Elgon
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Posts: 61
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« on: January 08, 2005, 10:53:36 AM » |
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Anyone played with PowerRender ? This seems to be a good engine, but without users feedback it's hard to tell. Waiting for your comments. www.powerrender.comElgon |
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MeH
Community Member
Posts: 223
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« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2005, 07:23:52 PM » |
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Power Render 6 Alpha 5 has been released to licensed users, with the following changes:
- Fixed bug in CHR Edit when creating MD2 model textures
- Added CreateSurface and DeleteSurface routines
- Added ChangeRendermethods, RestoreRenderMethods, SaveRenderMethods routines
- Fixed scripting common classes bugs
- Added PRVars class for storing user defined engine variables
- Added Glow example
- Added Depth of Field example
- Added PRConsole Class
- Added GUI Classes
- Added GUI... :lol: I already don't like it... Gotta admit though, the pics are kinda cool. Probably nothing that can't already be done in 6.5, but still cool. I'd give them 1/2 a cookie for effort. :wink: |
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I may contradict myself, but at least I don't contradict myself.
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Eric
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« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2005, 09:48:36 AM » |
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its a very capable engine...although i would say that TV is as fast or faster in every category, and tv is 10x easier to use  |
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tweakbox
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« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2005, 11:40:16 AM » |
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I remember looking at Power Render a while back when I was testing various engines. I don't remember exactly why I decided not to use it though. It was either the cost of a license or ease of use.
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I want to make a puzzle with like 40,000 pieces, and when it's done, it says "Go Outside"
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amadrias
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« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2005, 11:53:02 AM » |
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I have been using PowerRender for several years on my hobby development and I can say that it is one of the best 3d engines available out there...
Even if it has .Net or Delphi wrapper dlls, it is mostly targeting C++ language if you want to get performances and access to the overall features.
It has an excellent documentation and a forum full of answers for any question you may have. The support provided by Chris Egerter (the only developer that built all this!) is excellent even if you may have to wait 1 or 2 days...
PowerRender is mostly a 3d engine and not a game engine. However, it comes with a game engine layer that abstracts most of the common 3d engine, Input and 2d engine tasks. You therefore get a Landscape editor really easy to use that can built outdoor and indoor scenes all compiled on the same resource file.
The only downside of this engine is that it doesn't comes with built in landscape paging system...
Personnally, I really love this engine and the only reason I came to Truevision is the fact that the wrapper for .Net is far better and it follows an object oriented design where PowerRender has more a C coding style therefore more procedural.
My 2 cents...
Amadrias
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potato
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« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2005, 03:03:26 PM » |
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One downside to PR is the licencing costs. If you're a developer trying to put together a mid-sized team with a few coders, you'd have to buy the site licence, which isn't cheap.
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dudeman
Community Member
Posts: 20
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« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2005, 07:43:26 PM » |
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Have it. Had it for 5 years. Learned alot from it. Like it alot. Why am I looking at TV? I agree with what has already been said. PR is a great engine and has some nice tools, and includes source code for those tools. It is largely C and C++ (sort of). It has no physics, networking, or scripting. The next upgrade will include scripting, physics, and .NET compliance. It is very approachable provided you know C and Visual Studio. You have to do some work to get something going though. More so than TV IMHO. As a gaming engine, it may be a little behind the times and TV is going with the latest trends. The TV community is alive and buzzing. The PR community is kind of quiet. Not always a good indicator regarding the use of the engine, but it definitely indicates something. PR can do what you need it to do...but then there is the licensing.
I guess for the most part I've not gone full bore with it because of it's licensing. For $289 I can make all the freeware and shareware I want (and have tech support. $89 w/o). If I want to make a commercial product then it's $1500 per product. If I want to make unlimited products (with source code), then its $8500. While this is not horrible compared to the price of some engines, it still is a bit steep if you are an indie and have limited funding. Of course there are ways around it as you can build your prototype with a low cost license and shop it around to get funding for the full license, but if there are other, richer, cheaper engine alternatives why bother? Just my fifty-two cents.
D
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=Dudeman=
Wexelblat's Software Scheduling Algorithm:
Choose two: * Good; * Fast; * Cheap
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GoodVillain
Community Member
Posts: 1631
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« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2005, 12:20:30 AM » |
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Its a good engine. My 2 cents, its one of the few 3D engines today that can compare to TV3D. However, if I was to take my pick, it would still be TV3D. (Go figure.  ) |
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Eric
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« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2005, 12:26:05 AM » |
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its probably the closest thing out there to tv3d, but it really just cant compete with tv3d's ease of use and multilanguage support (talking about 6.5 here)
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potato
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« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2005, 01:08:53 AM » |
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but if there are other, richer, cheaper engine alternatives why bother? Precisely. TV6.5 offers graphics that are just as good, and with added support for networking and physics (no scripting). PR has an advantage in that it has existing game code (from what I can tell from the website, anyway, I've not actually used PR)... This is indeed a great plus, but considering a commercial licence is TEN TIMES more expensive than an equivalent TV licence, and an unlimited licence is SEVENTEEN times the price... I'll pass. |
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dudeman
Community Member
Posts: 20
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« Reply #10 on: January 24, 2005, 01:16:43 PM » |
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Quote:
>PR has an advantage in that it has existing game code
Such as it is. It's not like it's a full set of optimized game code like Torque. It's more of a hobbyist alpha code version that exist to show you what can be done with the engine from the quick and dirty perspective. In fact, the code examples found in TV are probably just as, if not more informative. So the bottom line is you have decent examples to work from, but not much in the way of a completed game. Not that this is a bad thing, I just would hate for someone to go out and spend the money thinking that all they had to do was make a few code changes, add some art, and presto you have a game. Still, a nice middleware SDK that will have a hard time hanging with TV 6.5 for a number of reasons.
D
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=Dudeman=
Wexelblat's Software Scheduling Algorithm:
Choose two: * Good; * Fast; * Cheap
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azherdev
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« Reply #11 on: April 16, 2006, 05:58:51 PM » |
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Has anyone revisited this engine? Their price model has come inline with TV right now. Few things mentioned here that were lacking have now been added (physics and such). Has any of you who used PR in the past seen the 6.6 version? The only downside is the VS2005 C++ only limitation, but I do C++ and so it is not a burden so to speak. Sorry TV, I love you guys... but 6.5 has been going "open beta" since summer and I really need some of the DX9 power today.  |
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Borys Pomianek
Community Member
Posts: 893
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« Reply #12 on: April 18, 2006, 03:58:41 AM » |
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Has anyone revisited this engine? Their price model has come inline with TV right now. Few things mentioned here that were lacking have now been added (physics and such). Has any of you who used PR in the past seen the 6.6 version? The only downside is the VS2005 C++ only limitation, but I do C++ and so it is not a burden so to speak. Sorry TV, I love you guys... but 6.5 has been going "open beta" since summer and I really need some of the DX9 power today. Actually its been going open beta for like 2 yeers or more ? But then again, look at tse and other like that. They are all still in development. If you want to make a game, work on your art, design and other stuff like that while you wait for the engine. Developing all the art, designing it and the whole creative process takes yeers anyway for a single person or a small team. BP |
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