Beyond Virtual

[spudace]

Seems a good bargain and a direct competitor of TV, plus it's multiplatform and has many cool points like the integrated world editor
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Author     Gekido Design Group Inc         
Graphics API    OpenGL    Operating Systems    Windows, Linux, MacOS, FreeBSD, Irix
Programming Language    C/C++    Status    Alpha
Documentation    Yes       
Features    
   General Features    Object-Oriented Design, Plug-in Architecture, Save/Load System, Other:
•    Unlimited world size, designed specifically for large urban environments & Massively Multiplayer (MMO) style games
•    Full Internationalization support for all in-game text & audio (including dual-byte languages such as Japanese, etc)
•    Wide-Screen cutscene support (true wide-screen, not perspective distorted)
•    High Res AVI Export - export uncompressed video from the engine for trailers (or machinima for example), Real-time 3d animation production and much more
•    Customized Installer with full endian support that allows you to 'Develop Once, Deliver Anywhere'. CD-Rom's can share the same Data archives across multiple platforms, reducing installer size requirements (windows, mac, linux etc)
   Scripting    
•    C-style scripting language
•    On-the-fly script reloading for testing
   Built-in Editors    
•    Interactive Camera path editor complete with VCR-style controls, path smoothing (adjust bias for keyframe transitions), time controls, independent camera targeting control, and much more
•    Integrated profiling
•    In-game debugging tools for Collision Meshes, Occlusion, Pathfinding, Object Interaction Zones (used in mission scripting etc), Realtime object placement / adjusting for scripts
   Physics    Basic Physics, Collision Detection, Rigid Body, Vehicle Physics:
•    Fully integrated Object Physics (via the Open Dynamics Engine physics library - integration of other packages is available upon request)
   Lighting    Per-vertex, Per-pixel, Lightmapping:
•    Lightmapping, Normal Mapping, Specular
   Texturing    Basic, Multi-texturing, Bumpmapping, Mipmapping, Projected:
   Scene Management    General, Octrees, Occlusion Culling, LOD:
•    Each object can have unique meshes for collision, occlusion, physical representation and viewable data
   Animation    Keyframe Animation, Skeletal Animation, Morphing, Facial Animation, Animation Blending:
•    Unlimited Animation blending. Animations run on a 'stack' allowing you to smoothly layer as many animations as you require
•    Unlimited Vertex Weighting
•    Full support and Automatic control of Morph Targets for character eyes, breathing, LipSync
   Meshes    Mesh Loading, Skinning, Deformation:
•    Currently supported: Lightwave (.lwo, .lws), 3ds Max (.max), Maya (.ma, .mb), 3d Studio (.3ds), Alias (.obj), Autodesk (.dxf) and many others (.3do, .nod, .raw, etc)
   Special Effects    Environment Mapping, Lens Flares, Billboarding, Particle System, Depth of Field, Motion Blur, Sky, Water, Fire, Explosion, Decals, Fog, Weather:
   Terrain    Rendering:
•    Basic heightfield terrain system
   Sound & Video    2D Sound, 3D Sound:
•    3D Sound Mixing
•    LipSync support for conversations and cinematic dialog
•    Midi, Wav, Ogg Vorbis support
   Artificial Intelligence    Pathfinding, Decision Making, Finite State Machines, Scripted:
•    Create Paths directly in your favorite 3D modeling package
•    Built-in controllers for Traffic, Pedestrians, and other object types, automatically managed by the game engine
   Rendering    Fixed-function, Render-to-Texture, Fonts, GUI:

[billythekid]

website?

[Dan]

I'd hazard a guess http://www.beyondvirtual.com/

[Dead_Zone]

no..it doesnt compete..do you know why? NO .NET language support

[potato]

I can't really tell from their website - are they marketing as a 3D engine or an actual game framework/engine?

[toddhunter]

I think both. To indie developers a game framework/engine and to commercial clients a 3d engine with the source/api etc.

Not a bad way to do it really. Get in with the no-programming crowd and then allow them to upgrade their games witha  commercial license later.

They don't mention a price for this though that I can see.

[Oxygen]

no..it doesnt compete..do you know why? NO .NET language support

I was thinking that too as well as noticing how there was 0 features listed in terms of what it's able to do outside of rendering textured objects & billboards.

[Mixael]

I wasn't able to find any way to try it with out paying for a license.  Did I just not see the way to download a demo of it?

[Rynus_Rein]

sounds to me like an high-end GameMaker

[oconnellseanm]

If you guys download their demo, you won't be impressed.  Plus their editor seems very ametuerish.

[crazy8john]

Their website needs to be updated, and doesn't reflect the current state of BV. It will be updated soon though.
In the mean time, I suggest you check out their forums, as they have tons of stuff in there about it.
The dev team is very active and responsive. They consistently implement suggestions the community gives them very quickly. Recently a few members in the community asked for a way to do detailed terrain textures (as you can see from the website, they needed those). The very next release, just a week or so later, they had a full-fledged terrain editor that allowed this and much more, along with all the other bug fixes and major updates that came that release.
Major updates occur very frequently (isn't that a novel idea!), like every month or less, and always include major feature additions such as entire editing tools, significant graphical effect support (like Bloom, which was also a community-suggested feature implemented in a couple weeks from the suggestion), and comprehensive bug fixes.

The community is also extremely friendly and helpful, including all the engine devs (another novel idea). It's great.

All engine features are accessible via easy scripting. And major features like physics and advanced graphical rendering are extremely easy to add to your game.
For example, all you have to do to add rigid body physics to an object is type a few lines of script:

rigidbody car
collision radius 50
mass 1500

That isn't the actual script, but it really is that easy.

The indie license includes all the features of the engine for $150 and does not require any royalties or limits. The only catch with the indie license is that you don't get the source code. However, the scripting is functional enough that you wouldn't ever need the source code unless you want to rewrite the editors or make major changes like alter the graphics processing in a low-level way. With the indie license you even get all the updates from v1.0 to v1.99 for free.

The tools are powerful enough that making something like the demo on that site would take less than 30 minutes, including the physics, lighting, and all scripting. It'd probably take less than 15 minutes.

The best way to learn more about it is to visit the forums. Go check it out!

[Nelson]

For the same price you can do all that AND more. I'd stick with TV3D..[/quote]

[Rynus_Rein]

Their website needs to be updated, and doesn't reflect the current state of BV. It will be updated soon though.
In the mean time, I suggest you check out their forums, as they have tons of stuff in there about it.
...
The best way to learn more about it is to visit the forums. Go check it out!

so it actually is a high-end GameMaker.

[newborn]

Their website needs to be updated, and doesn't reflect the current state of BV. It will be updated soon though.
In the mean time, I suggest you check out their forums, as they have tons of stuff in there about it.
...
The best way to learn more about it is to visit the forums. Go check it out!

so it actually is a high-end GameMaker.

so? theres a market for both world I think. TV3D has its niche, and then theres the rest of them in the other niche.  :wink:

[Raine]

TV3D FTW...


for the win, that is.

[Rynus_Rein]

Their website needs to be updated, and doesn't reflect the current state of BV. It will be updated soon though.
In the mean time, I suggest you check out their forums, as they have tons of stuff in there about it.
...
The best way to learn more about it is to visit the forums. Go check it out!

so it actually is a high-end GameMaker.

so? theres a market for both world I think. TV3D has its niche, and then theres the rest of them in the other niche.  :wink:

Meh I just hate any GameMaker-like stuff, good or not. It's in my DNA .

[Rynus_Rein]

:+
talking about useless posts?

[rootsage]

Yeah, their little tech demo video thing I just checked out is very low quality. It is about some cow in a city. Not impressed at all... I think it is written in OpenGL also, can't be sure though.

[Red Ocktober]

i've been watching this one myself... in spite of the fact that it is still very rough around the edges, i wouldn't write it off so quickly...

and will someone tell me what the heck a dotNET language has to do with anything as far as this is concerned... given the fact that you code the thing in it's scripting environment, what would you need a dotNET language for...

--Mike

[Uglytruth]

Yeah, their little tech demo video thing I just checked out is very low quality. It is about some cow in a city. Not impressed at all... I think it is written in OpenGL also, can't be sure though.

It is OpenGL based, and they seem a bit biased against any MS technology as a default stance, while also not quite having the facts straight. Example: "C# may be okay as a scripting language, but...." I'm ecstatic  to know that  people still feel that way, because we'll beat them to market by two years and have a more stable product in the end.

BV isn't the best thing out there, but it's worth the money. In fact, probably by version 2.0, it will be up there with C4 if you need to target OpenGL to capitalize on the *dozens* of untapped Linux gamers out there.

It is nearly  feature-complete for the price. Physics, sound, GUI, networking (barely-- nothing to build a game on yet), effects, animation, and editors. It has a good camera animation and keyfram recording system built in to the editor. I use it for 3d movies, which it does very well.

The edtitor is workable, but a bit clunky. The worst part for me is the scripting. It's not OOP, for one thing. No debugger. They've only just now added includes. And the supplied editor is essentially Notepad with color. Maintaining a large, commercial project will be very difficult with this system.

Also, be very skeptical about their feature list. "AI support". Sure, if you script it. If you implement your own pathfinding, and then populate your own array of nodes... sure it supports it. By that logic, your Visual Studio  also has AI support. There's nothing built in to the engine to represent this higher-level functionality.

Finally, no shader support at all, and no 2D support at all. No lines, basic line shapes, or sprites.

But for a single hobbiest, student,  or if you just need to whip something up  and try things out, it's worth the $150, and is worth keeping an eye on.