Who is the 3dgs built game Target??

Tell you the truth I have always had a low GPU system, my last 2 PC's used the Intel HD on-board system. I hate trying to find games on Steam. Some many awesome games I just can't run...
This engine is gold for producing games that can run on PC's that are 8gb ram and Intel HD. I can not be alone in being locked out of the 90% of PC gamers with killer rigs. If Steam is 2 Million users and 10% are like me, then there is a 200,000 user base that is dying for 3dgs built games.

Anyways

*Bump

Anyone - What are you target audiences? I personally think building a FPS-Shooter with 3dgs is foolish. However this is still a great engine that runs on almost any Windows system these days. We have seen a few releases these last months and they are all smart ,creative games that do not try to eclipse the EU4 Shooter machine.

As a group, what kinds of games and audiences should we be targeting?

Only because you dont know the engine 100%... If a person wanted to use low res graphics to style their game and with optimal code, why not?

It all depends on your own ability to create a game. I could personally, and easily create a low res fps and market it to people with low end rigs with this engine... Once my friend figures out shaders a bit more, we will likely start something.



Basically anything you can possibly create, can be targeted at any audience with the right marketing tact.

you can make very bad performance games with 3dgs easily... simple low quality levels run fast, but as you increase level and rendering complexity, performance falls rapidly... you so have to write and optimize for your particular game everything by yourself, that can make development longer than expected.

@sivan - I plan to keep all my work simple as I would use UE4 for any heavy project. However I would love if you could tell us about the optimization issues and give us insight into how much work that would be for a simpler programmer like me.

Yes, optimization is a really important step. I think most big-name games have a selection of different quality levels that you can use to get the best performance.

Creating a user menu with different screen sizes, texture size, detail level for models, whether to use shaders, shadows etc... is an important step in any serious game production.

Also, some of the built in functions like "camera.clip_far" and LOD (Levels of Detail) are critical things for getting any game to run smoothly. I think 3DGS is actually a very powerful engine, but it does not do these things for you automatically.

Also, the way you write your code can have an impact on your game too. I am not an expert in this area, I basically taught myself lite-c by trial and error, but I'm sure some of the more advanced programmers on the forum could explain further.

probably I could...

Well this idea is extremely theoretical as people nowadays rarely accept a DirectX7 level of graphics quality. So it may be true that the absolute minimum requirements 3DGS has are lower than for e.g. UE4. That's not some Acknex optimization magic though but simply the absence of many features. Just try to apply normal maps to all of your surfaces (which modern internal GPUs can handle just fine) and start to welcome practical and performance problems in 3DGS. I mean it in theory is not impossible to create a game that consists just of some textured polygons with a little bit of lighting. But practically speaking it's going to be very difficult to actually convince people of such a level of quality...

I mean even two-man-shows like those simulator games (that sell very well) use all kinds of advanced shader work and other techniques (as e.g. managing seamlessly driving your bus through an entire city otherwise would be a performance nightmare). The same goes for those horror games that pop up since Slenderman entered the fray. Going lower also means looking worse than most 3D smartphone games. That's why I don't see a market for games on an ultra low technical level. It's not that a modern engine is slow - they enable you to use advanced features at a fantastic performance and with this I don't mean just "luxury" features like tesselation but simple shader or lighting work. Things like that have become a no brainer today and e.g. applying normal maps gives a huge improvement in visual quality while costing very little performance - even on modern iGPUs. A halfway modern version of those things even can run BF4 flawlessly with 30-40 fps. That's why I don't think there'll be many that will take a downgrade to BF1942 graphics without a grain of salt...

So if you're really aiming at the 8GB IntelHD customers still go for a modern engine rather than 3DGS. Or maybe switch to the mobile smartphone market entirely as you have many chances to target those people as well as others here. With a modern engine you even could target both the smartphone and PC crowd via multiple publishing options - this sounds like the best option to me...

@Toast - Thanks for the reply and information. I know for a fact that UE4 choke my system on anything but very low settings. I have to hunt for games on the Steam Store that are very dated. I can run Borderlands 2 on medium at 1080, otherwise I'm out of luck for new content. I see the current releases from this engine and even the contest games and I think of all the people I know who can and would play these games. I see windows 8-10 moving to mobile and tablet spaces where a dedicated GPU card will not be an option.

LOl in the end thank you for the reply and I may be holding on to hope. I though it was a simple matter of being held to the DirectX9 base. However, now that you guys are talking about the inefficiency of the engine, that is a new issue.

, I thought that was the main issue (okay maybe the tools are...). Still if you don't go for huge amount of polygons and the most advanced shaders, you can still get good results. That's why I agree with this -> "I personally think building a FPS-Shooter with 3dgs is foolish." cause many commercial fps's require high poly models and good shaders to look good (cause of the close camera). Low poly models are easier to get right.

I would say that target audiences for professional/commercial games mainly are audiences that want: creative games (puzzle games etc.), 2d games?, simulation games (not the city ones), rpg (with isometric or top-down/zoomed out camera), possible rts (if you are good with ai), turnbased, arcade games (remake of classics etc.). Perhaps space games too cause they tend to have less props/objects and so are less heavy?

Ugh. Another one.



Your saying that people will only buy an fps if it has great graphics. But graphics are not all that matter anymore. And Minecraft Comes to mind.. Its the most successful computer game ever made - and its mainly played in first person...



So basically anything with a 'more complex' design, and requires less graphics. .. Sounds like minecraft again.

All I'm saying is it's been done.
Im not saying that minecraft can easily be created with this engine.. and it has already been reproduced and that framework works very well... but a good fps can be created with this engine with low res graphics and an appeal-able game-play.. or even mid sized graphics and be a commercial game.

Its all in how its programmed, guys.

,

, I meant to say fps shooters. Plus I see minecraft more as a creative game.

, + many more games, those genres are listed are nothing to scoff at. Like rpg, that's a very popular genre.

, ofcourse some people could create top-notch fps games with the engine, but why would you when other engines are far better for that role?

I guess The only thing stopping me is I don't have 2000 bucks for that yet

Well having subpar graphics only works when you have an idea that makes up for this. Minecraft is such an example as this game is pretty much impossible to do with any engine out in the field as you want voxels rather than polygons. So you trade-in rather crappy graphics for a gameplay that wouldn't otherwise be possible...

Apart from that we shouldn't talk about such phenomena. Otherwise we all would come done to "Flappy Bird" complexity of gameplay as this obviously seems to be sufficient...

In my opinion what one needs is a sufficient technical basis for your game. 3DGS rarely has what one would expect as a minimum though plus with the recent developments in engine licensing costs there's little left that should hold you here ... which also is why this forum has seen a more and more diminishing activity over the past few years. Being able to code in Lite-C means you have a good understanding of a C-like language in general so just go ahead and pick an engine of your choice - it's not like things have culminated in just one engine to go for all with alienating scripting languages. You'll also find solutions to appease gamers with limited GPU capabilities - you don't need to stick to a bare bones, pretty much a decade behind (its editors even more like two decades behind) engine like 3DGS for these kinds of customers...

I mean it's not like I'm trying to say creating a successful game with 3DGS is impossible but for the general kind of user I see no reason to stick to 3DGS. Even finding an exception to this where 3DGS might be the better option is very hard to do. It's pretty much just childhood memories which hold this engine & this forum together...

LOL

But seriously, There is potential with this software. Yes, you need to dedicate yourself to something, (a lot more) to figure it out as compared to other engines that cost lots and almost do everything for you -- But as a starter engine to prepare you for the other engines, this is a good place to start, imo. (and 3dgs is free)

If you can create the tools for yourself (like a decent map editor) and can live with the fact that it is harder to create top-notch graphics games and that it is windows only with this engine, it still is a good engine. It is stable (for me atleast), I like the documentation (everything in 1 manual and to the point descriptions) and there's alot of stuff to find on this forum. Plus it is actually quite flexible (though too much cpu eating for an support/utility? program or such however).

, agreed, I liked the lite-c tutorial in that regard.

Besides all performance problems Acknex might or might not have (other engines possibly make it just more difficult for the user to bog them down) during runtime...

...the problem is and long time has been: the workflow.
You don't really want to work with those editors in 2015. That was okay like... 1995?

hehe, in an UE4 tutorial video, the unlit mode is called as 1999 editor mode (like WED/MED) fortunately we have MapBuilder

Also those other engines are all free to use now...

Hi,

I bought two games made with 3d gamestudio:
- Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer
- Ardennen Offensive (Asylum games)

The first game is for kids, the second one is a WWII FPS.
Those games made it into the large stores in Germany as boxed Versions.

You asked who the Target is?
Find your niche market and create your game.

If it is an educational game, a regular time killer, a puzzle, ... - who cares?

Find your niche, write your documents, create a demo and find someone who likes your idea and thinks that you and your team are able to finish this project.


And don't forget to have fun