I will be making my own rendering engine soon enough. However there are a lot of good 3D engines available that could easily be ported to Aurora. Post any you know about here.
I'll start:
http://www.jet3d.com/
Jet is now free to use as long as you display their logo on startup.
http://www.ogre3d.org/
Never used Ogre myself. Is it any good?
C:\WINDOWS\system32\PAINT.EXEÂÃ, Ã‚Ã, ;D
I really cant speak for the engine itself. As I attempt to use it from the PureBasic wrappings. That in itself is not really possible. So I really cant speak on how good or bad Ogre3D is ...
http://www.garagegames.com <-- Torque, not worth the time, the lead dev has some issues ...
http://www.revolution3d.net/ <- Open Source thief (at least in the beginning), stole code from the following engine:
http://www.truevision3d.com/ <- These peeps are joke :( Promised things, never delivered, attempt to ban their previous open source engine :) I still have a copy if you want, it's in VB ...
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/index.html <- Havent heard much concerning these guys ..
http://www.crystalspace3d.org/ <- This has been around for awhile. Haven't made it past the 18th century yet :)
http://www.exocortex.org/3dengine/ <- It's in C#, enough said ...
http://www.aztica.com/
http://www.3dstate.com/
http://www.3impact.com/
http://www.terathon.com/c4engine/index.html <- This one is starting to get popular ..
http://www.powerrender.com/ <- I think my grandma can use this engine ....
http://www.artificialstudios.com/ <- I reject your reality, and replace it with my own.
Hey, Irrlicht is now at version 1.0 :D When C and C++ compatibility is achieved, someone could make a wrapper for that.
You can make a wrapper for it now.
Paul,
Rather than making your own rendering engine why don't you just include support for Ogre (licensing isn't bad and is cross-platform) or Irrlicht which has a very liberal license? This will free you up to focus on other things in the language. In fact, the Irrlicht SDK comes with the source code so that might be the best option. Irrlicht can use Open GL or Direct X and also has a Mac version (and I'm sure with the source code you could make an Open GL Linux version down the road.)
-Steven
EDITED TO ADD: There's already a Linux version of Irrlicht.
Well for one I kind of enjoy it when I am in the mood ;). I had a lot of fun getting the terrain generator working for the IBasic engine.
And I think we need more than one option anyway.
What about including it for now?
Your call but it'd be nice to see some nice networking and sound\music implementation in Aurora as well. :D
Including what? The engine from IBasic?
I like Paul's "from scratch" approach.
It does not add cost to Aurora and since he is doing the work we
will have the source code available. :)
Quote from: Ionic Wizard on June 01, 2006, 10:22:07 PM
Including what?ÂÃ, The engine from IBasic?
Sorry, I wasn't clear.ÂÃ, I meant the Irrlicht engine.ÂÃ, It's cross platform and includes the source.ÂÃ, Its license is completely free and they state that it would be
nice if you make mention that you are using their engine if you use it, but it is not mandatory.ÂÃ, That's a pretty liberal license. :)
It's just a suggestion. I also thought that if you liked the math involved perhaps you could extend it down the road with good physics (very lacking in most 3D engine with the execption of 3D Impact.)
I will be looking at all engines of course ;) That is why I started the thread.
We already have the wrapper for 3impact engine (made by zumwlat) and it works pretty well.
Jet3D looks nice, too.
Then, there's Panda3D (http://panda3d.org), which looks rather promising.
A rather good place to check on almost everything that's available today is DevMaster's 3D Engines (http://www.devmaster.net/engines/) database. Very useful.
However, as I said before, Paul's 3D engine will probably be the best of the lot for Aurora and definitely the one we can all learn from.
Barney
Thanks Barney ;)
I only wish I was young enough to understand all this stuff. It takes me 3 times as long to learn half as much.
I am looking forward to playing with the 3D stuff as soon as I learn how 2D works.
It will be a nice feature for Aurora, this is becoming a very useful tool.
Quote from: Barney on June 02, 2006, 10:17:18 AM
We already have the wrapper for 3impact engine (made by zumwlat) and it works pretty well.
3DImpact looks like a very nice 3D engine and I wish I could use it but it costs a lot of money, esp. when there are nice freeware 3D engines available.
(Just a note: It costs a lot of money for someone who wants to play around with it for, perhaps, shareware or freeware apps, but not necessarily for professional game makers.)
Actually, 3Impact is cheap in comparison. Its $100 for full license, unlimited. Thats the cost of 2 video games, or 1 decent xbox game. Its all a matter of perspective. I purchased this for $40, pluss I paid the $20 for the code piece, which haven't figured out where to put it to date. (call me lazy)
I learned in under 3 days how to write a wrapper to allow other engines to be used with Aurora. So, as long as the 3d engine in question has a DLL version of itself, AND you know the entry points to all functions (like I knew with 3Impact), you can write a wrapper for the engine to use it with Aurora, I want an opengl version for 3d with Linux, lately I have been hammering on SuSE 10.0 and BlitzMax along with Torque Game Builder. Its becoming more appealing to me to be able to write games that work on Linux and PC, what BlitzMax gives me is the 3 platform level for Mac also!
Man have I wasted to much money on all of this for 1 game. I am drooling over wanting the Linux version so bad, don't care how buggy it is. I just want to start to use it to learn on it.
Bottom line seems to be, and I am slowly learning this in general, if you have the C code for any 3d engine, you can write a cdecl export of all functions yourself if you take the time to do it, and with either a cdecl or stdcall you can use it with Aurora.
Give me a 3d engine that supports stdcall or cdecl and has standard inputs / outputs (no funky crap), and I can produce a wrapper for Aurora.
I don't know if this would be considered an engine, I would though. If I bought this could I write programs in Aurora using it?
http://darkgamesdk.thegamecreators.com/
a cool comparison of improvements in speed:
http://darkgamesdk.thegamecreators.com/?f=darksdkvsdbpro
They are going to soon have a physics that can use the new hardware cards coming out and they also already have an ai system out.
ai:
http://darkbasicpro.thegamecreators.com/?f=dark_ai
physics:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=78284&b=1
No. It is a competiting language with a completely wierd syntax ;)
Paul I was asking about the SDK which is written for c++, not darkbasic pro itself. Unless you meant no to that. Thanks.
Well, there is something interesting, the answer is technically yes, you can with the sdk.
Although I can't find myself spending 60$ for an incomplete product from that company.
All you need to do, is know the methods and procedures, then you just instansiate the engine.
Not necessarily, while it doesn't use OOP, to make C libraries work with Aurora isn't all that user friendly right now, though for missing symbols you could create a "fake" one - say it complains about _GetLastError@0:
#emit _GetLastError@0: jmp GetLastError
should fix it, but there could be a whole ton of those...
Actually it is just the underscore. The linker knows how to deal with C references to parameters, always has.
I have been doing research while working on learning Aurora. The fact that Paul and the other developers have put together this much of Aurora together in a really amazing amount of time, I might be mistaken in making this proposition. But I will make it anyways.
The team of people working on Aurora seem to be about the same size as those working on Ogre, ODE, Irrlicht etc. Maybe even less. Since Aurora is not specializing in just one aspect as those are, but is an all purpose language. It just seems like to get a 3d Engine up to Ogre or other's level is going to take sometime. As we see on the post those of us into multimedia 3d want our stuff, those who are into the ide want there stuff and on and on it goes. Then you have physics, sound, well I guess input is already taken care of. As I said Paul and crew are doing an incredible job.
I think Paul should eventually develop his engine the way he wants. As we have seen it is really cool. But with being pulled in all directions maybeÂÃ, we should say lets implement a wrapper or whatever it would be to tie into Ogre, Ode and we need to find an Open source audio api.ÂÃ, This way users of those engines will discover Aurora as I am sure once we get a good working tie ins, we can be linked to them and them to us etc. I am not a member developer, but would love to help and want to learn how to do those type of conversions. I am sure it seems zumwalt and the others who have posted in this area would feel the same way.
Ogre is doing some amazing things. I recommend all interested to download this demo. It is actually a series of demos and some of the effects are spectacular.
I didn't play with ODE, I guess it is buggy, but it seems everyone is jumping on the bandwagon from my reading. I am open to any of the engines that others might seem interested in.
Panda is didn't seem like what we need, and Jet lacked in areas.
Irrlicht looks good too, but I don't know it just seems ogre is as the main guy wrote trying to put the best engine and leave the other things needed for gaming to others allowing flexibility to the programmers.
But there is this sort of Ogre Ode type synergy I sensed in reading heavily.
Ogre and Ode have pretty good documentation and tutorials etc too.
I thought might as well look at open source stuff as the liscensing is laid back.
http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=57&func=fileinfo&filecatid=40&parent=category
I am sure all of us interested with some guidance in writing such conversions would love to work on it and add to Aurora.
In the meantime love all that Paul and others are doing.
Would love to hear what others have dug up and your thoughts!!
Good points, all of them.
I am all for aurora having its own 3d engine, although it probably should use ODE since there are something like 400 methods already done with it.
The thought did cross my mind about Ogre wrapper, but then we are dependent on if Ogre changes pricing scheme, etc. Then we are stuck.
I would like to see Paul and the gang continue there work on there own 3d engine, it will pay off in the long term with great desire to use it. I don't want to deal with 'just another ogre wrapper' routine.
The idea is to make this product as stand alone as humanly possible without any external forces controling its destiny.
I agree with all you said Zumwalt, but ogre from their site:
Is it really free?
The Ogre source is made available under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), which basically means you can use it however you like as long as release the source for changes you make to the core engine if you distribute your product. The source to your application or to new plugins you create does not have to be released (although it would be nice if you did). See the licensing page for full licensing terms.
That is why I thought it would be a great candidate. We would just use these for now to give The Aurora Development TeamÂÃ, a chance to take their time in developing Aurora's 3dEngine, Physics Engine, and all the rest that will make it the best all purpose programming language out their!!
In addition, we could be bringing in lots of existing Ogre and Ode users and introducing them to Auora.
LGPL means you must make any modifications available to the public, but that you can use it in a commercial application. It's often known as the Library General Public License, because libraries use it so that programs using them aren't forced to be open source.
I guess the confusion that has risen, is that we would just use it as it is , but not making it a part of the Aurora engine.
So no need to worry about releasing code and this would be a way to bring in their users and introducing them to Aurora, while it gives the development team here time to take their time, complete the language and then go back in and make all the cool engines the way they would like.
We would do as zumwalt did with 3dimpact engine, write what we need to use Aurora and Ogre, ODE etc.
Aurora will then have its own engines, but as you guys have a whole language to develop it just adds lots of free resources for use quickly there by making Aurora even more useable quicker and therefore helping you guys make money and keep all of this going and growing.
From my experience so far, here is what I sort of came too:
1. To someone new to programming or coming from old school, Aurora has a steep learning curve, with the effort needed to learn Aurora, C and C++ could be learned. YES Aurora, does make things a lot easier than those languages, but to get to that point the learning curve is there.
2. What Aurora offers and this is the big PLUS is freedom from all the cumbersome stuff that being tied to Windows programming forces people using the Microsoft Languages.
3. Most of the young kids getting into programming are doing it for game development. Of all the boards I frequent, the gaming development boards are the most active. This is the driving force and market out there.
Just look at all the different engines out there, there are tons of them and each has lots of users. So the thing that will make Aurora money is to bring and keep those programmers.
4. Ogre and ODe already have a wide userbase, just look at their forums. Imagine them coming to discover Aurora, then think of those sales. (it doesn't have to be Ogre and ODe at the moment, just in my research they both seemed like good choices, but there are so many engines out there, I went through the top 10 and Irrlicht looked good too, you never know till you use them of course, so that is up in the air, it would be great to hear from those who have used them and hear their recommnedations).
5. You guys developing are putting a lot of time and effort and I would like to see you compensated and to help keep Aurora growing. All the better for the rest of us. I understand you guys are doing this first from the joy of it and secondly income, but still, making money is a good thing, think of all the cool hardware out their waiting :)
I won't be writing any wrappers for Ogre. Feel free to take it on yourself.
Built in 3D is the only way to go so we are not dependant on someone elses source code.
C++ has a much steeper learning curve than Aurora does. That much is for sure.
And the only 'guy' working on the 3D engine is me at the moment.
I didn't mean you or anyone else working on Aurora, I know that eventually Aurora will be totally self reliant and complete system.
I meant for us users interested in writing a wrapper for ogre or whatever the consensus open source engine might by the others are interested in.
I won't add more to repeat what I wrote in the last few messages, I thought it was clear, but maybe I am not communicating it correctly somehow :)
Nah, its just a pain to write wrappers thats all. For one thing, Aurora has the BEST interface for writting wrappers I have ever seen. If an amature like me can write a wrapper in under 3 days from initial purchase of the engine to use with a wrapper, than a pro can do it in 6 hours or less.
3Impact for instance, has physics built in, it has networking built in, not to mention a few other things, but it has its limitations, like all engines do. I know the point your trying to get at, only because I have been at trying to figure it all out since September of last year. What I have written so far with Aurora has surpassed what I thought the initial 3d alpha would be able to handle, so I think paul is on the right track and keeping it short and simple :)
Quote from: kryton9 on August 01, 2006, 01:13:20 PM3. Most of the young kids getting into programming are doing it for game development. Of all the boards I frequent, the gaming development boards are the most active. This is the driving force and market out there.
Just look at all the different engines out there, there are tons of them and each has lots of users. So the thing that will make Aurora money is to bring and keep those programmers.
I'd agree with that point. The game coding market is huge! Look at the size of the DBPro community and that language is about as buggy and slow as you'll find, it's just that it makes it easy to slap 3D models on the screen.
I would embrace the gamer community and profit from the thousands of people that want to make games. I know i'm one of them! ;D I've bought Aurora with the express purpose of creating games and as a stepping stone to C++.
I would say another opinion of mine about OGRE. While it is a very good engine and can achieve very good results I, and many others have found it a pain to use purely because of not getting an exporter to export OGRE meshes properly. There are many exporters around but the ones i've tried, tended to create meshes that would'nt load correcty.
The last time i tried was for examples for my (Purebasic) book and everything seemed to go ok (go figure?) but i have had probs before. Just something to think about.
I would support the creation of a built-in 3D engine as Paul is doing. I know it's a lot of work but Paul has full control and isn't tied to APIs that may break in future versions. Not only that, impressive visuals can still be created with a small but robustly built engine. ;)
I am all for getting Paul to do all the parts to Aurora. I don't know why that gets lost.
Just he has his plate full with not only 3d, but the rest of the language and documenation.
I thought in the mean time we could all use existing engines and work as a team (that being not Aurora team, but users of aurora interested in this subject) to write the wrappers as I don't know how but would love to learn. As soon as I finish my model viewer which is coming along, that is the next subject I am going to tackle. Parker already gave me some good points in another thread to get me started.
Then we can post on those sites stuff we did with Aurora and mention the available wrappers and I am sure those sites would link back to Aurora.
For instance zumwalt, you should post on 3dimpacts site about wrappers for Aurora available and maybe they or you could write an intro like they have for using their engine with ibasic and dev c++.
kryton9
You keep mentioning "all the guys on the development team".
There are those that are "development partners" that don't do squat.
I'm included in that. All I have contributed is a database frontend that reads the inc files and creates the help file skeletons.
There are some that may contribute code. There are quite a few who literate enough to offer constructive suggestions and identify bugs. But the "main man" is Paul. If he doesn't write it then it isn't an integral part of Aurora. I'm not smart enough to write an application in Aurora let alone try to write part of the source for the language.
Just wanting Paul to receive the credit he deserves and not siphon off his rightly deserved praise by merely hanging on to his coat tail.
Larry
Yep, I am afraid i have to hold my hand up to that one. Im a partner developer who hasnt contributed anything yet. Mainly as i currently dont have the time and the other being i am very limited when it comes to programming knowledge at the moment. I hope to be of some use in the future though.
Although i guess I am working on Aurora Live, which although is not something that was intended by Paul or anyone else, it was an idea i had that would hopefully give Aurora a good niche in the market as its never been done before. Its just finding the time to finish it off. I hope to get it done this summer though.
Lewis
Ohh yeh i did those 3D Software box renders for anyone who wished to use them on there website. Again something i did of my own accord lol.
Lewis
Great minds think alike Kryton, however, I beat you to the punch on the 3Impact suggestion, its the reason why I purchased it. You see, there was a member named SUBWING (bold cause thats how he does it), he asked about Aurora, and well, I opened the link, bought it and the code, then made the wrapper. Here is the link to the thread:
http://www.3impact.com/3Impact_Engine/forum/index.php?topic=1702.0
There has been only 24 downloads there to date, but as long as it is more than 1 download, I am happy.
Oh yea, I forgot to mention, no one has complained about it either.
You can get some idea of of how much someone has been involved (contributed) by the number of postings.
People are contributing to Paul's efforts by finding bugs, making suggestions for features, and asking questions.ÂÃ, We all learn from those activities and you don't have to be a partner developer to participate.
But just as Paul was the 'heart and soul' of IBasic so he is with Aurora.ÂÃ, We have all been spoiled by his programming skills and depth of knowledge; but even more so by his constant involvement in the forum itself.ÂÃ, :o
and he usually doesn't appear to be aggravated about answering a question until the 5th or 6th time he has to repeat his answer ;)
Larry
Quote from: Kale on August 01, 2006, 04:55:51 PMThe last time i tried was for examples for my (Purebasic) book and everything seemed to go ok (go figure?) but i have had probs before. Just something to think about
Your PureBasic book looks good! What the world really needs is an Aurora book, though. ;D Perhaps you and Paul could team up for something? ;)
zumwalt, this is nice that you got it all going over there at their forum.
24 downloads and it isn't really listed in the main pages of 3dimpact where they have their how to setup with various language tutorials.
That is an awesome number of downloads being that it costs $100 for their engine and yes that is cheap, if the engine is good and you plan to make money with it.
You need to make a new topic about converting and writing wrappers. Would love to learn what you did and how you did it.
Parker sort of gave a very nice description here, maybe you can take that and go from there?
Reply #1:
http://www.ionicwind.com/forums/index.php?topic=673.0
Right now I can't dedicate the time to doing that, although I will try to make some sort of tutorial for how I accomplished my task.
Besides being a full time programmer for a local computer firm, I travel for my company, take CCSI classes, try to work on my games, and deal with a 12 page report that is due in 3 weeks. Maybe after this session is over at school, I can dedicate some time to typing up some tutorials.
Zumwalt:ÂÃ, Thanks. It doesn't have to be long, just a few steps of how you went about it? But yes, you are busy and when you have time, thanks again.
Also what did you fnd lacking or limiting about 3dimpact?
Kale: Also wanted to say good catch to Kale, about the file formats. I saw the list of exporters, but it never occured to me that they were to their format and that they
don't support direct x and 3ds etc. So, yeagh that is a big no no in my mind too.
Stevenp: Where did you find the link to Kale's book?
Quote from: Larry McCaughn on August 01, 2006, 06:44:39 PM
and he usually doesn't appear to be aggravated about answering a question until the 5th or 6th time he has to repeat his answer ;)
Larry
Usually the 7th or 8th time ;)
Even though I took college programming classes I was a self taught programmer starting in the 7th grade writing BASIC programs on a heath H-8 and then assembly code for RCA processors, RCA CDP-1802 in an Elf II home built computer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELF_II
I had to beg my parents to get one. You coded on a hexidecimal keypad with a 2 digit display, entering opcodes one at a time. Eventually I aquired the 4K ram board, 64 char terminal kit and TinyBASIC on cassette.
The point is I do get aggrivated by those not willing to do a simple search, use the tools that are available, and figure things out the good old hard knocks way. Back then programming took physical leg work. Many visits to the library, reading books and magazine articles, and writing code down on paper.
It also required knowledge of electronics, good soldering skills, and an early addiction to coffee and pizza.
For someone like me everything is a bit too easy now. ;D
EDIT:
Found a picture of the guts of the elf:
http://www.qwkslva.com/Museum/Netronics_Elf/elf2a.jpg
Brings back memories.
Quote from: kryton9 on August 01, 2006, 08:13:47 PM
Stevenp: Where did you find the link to Kale's book?
It's for another language so I'll PM you the link. It looks very professionally done and I was serious about wanting him to do the same thing for Aurora. ;D
QuoteThe point is I do get aggrivated by those not willing to do a simple search, use the tools that are available, and figure things out the good old hard knocks way.
It's the instant gratification that we as a society have come to embrace..
"I want it now!"
"I want it to work, right now!"
"I don't care about the details, just as long as it works... now!"
Sadly enough, that describes me and about 90% of the population pretty well. :-[
Nice pic of the Elf, Paul.
I wanted a HeathKit that I knew I would never get, finally started with a Vic-20 then the C-64 and finally got side tracked with mainframes for several years through my employers. Shoot, I was still using the C64 all the way up until 1990 when I got my first "IBM Compatible".
-Doc-
ELf! prefab circuit boards!
I've still got a tool box around somewhere that has all my wire wrap sockets and wirewrap tool.
I can remember a programmable timer I built using nothing but 7400 series ICs and power transisters.ÂÃ, It controlled some solenoids to open and close pressure values.
I wired into the 7- segment LEDs of a Fluke digital voltmeter to capture pressure readings at various times in its cycle and then wired into the keypad of a Radio Shack Thermal printing calculator to simulate punching the captured numbers into the calculator.ÂÃ, that was around 1978 and it was on an experiment to determine the bulk density of raw polyethylene via pressure equalization.
Eons ago.
I hate to look up stuff now because my mind starts wandering and I forget what I'm looking for. :D
It's easier to ask Paul and I'm not within arms reach so he can't hit me.
Quote
It's easier to ask Paul and I'm not within arms reach so he can't hit me.
Naw. I wouldn't do that ;)
Quote from: stevenp on August 01, 2006, 08:53:26 PM
Quote from: kryton9 on August 01, 2006, 08:13:47 PM
Stevenp: Where did you find the link to Kale's book?
It's for another language so I'll PM you the link.ÂÃ, It looks very professionally done and I was serious about wanting him to do the same thing for Aurora.ÂÃ, ;D
It's something i'll definately consider when the documentation is complete and i have a proper handle on how everything works. ;)
My first entry into programming was through computer gaming magazines. Back in the 80's my grandparents saw the computer age coming like a storm, so they got me a TRS-80. I did generic ansi games on it. Later I moved into the VIC-20 with the tape drive where most of the games in the magazines came in handy. Those days you had to type in the code from the 12 pages of the magazine to get 1 game to work, then save it to the cassete tape.
This later followed of course along the Commodore line into the Commodore 64, I mean what else are you going to buy at Hills department store?
I stayed on that for quiet a wihile, mail ordering peripherals like a 600/1200 baud modem, external huge drives that weighed in at something like 15 pounds (probably less, but to a kid its heavy), later I got the C-128. I think it was in the late 80's is when I got my first ibm clone at radio shack. It was only an 8088 machine, can't remember the model, then I got a 80286.
Then I switched back to commodore with the amiga 500, that lasted longer than the 80286 did for games, still used magazines, had its built in drive, used floppies forever, I got one in the bedroom in its box, I burnt up the power supply, need another power block for it.
Everything is history from there. I never did get into mainframe programming or assembly, I think I bypassed that stage of development, which is probably my problem.
Well Paul. Not sure how old you are but i would guess you have one or two years on me, and when i went to college, i was programming Z80 processors one a board similar to that. With just the hex pad and a big book of opcodes too. So i guess its good that they still teach the old stuff even with the like of visual studio around most college's. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of homework reading up on the opcodes and the assebly language, but it was fun non the less.
After a few weeks hard work i managed to make a countdown timer that played a little tune. Top marks awarded :)
Lewis
Quote from: zumwalt on August 02, 2006, 06:22:32 AMThen I switched back to commodore with the amiga 500...
That is still my all-time favorite computer. I was a die hard Amiga user until around 1994. Gave away my last Amiga stuff in 1999. I play around with an emulator now and then but it's just not the same thing.
UAE is a pretty good emulator. Runs pinball dreams and lemmings just fine ;)
Yea but it has a problem with the mechwarrior hex style game.
I have no idea of how this porting stuff goes, but I was playing with ogre, that is running the examples in MS VC++ express, and all I can say is it is awesome.
I am confused if it is already tied into ODE, the physics engine or not as there were examples with collision and I saw header files for ODE in there.
If a port were to be done, I would say this is one to look at. Pretty amazing stuff.
[url http://www.coldsteelengine.com/]ColdSteel[/url] works with Aurora.