But, Milo, I think its clear that this engines development is being done by a small part time team, and thus the cost of using the technology is cheap (dirt cheap!).
Agreed, the price point is fantastic, considering the capabilities of the engine, the languages that it supports, and how well it's structured.
To one person the inclusion of a media engine, or a networking engine may be paramount to their project and here they have a few choices: write one, wait for one, find a workaround, or move on.
That analogy isn't valid. TV3D's developers have long made it crystal clear that it isn't a game engine (though it can be used for that purpose). It's a graphics engine, and I expect it to support the basics in
that regard. Clearly, the developers themselves see the merit in this, as they've seen fit to support old versions of Maya, knowing that exporters are crucial to a client's ability to evaluate the product. Why not the newer versions, though? (Heck, at least network and media support are in the cards, which is more than I can say for up-to-date Maya exporters.)
If you think that this engines focus is one of supporting the latest and greatest modelling app this year, then unfortunately you're mistaken, and I wouldn't have thought this will change any time soon (unfortunate for all of us).
Maya 2K8 came out
last year (almost one year ago, in fact), not this year -- and Maya 8.5 has been out for
two years. It stands to reasons that a lot of people will be using the latest versions, now that they've been
out for one to two years. Why are TV3D's developers cutting off big chunks of potential customers by limiting support to a version of Maya that's three years old? The least they could do is provide source code for their exporters (as other developers do), if they aren't going to provide the MLL files.
As this is probably a requirement for your project, can I suggest you perhaps find an engine that has more of a focus on providing support for your modelling app of choice,
If I can't convince TV3D's developers to provide us with plug-ins for the latest versions of Maya (or source code for the exporters), I'll do that. I'm not quite ready to give up, though.
or help the community and write one your self.
That's a big project, and therefore a last resort. Let me know where I can get the TVA and TVM file specs.
Or perhaps bitch and moan to the makers of maya that they provide you with a decent .X file export facility (since your a paying customer i presume) as this would surely be 'Basic Functionality' of any modeling app.
I already have a DirectX exporter. As I wrote elsewhere, going the DirectX route greatly increases production time, and is apparently much more error-prone than using TVA files.
What has been suggested and implied in other posts by the development team is that the engine may (one day) support the file formats that are emerging as cross-platform and transportable (such as collada). This is where I would prefer the small team to spend their limited energy rather than compiling an app for (i would guess) a fairly small population of the community that happen to use the same version of maya as you do (and then one for every other iteration of modelling software).
It isn't a question of their energy reserves. It takes literally a couple of minutes to compile a plug-in for a new version of Maya (unless there has been some drastic change in the Maya API that affects the TVM/TVA exporters, which I very seriously doubt). I know this from my own experience authoring Maya exporters and other types of tools.
I think they're well aware where their product has holes, and don't need some demanding 'beta tester' (the least offensive term I could think of...) reminding them of this at regular intervals.
Like I wrote before, if they'd just come out and say that they have no plans to support Maya 2K8 or 8.5, that would satisfy me. That would make it much easier for me to make a decision about whether I should stick with TV3D or totally jump ship.
I don't expect Sylvain and company to jump on command, but I do think that letting your customers (actual and potential) know where you stand is common sense (assuming you care whether they stay or go). If I had 2K8 exporters, or the source code, or if I was told that either of the two were coming, I would have bought a license by now.
