Do you mean the new 3.0 version ? I suppose
Good to know
I said I did not make any comparative test
Actually I did one
20 or so animated characters , about 4000 tris each on a blank screen
3DGS frame rate was still acceptable while DXSTUDIO was a disaster
The gap was impressive particulary with shadows
Such poor performance can not depend on scene management issues
Probably a bad programming which now have been fixed

what do you think of this engine compared with a7?

its has a great editor, cool scripting, lots of features..

a7 also have great features but a bad scripte editor... without auto-code-completion. this is the thing i am missing very much..

did anybody compare Shive, DX studio and A7?
i am looking for a great solution for me..

i am a code and want to program a lot. therefore i need a good editor and a good engine

I defintly agree with you about the scripting editor and the workflow in general, as well
The weak points of dxstudio are:

speed
importer

for the former item, it seems that dxstudio has improved a lot, see gri's post
I just tested an old realese and it was definitly slow
for the latter one they seem to ignore the problem but it is a serious one
It is a pain to import even the most common file format

in september will come a new release...

i am really unsure what to use...

damn

A7 has great features and a good api. the biggest disadvantage is the missing intellisense... perhaps i should wait until the c# wrapper is available...

i really dont know what to buy

ah and another big + of A7... tons of docs..

my suggestion
Stability, efficiency and documentation deserve top priority
For the time being I would go for A7
However I understand your point
I am studying in these days XNA 2.0
Intellisense ,as you call it, It is really a pleasure
The c# wrapper for A7 should come asap
If Unity will be available also for PC and DXSTUDIO removes some flaws than it would make little sense to stick to 3dgs even for programmming oriented people ,not to mention the artists

Alberto.. you are totally right...
i also wait for unity but this will take some more time..

i asked the guys from A7 when the c# wrapper will be available.. but they dont know it...
i have to admit regarding the docs point.. and so far: a7 has the best docs, tutorials and a great community... but the most thing i miss is a great code editor ( i am a c# coder)

ah damn.. i dont know what to do... why are three (for me) good engines available *gg*

I hope the terrain is include in the free edition of DXStudio 3.0. Terrain editing is the weak point in GS.

Why? You can make your terrains in your favorite modeler application instead. I have little problems with terrains. I've got plenty of problems with the overall lighting of the engine though. Getting it to look nice is quite difficult if you're not using bsp blocks and so on.

DX studio is a fantastic engine. i have been using it for a good few months now. As to the comments about importing, this has me baffled.... and i have never had one problem importing hundreds of objects, in fact thousands of objects literally. Not one posed a problem. The animation system is very cool too, and with ease i could easily import multiple animations and merge them onto my imported character.

As to speed, i personally think dx studio runs very nicely, with large scenes.



Normal mapping and lighting wise, ive never scene an engine quite like it, it renders beautifully.

Steve

although I do like the Lite C scripting in 3D Game Studio, as well the Interface-Ide in Torque
in general some of these game engines, game authoring tools and hybrid combinations are a pain and difficult to code in and work with. Steep learning curves for the beginner and documentation that is either obtuse and esoteric. Or even tutorials and samples for the beginner are few and hard to find.
There are definitely other reasons too.

So, I'm learning to code and program in Play Basic. And then later on will go back to Python and even get back into Cobra.
Definitely will look into XNA too.

I do sense however, that some people, companies, software houses, publishers, teams, indies are getting more into these game authoring systems/game engines with little or minimal coding to produce all sorts of games and other multimedia aplications.
Perhaps, I should learn and get onboard myself with a few of these authoring systems too.
A few that I have seen are Silent Walk FPS, the WinterMute Engine, Raycast Dream Engine and even the FPS Creator from the gamecreators..known for their Dark Basic and also DBPRO.