| What to use? DirectX or some other engine? |
| Zarneth | I'm gonna try and make a game, Starting out small I'm gonna try and make a bit of a Magic Carpet clone. Magic carpet was an old dos game. Basically a heightmapped terrain and you fly around on a magic carpet in FPS style.
I'm using VB.net, and have only a small ammount of Direct3d/Game making experience, having made a simple hight mapped terrain where you can walk around in FPS style, using VB6 and DX8. Though that's proof that I'm not going for somethign over my head. :)
I'm currently trying to get the hang of DirectX9, but I'm wondering if there may be a better alternative that people can reccomend? Ang good 3d wrappers or engines people can reccomend? I don't want a full game engine though. I wish to do everythign in VB.net still.
Thanks. :) |
| Zarneth | Hrmm. Well TrueVision3d looks really good and comes with lotsa .net tutorials and looks damn easy to use but it's got that damn logo there the WHOLE time.
And the 3d state demo's DO look rather bad. Can't even find the sdk download on that site.
And Revolution3d is still down and only has an initalisation tutorial for VB.net. I guess I could install VB6 to check out some samples for that one though. :\
Edit: oh wait. there's the 3dstate sdk link. XP
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| ballistik | You could check out Revolution 3D - [url]http://www.revolution3d.de/postNuke/[/url]. It is a directx 9 wrapper that is written in C++ and can be used in VB6, .Net, and is free to use. It's not the greatest, but it is semi-consistently updated and has a great community. |
| ballistik | As you probably noticed though... there site got hacked [B)]. But you can still download it from the temporary links. Anyway... hope that helps. |
| Zarneth | Ugh. Looks like this is gonna be a tricky one. The one VB.net tutorial is from a later version of .net than what I have. Might have to wait till the site's back online. Or untill i'm bored enough to try and get the earlier vb versions working. O.o
Thanks for the sujestion thoguh. |
| PointOfLight | Another possibility would be www.truevision3d.com. Here's a quote from their site: "The TV3D SDK is a multi-language 3D engine, written primarily in C++ with support for Visual Basic 6, Visual Basic.Net, C#, Delphi, Python, and C++. Built upon the solid DirectX platform, you can quickly and easily prototype complex games and 3D applications in up to 80% less time." |
| AutoAim | there is also www.3dstate.com has more tutorials than TV 3d i think for vb.net and has options for many other langauges, but ofcourse i don't think the graphics even touch what TV 3D can handle but ofcourse doesn't hurt to look. |
| Almar Joling | The engine screenshots look pretty nice though :) |
| PointOfLight | I've looked at the 3DState demos many times over the years, and I've never really been that impressed with it. For a 3D engine, everything seems very flat and sprite oriented. Maybe the latest version is much better, but I've never been drawn to using their product. |
| Eric Coleman | It's probably just "programmer art" :) |
| Iodiplin | I downloaded some of the samples. The 3DSTATE engine seems capable enough. It's initialization seems to be way over-kill though (it takes a good 30 seconds before you can do anything). However, if you worked a little harder than the demo-creation people, you could probably get a decent game (half-life graphics quality). |
| AutoAim | i do have to say that the 3dstate engine can get amazing FPS on even low end computers,i had a HP 768mhz celeron, 96mb ram and a Savage 4pro 16mb that was "damaged; getting 40fps and above on most all demos in their list. |
| Zarneth | Ahh. that was the problem. Had it on Debug. Hrmm. I'm guessing I don't even need the DX9 sdk any more and could install normal 9.0c if I wanted? (Not that I think I'll bother)
Hrmm. Some rather impressive samples/tutorials there in R3d. I think I probably will go with this one. Now the hard bit is going to be moving my ass and actuially getting something done. XP
quote:
Oh, and I used to play Magic Carpet a lot. Pretty addictive game. Looking foward to seeing it in 3D [8D]
In 3d? Magic carpet was alwayse in 3d. Just ancient software 3d. ;P |
| VBBR | Looks like I was talking about the wrong game, one that I played in the NES I think. Bad guess. Anyway, it will be nice to see such a game in DirectX 9 graphics.
And yes, you can remove the SDK if you want. Unless you at some time wants to access DirectX directly (using the R3D_Access class probably), but I'm not sure if VB .NET requires the SDK to be installed for this to work. C++ however, requires the headers. Better keep the original SDK installer just in case. |
| Zarneth | NES? Scary. The magic carpet I know is a old dos Game by Bullfrog where you fly around FPS style on a magic carpet with lotsa spells to hurl at your enemys, each player also having a castle where they can store mana. It's got destructable terrain too (just altering it's height map) which makes it rather awesome and innovative. Particularly the underground levels which had another inverted heightmapped terrain map for the roof. |
| VBBR | I personally recommend Revolution3D, I use it myself and have found it very easy to learn and use.
(although it still has some oddities with .NET, but this was corrected by one of the members of the community. Just wait until the site comes back. You in fact learn more from using it and hanging about the forums a little; at least that worked for me. Installing VB6 to see the tutorials is good as well, as the (engine) commands are nearly the same for every language.)
Oh, and I used to play Magic Carpet a lot. Pretty addictive game. Looking foward to seeing it in 3D [8D] |
| Zarneth | Hrmm. With the revolution3d samples I get an application error (one of those evil ones with a memory refrence and no clue as to what actuially happened) when I try to run any of the samples (VB, C++, or VB code sample) in windowed and for full screen it changes the resolution then instantly changes back.
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| VBBR | Do you have DirectX 9.0b installed? It is required by the engine to work properly. Also make sure that DirectX (in the control panel) is set to Retail mode because Revolution3D doesn't like the Debug mode very much.
Besides that, you can look in your C:\ root dir for the file r3d_logfile.txt. If you can't seem to find the error in the log file, feel free to post its contents here so I can investigate it further. |