Yes, I know it's the project that never dies, but never gets much progress either, as what little work I have done for it over the past year has been completely behind the scenes, gathering 3D models and resources, and still searching for Something Better(tm) as far as a development environment.
But, I've made an important decision...yeah, toespecks can do those too, y'know! I've decided to switch over to Blender as the one-stop-shopping tool for the development of Faibanx 3D. I've been toiling for the past year getting models together, yes, but I've also been looking for something better to develop it in. In fact, I've done more research into 3D engines than I cared to.
One thing has been obvious, though...up until now, it's been a complete hodgepodge of tools.
First of all, there's DarkBASIC Professional itself. It's it's own hodgepodge! I think I have no less than 20 "add-on packs" that I've bought for it to do every little function F3D would need...UI, networking, animation support, media support, you name it. Not only has it been costly, it's frankly a pain in the arse, and it also means unless others who want to help on the project wanna shell out for the same crap, I'm a one-man band.
So, over the past year or so, I've been gathering free resources, mainly modeling software. I had picked up and had an interest in Blender years ago, but it honestly didn't offer me that much. trueSpace, my previous favorite modeling program, had died off, but since it was released as freeware by Microsoft (the company who bought and then closed them down), I still kept it around as a possible modeling suite of choice. This brings up the other main problem -- modeling formats. Jesus, is that #1 headache. I've got tons of 3D model resources and animations in ever file imaginable...so trueSpace will handle this and that format sooooorta well, and DBPro will accept this and that format soooorta well, and...blech! After dealing with a year or more of that nonsense, I wanted to minimize and standardize.
Recently, Epic Megagames release a free version of the Unreal Engine 3 development kit, and I checked into that as well. Unfortunately, although it could obviously handle the client/server and multiplayer aspects well, it's still mainly a game engine, and also has the same model compatibility issues that any other third-party engine has. So I looked at that, and then in getting my latest monthly 3D World magazine, I saw about Blender again.
In particular, Blender seems to have a mature enough 'games engine' inherent in it that it would be worth looking into. To recap for those who don't knwo, Blender is the Linux of 3D development tools...open source and free. They've made two "open-source movies" as it were, Hollywood caliber Pixaresque 3D shorts to show off the capabilities of the software. They've also made a video game based on the last movie, using a game engine that's part of the development suite. Miracle? You mean...a single tool...that's the model editor, animator, compositor AND game engine? Holy shit! I knew Blender had sort of a primitive games engine last time I checked, but...now it's a lot more complete! It apparently has close integration with another widespread open source 3D rendering engine, CrystalSpace, and their open-source 3D game works in either the Blender game engine or CrystalSpace.
Advantages? Free, incredibly well supported, works on every platform (Mac, Windows, Linux)...3D World magazine says that there's by far more Blender users than any other 3D app, commercial or otherwise, and their webpage shows off the impressive support. So I picked up a book, "The Blender Gamekit 2nd Edition." Flipping through it so far, it does seem as if it's a well fleshed out games and simulation engine...AND it makes me happy they put it that way, calling it a 'game engine' but clearly implying it can be used for simulations as well and it's not 100% catered to gaming. The only possible negative I noticed so far? No in-built networking support, it's handled through Python, a third-party scripting language Blender is well integrated with. The good news? Python was built for a networked world and has high-level features for doing the networking needed. I've now picked up a good Python book for myself as well...why?
Well, duh! I'm posting all this 'cause I'm moving development to the Blender platform, and hopefully it won't disappoint because it looks like it'll be around for a long time. I want to start getting proficient not only with modeling and animating but also the simulation engine and with Python. I just wanted to get all you 3-D Arr-Teests(tm) and anyone else interested to check out
http://www.blender.org and get the software and help support the project! I do need to create a good repository for all the Faibanx 3D resources (models, textures, sounds, etc)...currently that's a stockpile of 2 gigabytes!
Thoughts...comments? Except from Blue.
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