Yes, I think shadow mapping was a target for A7.

Hiya.

I find this...tantalizingly interesting. It all sound good, but here's what I *really* want...

(NOTE: This is my "Ultimate 3D Game Engine Wish List", as of today...I don't expect all of it, or even most of it,...but the more the better! ).

1. Rivers with physics (re: Torque3D)

2. Roads with automatic terrain deformation if desired (re: Leadwerks Engine)

3. Destructable vegetation/objects (re: Torque3D with Sickhead Games 'forest add-on' stuff...see 'South Pacific' demo).

4. File structure is "change aware" and drag-and-drop (re: Unity 3d)

5. Terrain import for all the latest and greatest (re: importing from GROME II, GeoControl, PnP Terrain Creator, etc.), as well as some serious in-editor/game terrain manipulation and painting tools.

6. General "ease of use" (re: Unity3d)

7. Advanced rendering options (re; Leadwerks, ShiVa)

8. Easy scripting capabilities (re: A7)

9. Ability to script in other languages (re: LUA, C#, VB, Ruby, etc.)

10. Integration capability for IDE's (re: Visual Studio)

11. EVERYTHING real-time in editor, making full use of GPU's, multi-core, and SLI.

12. A Bajillion Import/Export format's (re: uh...too many to list...just look at the import/export list for something like Milkshape, or UltimateUnwrap3d...then double it...;) ).

13. Plug-ins for #12, to the most popular 3d and 2d packages (re: Lightwave, XSI, 3DSMAX, Maya, Blender, ZBrush, 3D Coat, Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Paint.NET, GIMP, etc.)

14. Sky rendering with volumetric clouds, time of day, and atmoshperic effects

15. Environmental effects galor (re: snow, wind, lightning, rain, hail, ash, gerbils, etc.)

16. Ability to "package" a group of settings and common items so we can re-use them in other games/levels, etc. (re: "prefabs" that can include environment settings, groups of objects, sounds, textures, or even entire folders with contents).

Well, that's the gist of it. So...how close can A8 come to that?

PS: At least a semi-reasonable price...no $30,000 price tag, please, but $3,000...sure!

@ Paul L Ming: You can do most stuff all by yourself.
And the general "ease of use" like in unity 3d has a dark side effect too. It kinda limits the possibilities and your workflow. That is one of the reasons why i dont use unity 3d that much. Because i simply dont like the workflow.

Btw. 2k posts =)

Hiya.

Yup, I suppose I could. All I need is about, say, $80,000 to pay my living expenses for a few years, maybe another $20,000 to pay for tuition at a decent university, and the ability to travel back in time after I spend a few years learning how to program in C++ or whatever so I can watch my daughter grow up.



Being *able* to "do most stuff by yourself" assumes someone has all the required knowledge and skills. I don't. I'm an artist. I can model, sculpt that model in 3d, UV unwrap, create texture, bump, normal, specular, luminance and whatever other maps I need, rig it, and animate it. But I can't program in HLSL, C++, or Assembly, and the only thing I really know about "quaternion mathematics" is that it sounds cool. It's like telling a professional programmer "Hey, why don't you just whip up your own low-poly character with high-poly normal maps, textures, and bones, then animate it? Spend some time designing a simple outdoor town, texture it all, light it, etc., and then you can test your code."

Sorry, I don't mean to sound flippant...but the gist of it is this: I think you missed my point. That point is, simply, that I would pay good money for someone else (re: Conitec) to do all that programming stuff for me...I'll supply the art and ideas.

It's a must have today to have a shader driven rendering part and it facilitates so many things even for addditional plugins or user contribution, because most good tutorials are written for the shader driven approach. I think such things are more important than some specific details. Specific details could be add by the developer with the time. But the engine needs a real good and easy base architecture. Of course some things are really obvious requested now as the whole indie scene made some moves which are irreversible and people normaly tend to acclimate with the benefits they found in other software they used. I think think now with this announced changes they made some good steps forward. I'm not convinced if its enough for buying it especially for new users, but good choices to replace the physic engine with physx and porting Enet to this engine. and take the right time to implement it, so the stress with bug fixing not overruns the development per se.

ABSOLUTLY AWE INSPIRING POST...
You said it all...
Ain't this stuff a bitch...
There's always something next to learn...
Crap...

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm in your post?

Hi,

Great news. What for DX Version will by used ? (DX 9, 10, 11 or all three). And gives a 64 Bit Version of A8?

Bye

White_Wolf

i trust to conitec. There is very big difference between a6 and a7. So i think there will be very big difference between a7 and a8. I think, Jcl did not explain all the innovations of a8.(what about directx[9?-10?]) Nevertheless, there are great new features as him write, except for two things (IMHO);

*Realtime shadowmapping is not a great innovation. This is necessary. Sorry for bad language but stencil shadow is crap, very very crap. Year 2010 and realtime shadowmapping is necessary.
*PhysX is necessary too. We talked about new physic engine 2 years ago. * *
I think,these two features(or just realtime shadowmapping) should be in a7.

Apart from these, i did not spend thousands dollars for A7, and i am very glad with it. So, i am eagerly waiting for A8.

Btw, i'm waiting for the next a7 update. i need sv_info. Please Jcl, hurry up!
---
Sorry for my bad english.

This list is not really exciting at all... Sorry to say that.

For me it is really improtant that the editors get improved (mainly GED!). To say it in general: GED goes into the right direction but it is a) not stable enough and b) needs to be improved with a lot of new features.

So a must have for A8 is a more improved version of GED!

Some features that should be implemented into GED:
- a particle editor
- a good material editor
- a play and pause button for changing the level during testing
- change blocks in realtime
- a plugin interface
- ...

I know that Timo already has some experience with the features listed above because he wrote EasyParticle and already implemented some of the features into GED but I don't know why conitec doesn't want to see this features implemented...