Visual 3D Architect

[jfberge]

Anyone got any information on these guys? They're apparently the people behind the nascent Realmforge toolkit, but now are teaming up with the SuvaInteractive engine to create a commercial C#/.NET based game development environment. Suva's engine looks pretty nice, and it includes wrappers and integration for Speedtree, which I've been wanting forever. You can also use the V3DArchitect system with Axiom instead of Suva, though they seem to be discouraging it. Suva supports ODE, so there's also a physics package in the deal.
This sounds like it will be a very nice package. My only concern is cost. It looks like you have to buy a license from these people, then from Suva, and then from SpeedTree if you want to use that bundle. That's a hefty entrance fee. I could probably afford the Visual 3D software and the Suva engine, but I'd be strapped to come up with $10,000 for SpeedTree, unless they could cut me some special deal, or defer payment until my product ships.

[Eric]

I think you will see speedtree support for tv3d 6.5 very soon.  I looked on the suva site, It doesnt really offer anything that TV doesnt and their info on performance made me laugh:

# Performance*
# 200+ FPS with GeForce 6800 using Shader 2.0
# CPU Utilization less than 30%
# Memory footprint less than 75MB
# Ready to play in 10 seconds

those numbers are so subjective to what you are doing it lowers my faith in their company already.

[darqSHADOW]

That is rather funny, Eric.

# 200+ FPS with GeForce 6800 using Shader 2.0

Hm, maybe I should post that I can achieve 6000 fps on my GF7800 with 6.5.  

DS

[AriusMyst]

This might sound like a stupid question. But surely you can hook speedtree in to any engine, given that it is numerical. What do you guys mean by "support" ?

If you mean that I will be able to use it in 6.5 without paying the 8k, great. But i'm guessing thats not what you mean.  

[darqSHADOW]

SpeedTree has already been integrated into 6.5 by multiple people.  And no, there will not be a discount for SpeedTree through us.

DS

[AriusMyst]

SpeedTree has already been integrated into 6.5 by multiple people.  

DS

Yea, this is why I don't understand what Eric means by "support". :s

Hell, should be possible to use it with 6.2.  

[Eric]

well there were a few kinks that needed to be worked out to get speedtree working properly in 6.5 but the word support was i guess poorly chosen.

[AriusMyst]

Ahh I see. I was just a little confused.  

[Jermaine]

Visual3d is going to rock!

[Borys Pomianek]

Visual3d is going to rock!

And you base that on what ?

BP

[jfberge]

SpeedTree has already been integrated into 6.5 by multiple people.  

Yea, this is why I don't understand what Eric means by "support"

I code C#. To use Speedtree in my environment, I'd need to write an Interop wrapper in C++ that exposes the methods/properites to C# and translate between any different data types the two use. Then I'd need to figure out any incompatibilities between the vertex data Speedtree and TV use. I'm sure there are also various gotchas along the way. But yeah, I'm sure it sould be done.
 The Suva engine wrapps Speedtree natively, much like TV 6.5 wraps Newton. You don't need to make low level calls to the Newton API, or coordinate the relationships between the world models and the physics bodies. You just make calls to the TVPhysics object. I'm guessing Suva will have a "SuvaSpeedtree" object in a similar fashion.

[Jermaine]

just the features that going to be in the engine.
well atleast what they say going to be in the engine

[Frost]

realmforge looked pretty good even though it was a bit buggy when i tested it.. right now you can throw at me hundreds of engines that u need to pay for but ill be still saying that TV3D is the best.

Jermaine.. learn not to believe everything you read.. Torque is supposed to have a lot of features but half of them dont work.. and the ones that work are buggy as hell..

[Frost]

# Performance*
# 200+ FPS with GeForce 6800 using Shader 2.0

PS: lol... (sorry for the double post)

[Borys Pomianek]

Well I agree that features often simply dont work in MANY products.

Even more often those features are described and listed like "advanced lighting".
I mean what is advanced lighting ?

Very often you dont get specyfic data but terms like that. They are worth as much as "best engine", "great performance", "easy authoring" and other like that.

The info about performance is completly not worth a single buck but i can understand them puting it there for people like those that ask a lot of questions wanting to get a similar answer on this forums.

Anyway, everything great but its hard to make an opinion out of 2 small screenshots and marketing talk. In time well see i think.

BP

[potato]

I also don't like the fact that I have to shell out just to see if these guys are as good as they claim. I like TV's system where I can play with the libraries and see if they fit to my project before throwing down for a license.

Even the most expensive AAA-level engines out there allow some possibility of potential clients taking their product for a test drive... a developmental tool without a trial is doomed to fail.

[xeonx]

SpeedTree can be licensed conditionally (payment only before you ship, if you end up publishing) for an upfront additional $995 fee.  

I agree, there haven't been a lot of screenshots, but some of the visual development tools are available on the www.Visual3D.net site now.

As for "shelling out upfront" for Visual3D Architect .NET and Suva3D, that's not the case. Once the community technology preview is available (3rd quarter or earlier), both will be freely available for download and evaluation. Actually, free licenses are provided for personal non-commercial use.... kind of a give-back-to-the-community carry over from the open-source days of RealmForge