Interesting Thread. I'll add to it from a more experienced view rather than just a "I peeked at it for an hour" view which would sum up the majority of the posts.
First the regular edition of 3ds is not 80$, nor is the professional $199. The regular is $49 and the professional is $899. The comercial edition is $199.
Generally to do anything serious your need the $199 comercial edition. The pro edition offers some things the comercial edition lacks but nothing that can't be done with either free plug-ins are low cost plug-ins. For instance if you want physics on more than one item you use Newton physics which is free. You want a multi-serveronline RPG you really better off using populace as t's even better than the system in the pro edition.Raeally what the pro edition offers is a comercial product without the requirment to display the A6 logo for 1 sec at start up.
And unlike a lot engines who gander on about features A6 actually has finished funtional games that use these features that have actually seen the light of day. As an example here's a online RPG that is not half bad for free using 3dgs:http://www.eternal-lands.com/
Can anyone provide a simular link for TV3d or one that's even an offline rpg?
Think about that because the bottom line is when you pick an engine you hope to produce a finished release product that is stable. When I look at engines I look at that first. Not a feature list. Next I look at ease of use that matches the team I Have. If I lack technical members and C++ coders and mostly have artists and animators I'm looking at engines that have simplified scripting language and not ones relying on complex languages that take years to get productive in. It's just not practical.
In fact I would absolutely hate to code a complex RPG game in C++ or Visual basic even if I knew both very well as the code management would be a nightmare. In script languages for instance level jumping is handled globally with about 50 lines of code. In an RPG where entering a house may very well be another level this is extremely advantagous. Your going to have 100s of levels. Level jumping in C++ however is much different. There are no automatic pointers or other features that scripting has. You essentially copy the entire level code and change the level names. Times this by 200 or 300 levels and you got code as thick as a bible, and fail to clear one variable your get an engine crash. Good luck finding it. An in engine console would help for testing of course, Which A6 has. Does TV3d? And you haven't even got to inventory, player biped, quests, day and night cycles, pathing, A.I. and a host of other things. This is why you do not see too many finished projects that are complex with engines that do not have a scripting language. They'll show you a couple simple 3d shooters. Teams on an INDY level try countless times while uuu-ing aand awing about engine features until they code themselves into a corner and the project dies. Thus the fact you can script in 3dgs is a huge plus over TV3d hands down.
Another plus when looking at engines. Ease of use. With a team of artists this is a paramount concideration. Artists do level work like painters paint. Not in code, but visually and on one canvas. 3dgs allows this to completion be it creating the geometry, texturing, lighting the level, applying particle effects and yes even shaders. With mouse clicks. Right clicks ajust the elements and varibles. It doesn't stop there. NPC placement and pathing are all still done on the same canvas inside the world editor--and all without a single line of code done by the artist. When he hands off his level to the coding team it's done. Does TV3d do this?
Yes the editor is somewhat old world. But it is very powerful. Anything DiretX 9.c has it can do. The scripting tool is tied into the editor, and console feature in the running engine allow easy script testing. It's a subset of C++ and very powerful, modular and compact for easy code management. Doing anything complex this is paramount. Does TV3d do this?
People knock the modeler MED. Why? s it lacking? not really. It just lacks the 'auto click' features of high cost modelers like MAX. Here a button press does lot of things automatically. In MED you can get th same results, it's just your have to do the work. That's really the difference in a nutshell. Own Max and know it? Then use it. There's importers for every modeling program out there from Max, lightwave, Wings, Milkshape and Blender. You want to create your levels ad import them? WED imports map files, go ahead. or use maya or MAX : here's two plug-ins:
http://www.maya-to-3dgs.com/http://www.malabar.tv/max2gs2.htmA lot knock the BSP culling system. Sure it's old hat. But it renders extremly fast. It great in underground levels. It's great because you get good results on old systems.And recenty in 6.40.5 Occlusion Culling has been added and octree is in beta. Decent outdoor levels are possible, you just need to know what your doing. There's nothing stopping you from saving the level in .wmp file format and using MED to convert the whole level to a model. You simply have to flag the model in WED for polygon detection and use c-trace and c-move in your player biped scripting. And these model levels render instantly and I have achieved 60 FPS with 500,000 polys in view without any LOD added yet, Which by the way is also built in the engine ready to use. (In fact the next update will generate the 3 lower poly models from the original automatically.) Does TV3d do this?
This is now my 3rd game project with 3dgs. My other 2 were released and stable. Spam1024 being the biggiest and most downloaded and I never got one single end user complaint related to the engine but rather all driver issues or end user fault. Not one. It's rock stable. Is TV3d?
In the end you want to get done. Low cost engines will always have you compromising on features. All have ups and downs. But in the end if you can't see release day with a finished stable product then I really don't care what the engine you use can do or can't do. It's not a good choice.
This isn't saying TV3d isn't a good choice. I'm just saying without a few programmers and just a team of mostly artists it would likely end in a failed project. INDY teams fail 95 percent of the time. Most times because thier too busy ew'ing and aw'ing to concider any of the above.
The old adage of working at your level is good advice if you want to suceed. You level up skill wise fastest that way too. Jumping over your head in engine choices will almost always end up in frustration and failure. Stay at your skill level and your skills increase faster, and the games you make increase in quality as you go.
Most INDY developers don't understand this. They rush to devmasters and look for the latest and greates in hopes in competing with the big corporate giants. You can't and your not. Focus on the gmeplay, not the pretty pictures. I play more Xcom in dosbox than I do Oblivion. There's a reason for that and it has not a damn thing to do with shaders, particles, culling systems or whatnot.
