>But I agree, there are some nice small scenes around, made by some skilled >shader programmers. I admire this.
[referring to *.map/*.wmp/3DGS Wed-created with shader scenes...]


I suppose traditional map creation is part of the niche for Game Studio. There are 1000s of *.map based assets (many included as prefabs for free in Wed) that can be utilized in A7 and not in Unity, and the process of creating new ones is one that is easy to get into in Wed. Compare this with say... the inability to build structures in Unity...or building a level in Maya or Max for export to unity. Instead with 3DGS, build your BSP model in WED, light it, and populate it with entity props (with LODs). Make some functions/actions to attach to entities. Slap a skybox in if you have to. Set your clipping plane as close as possible and you've got a fast level in 3DGS/possibly a finished game. That will be good enough for many. 3DGS just needs to showcase the ease that this can be done.

I think a lot of what can be done with 3DGS simply hasn't. [I'm talking about we users here/3DGS potential to be used to make something cool. I know a lot of cool stuff has been done-- just talking about potential.] It does need better marketing and presentation.

I would be cautious about everyone jumping on the bandwagon of complex shaders
in PC games. The average PC user has a 5 year old computer. Shader tech limits your target market, increasing game dev time and skills required, increases file size reducing feasibility for digital downloads and taking dev time away from gameplay.
I've started work on a simple single player FPS, and I'm avoiding shader use. I hope to opt for a distinctive style. We'll see...just working on art assets now.

Switching gears back to scene management/culling:
Unity has a far camera and a near camera. It has the ability to leave a gap between the two. This has interesting implications for culling. If you're in a valley, you could see distant building tops peaking over the hills, but ignore the geometry in the valley just over the hill. Perhaps this would be easy to add to 3DGS...

I think for everyone a healthy attitude is to see the engines more as various tools in a tool box and less as racers trying to win a race. Is FPS Creator beinq squashed by Game Studio? No, they're just different tools. Ask yourself a similar question about 3DGS and Unity.

/signed

Although I must admit I messed around with Unity for a bit and I love the workflow: Having native access to .blend and .psd in the editor is great, doubleclick on a resource and the respective program starts or loads the file if it was running anyway.

There are many similar tools compared to WED. The Torque users have Constructor to create this kind of block geometry and calculate static shadows.
Torque 3D got a new "sketch" tool to draw 3d geometry.

In C4 you also can build primitives in the level editor, change mapping and add materials to them. The demo level is mainly build with the help of these.

And then there are tons of map-creating tools.

Regarding shaders:
This is the wrong approach to not include shaders to support older machines. C4, Unity, Torque 3D and other engines use a way to render on older machines with a downgraded version of the shader set. And you even dont have to care, you put in your diffuse texture, your normal and spec texture and the system will decide how or if they will be used on the machine of your customer.
The Source engine (Half Life 2) even has branches for different DirectX versions.

I agree with you, that a developer should not care about shaders. We should not be forced to write shaders for each situation (1 light, 2 lights, with or without lightmap, with or without fog, with or without environment map, with or without emission map, parallax etc.). This should be generated by an intelligent shader system in the background.

And this is how C4, Unity, T3D and others work. You just plugin your textures and change some properties and the shader will be created and will run, no matter what platform you are running on.

And if you want to go past that, or mainly get to know how exactly it works in the background, A7 is perfect What I want to say, is that I don´t always want to create a great game, but to have fun while experimenting with technology and to learn new things.

That actually is a pretty bad argument. If you want to experiment and find out how things work and "learn new things" 3DGS probably is one of the worst pieces of software you could choose with "no source code" probably being the major flaw...

In order to learn how tech works etc. go for e.g. Ogre or Irrlicht to get a playground for free or buy something where you have access to the source code...

I hope you didn't want to point out that the behaviour described by Machinery_Frank is a downside because it actually saves every dev from reinventing the wheel in order to get some common effects...

No. Of course open-source projects are better for learning absolutely everything about engine development, but that doesn't make 3DGS bad.

A7 provides an excellent environment for shader programming. A7 suffers from the requirement to re-invent the wheel, but that's only if you want the wheel in the first place. Shader-wise, A7 gives a tremendous amount of freedom, including automatic stepping down for older systems.

I'm not ignoring the fact that A7 could definitely use a better automatic shader system for those who don't want to write any, and just want effects that are common today. That's a clear and definite downside to A7.

That's a clear and definite plus to Unity.

For us shader programmers, A7 is brilliant. I remember when I bought Commercial for the first time and thought to myself, "Shaders? Well if I've got this feature I might as well see if I can use it!" One shader workshop later and I'm making my own effects however I want.

These days I invent my own effects for the purpose of experimentation (as other users here do as well), and sometimes stumble across something that's useful in an actual game for today's/yesterday's hardware.

Jibb

Shaderprogramming with gamestudio is just a lot of fun actually
And no, Toast, I of course see the benefits of not having to always reinvent the wheel, I just wanted to mention that at least I sometimes love to reinvent the wheel. But as I also want to finish some projects, I of course also enjoy using other Tools, like for example Unity (I am currently getting into it a bit deeper due to some project). I also worked with ShiVa, even though I can´t really say that I would prefer it over gamestudio. And to reinvent the wheel on a none shader basis, I of course wrote a 2D iPhone engine with OpenGL ES and a 3D Linux/Windows Engine using OpenGL including an awsome shadersystem (just like the one of Gamestudio, but better of course :P).
But I am sure that I am not the only one here for whom the way often already is the goal. But if you are more an artist than a programmer, you of course want a game engine which makes it as easy as possible to create your game idea including fancy effect without having to care on how it actually works.
But well, I am just repeating myself. Unity is awsome for what it is, no question.

What I believe for 3dgs to shine really is DJBMASTERS work and a FAR BETTER HOMEPAGE that actually demonstrates the usefullness of this engine with pretty demos such as Hummels recent work right in the front page.

I've seen this homepage since f00king 2001 I think, it's a digitally bought software. If the homepage fails so does the interests, sales and the manpower.

About Unity, C# shines over Lite-C / C++ of 3DGS anyday, I feel alot more productive. This is ofc my opinion only.

And Unity is alot more artist and designer friendly and importing assets alone is amazing.

My primary point is that use of the best shader tech provides challenges from the perspective of a small developer trying to finish a product. If you make a million poly model to get your normal map for every prop (text book method), in a small team you're in for some trouble. The general public has no idea what a shader is. They're looking for game play that lets them forget about troubles.

I worked with Constructor using TGEA. GG dropped portals/BSP in TGEA (coming from TGE)-- not sure what happened or what is going on with interior rendering with current Torque 3D. Constructor is an app made not by the GG team and took a long long long time to come out.

C4 and Unity primitives might be useful, though they're not BSP.

My general point is that, you can easily select the tool that you need to do the job, but you must also be careful of the job that you are trying to do.

I think a healthy attitude too is that it's a great time in the industry-- so much going on.

@DarkInferno :
oh, and that island demo by unity is easily doable in 3dgs

Yeah , but you will nerver do it as fast.
- direct import in Unity for orcks and trees from Blender
- terrain and multitexturing , all in one : no need to swicth to another editor or search/apply shaders.
-simple shaders like normal map : just select the normal texture and apply it and select the normal map shader in the shader list : in 3DGS it's a headacke each time
- several camera systems to choose already made : just choose one and drop it in the scene : Yeha Unity drag and drop features are powerfull !
- You can use C# instead of their Javascript !

etc ...


Perhaps you can do it in A7, but even a newbbie with a step by step tutorial will do it easily in Unity , without having to use several tools (like MED, SED ,WED, GED) : all in one !


Well just my point of view after having played with these two engines.
Unity is so much advanced and today interface design, not comparable in terms of workflow.

I recognize A7 is great for programmers, little games and beginers, and skilled people can achieve some good things.