareness - google does not analyze if you know the language, as long as you talk about it, it helps to spread the word "search engine-wise".


@ one man show
This is especially important for the "compiler" as the compiler bugs need to get ironed out here and there - most of us are not capable of doing that (without much trial-and-error or a very steep learning curve). But module bugs are what more people could fix (everybody according to their own "specialization"). If a basic shader borks up things, then the shader experts can chime in. If there is some artificial audio delay on linux then linux users could help out ... and so on. The less advanced a topic for a "normal specialist" (graphics design students, musicians, ...) is, the more easier it is to assist in bug fixing. But as it is the same for all projects: you need a certain amount of commitment by the main developers (for now Brucey is pretty committed) and a critical amount of "helpers" - this "core helper" group is in almost all indie projects way too low. This hurdle is to climb before it can really become successful. Once you reach critical mass you will be able to reduce load of the main developer. And this works better for an FOSS tool kit (NG) than for paid/closed-source/non-liberal-licence-tools (AGK etc.).
Some time ago I asked for NG help - documentation, examples, ... some offered help - still it needs someone who manages the whole thing so there would actual help be done instead of only offered. I know how tedious it is to write documentation and auxiliary stuff (this is what Brucey did the last weeks). As a non-native English speaker I cannot write much documentation - but of course could localize stuff if it really was needed. Helping out requires a certain level of believe in a project - a project which might miss some stuff (modern render engine). A bit of a vicious circle most of us know very well.


Excuse the thread-derailment, just wanted to cry a bit more for potential help by some of you.


bye
Ron

GaborD

#52
Quote from: MikeHart on November 13, 2018, 08:12:29
Also what is a huge wall that gets in the way is.. . people expected a cross platform tool these days. For one person that does it only part time, it is almost impossible to support.
I still have a base language sitting on my harddrive, which i never published cause noone would want a tool that would be windows only. When you look at the stats of the market, for indies it isn't worth supporting osx and linux. It is more a labour of love imho. Nevermind that unity destroyed the market with their free license.

I definitely prefer a Win only engine.
As soon as you start adding export targets, you are compromising. Hate losing important features (like texture compression, FP rendertargets, flexible render chains, etc) because multi platform engines usually just stick to what will easily export to all the toasters.

3DzForMe

#53
@Derron, I've coded in both B3D and BMax, had an education tool sanctioned by BECTA (in BMAX), however I confess my familiarity with what is achievable in B3D with fastlibs suits my needs. Also, I'm getting too old to get to grips with different syntactical ways to skin the proverbial cat. As for multiplatform dev, that equals ball aches in my limited experience.

One last thing, the huge array of coding examples for B3D in the archives is a great aid for the indie coder, IMO.
BLitz3D, IDEal, AGK Studio, BMax, Java Code, Cerberus
Recent Hardware: Dell Laptop
Oldest Hardware: Commodore Amiga 1200 with 1084S Monitor & Blitz Basic 2.1

Derron

@ 3DzForMe
I think syntaxwise there is no big difference between B3D and BMax(NG). Most examples could more or less get converted to BlitzMax (+ OpenB3D or miniB3D or ...).


@ GaborD
Being able to compile on other platforms only sacrifices functionality if you want to provide everything on every platform. Just do a "basics on all platforms" approach and it helps.
Nobody doing (somehow) stuff for NG expects all functions working on all platforms (Mac/Linux/Win + iOS/android/raspi/switch). I know that not all (ancient) hardware support S3Tc ( requiring GL_ARB_texture_compression on the OpenGL side) which is the parent of "DDS" (which is more likely a container than a direct texture format). This is what all the abstraction tries to do: avoid low level contact to the "end developer". So if a platform/hardware does not provide support for eg. "DDS" then the framework should convert to something else (and on debug output this information).

Many of the "casual developers" do not care for "4 times the VRam" as long as it works. So once a project matures there should be the possibility to connect to some inner beings of the frameworks so to optimize stuff or use special framework commands to adjust things to their needs.

Do not judge "BlitzMax(NG)" by comparing it to "Monkey-X" or big-player-projects like "Unity" with their "code once, run everywhere"  attitude. Think all of us are aware that it won't work a 100% for more complex projects or programmes using advanced techniques.


bye
Ron

Alain

I have to agree BlitzMax NG is here and is what you want basically. Just show him some love :-)

3DzForMe

BlitzMax (NG) sounds like a great product, it's had more recent development than B3d, I have not any experience with BMax (NG), please give it consideration with other 3D engines.
BLitz3D, IDEal, AGK Studio, BMax, Java Code, Cerberus
Recent Hardware: Dell Laptop
Oldest Hardware: Commodore Amiga 1200 with 1084S Monitor & Blitz Basic 2.1

Madjack

I had a look at AGK tier 1, which is the equivalent of Blitz3d I suppose, but compared to BlitzMax, it ran like a snail.
Reading the fine print I see it's interpreted not compiled.

Steve Elliott

#58
Yeah I see AGK as a good 2D option, but for 3D Games it's a half arsed attempt.  For extra speed you can use Tier 2 and use C++ though.
Win11 64Gb 12th Gen Intel i9 12900K 3.2Ghz Nvidia RTX 3070Ti 8Gb
Win11 16Gb 12th Gen Intel i5 12450H 2Ghz Nvidia RTX 2050 8Gb
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Win10/Linux Mint 16Gb 4th Gen Intel i5 4570 3.2GHz, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 2Gb
macOS 32Gb Apple M2Max
pi5 8Gb
Spectrum Next 2Mb

Kryzon

#59
Godot looks sexy:
https://godotengine.org/features
(Lol my autocorrect named it "Goody" instead of Godot)

Oh, and remember Shiva?
http://www.shiva-engine.com/features192/
It's still going.