Blender 2.8's new Interactive Engine stand in the gap for BGE!

[RyceKaeks]

Anything helps tweet and make videos

[lordloki76]

Well, the answer to title question is yes.

Features

Without a final design this is not very detailed. Adding this section because there is some confusion as to what interactive mode would include. We would expect the following features to be supported in early versions of interactive mode.

Basic visual logic system (logic nodes?).
Python scripting.
Respond to events (physics collisions, keyboard, pointer).
Export run-time (executable).

[aWeirdOwl (don Quixote)]

It seems we’ll have already more than that I thought, so I really apologize, shame on me, I’m totally out of reality, paranoiac out of control. Sorry.:o

[lordloki76]

Relax and wait a little bit

@aWeirdOwl

It seems we’ll have already more than that I thought, so I really apologize, shame on me, I’m totally out of reality, paranoiac out of control. Sorry.:o

[aWeirdOwl (don Quixote)]

Last words from me. I won’t support a new fork finally. I deleted my git repositories. Deleted my local sources too. Bye

[pqftgs]

@fred
wtf lmao

Like seriously… WTF xD
I don’t know what to say

Well actually I wrote a response that was honestly pretty great if I do say so. Would have been fun to post. But I had to delete because an impressionable young person might have taken it the wrong way. Anyhow I just want you to know that I cared enough to write a long and well-structured reply, even though nobody will ever see it, except for the evil robots that collect previewed text and other data which we thought was never actually posted to the internet.

[Fred_K.S]

@pqftgs

@fred
wtf lmao

Like seriously… WTF xD
I don’t know what to say

Well actually I wrote a response that was honestly pretty great if I do say so. Would have been fun to post. But I had to delete because an impressionable young person might have taken it the wrong way. Anyhow I just want you to know that I cared enough to write a long and well-structured reply, even though nobody will ever see it, except for the evil robots that collect previewed text and other data which we thought was never actually posted to the internet.

Srry abt that buddy sometimes people get fed up with long discussions especially when things are just being repeated all the time over 10,000 threads

Srry if i killed yr BGE Obituary
Its not a big deal brother.

Armory will need one soon XD

Fred/K.S

[Raco]

I’d normally start a new topic for my question. The title of this thread implies that the “Blender Game” engine would be omitted in the official 2.8x release, to be replaced by the “Eevee” engine. I suspect that this is a false statement.

As far as I know test builds of 2.8 still contain the “Blender Game” engine and for example bpy.context.object.game.properties is still a valid call. According to the wiki 2.8 does not rewrite the Python API and it is not mentioned that there will be changes to “Blender Game” specific code.

So my first guess is that with the 2.8 release the “Blender Game” engine is still there. I’d appreciate it if anyone could actually confirm this. Please ignore this post if you are not absolutely sure. I just like to have a heads up in respect to updating add-ons which work with “Blender Game” specific code.

Thanks.

[Dantus]

@Raco

I’d normally start a new topic for my question. The title of this thread implies that the “Blender Game” engine would be omitted in the official 2.8x release, to be replaced by the “Eevee” engine. I suspect that this is a false statement.

As far as I know test builds of 2.8 still contain the “Blender Game” engine and for example bpy.context.object.game.properties is still a valid call. According to the wiki 2.8 does not rewrite the Python API and it is not mentioned that there will be changes to “Blender Game” specific code.

So my first guess is that with the 2.8 release the “Blender Game” engine is still there. I’d appreciate it if anyone could actually confirm this. Please ignore this post if you are not absolutely sure. I just like to have a heads up in respect to updating add-ons which work with “Blender Game” specific code.

Thanks.

I guess the most official information you can currently get on this is in the Code Quest Proposal: https://developer.blender.org/T54387

Right now, the BGE and its player are listed under Feature Removal. It is supposed to be replaced with the interactive mode: https://developer.blender.org/T54389

[Raco]

Thanks for your reply, Dantus.

@Dantus

Right now, the BGE and its player are listed under Feature Removal. It is supposed to be replaced with the interactive mode: https://developer.blender.org/T54389

Could you be more specific, please? Where is it stated that the BGE and its player are listed under Feature Removal? I’m only reading about a vague suggestion:

This is not something we consider healthy for the future of Blender as the whole project, and solution here is needed.

Edit:

Okay, I apologize. I just read in T54387:

Remove Features

• …
• BGE & Player

Replace with interaction mode (see T54389)

I suppose that also means “Blender Game” specific code will be omitted, in contrary to what is mentioned in the current wiki.

Thanks again.

[ethicalfive]

@Ludovic_L

I was reading about everyone concern with BGE not making it to 2.8 and if the " Interactive mode" would actually be a “Game Engine” and so me and another person asked Pablo Vazquez the question when he was having a live broadcast on youtube a few minutes ago. Check his answer at the end of the video 01:07:15
https://youtu.be/WOTRo2nI8OY?t=4035

Theyve been hoarding donations directly given for the development of the BGE according to that video!! Instead of putting that money to work in making the BGE better, they let it die and then deleted it completely from 2.8!

This “interactive mode” sounds like shift-w with object interactions, big whoop. Thanks for throwing us BGE users under the bus Ton and taking the donations and repurposing them for a better follow camera. Im sure you will make all the BGE critics happy. Who cares about your users when you can please the critics who probably cant model or code to save their lives.

Or maybe as some have eluded to, its not in BFs financial interests to go head to head with unity or other game engines?

[Dantus]

@ethicalfive

Theyve been hoarding donations directly given for the development of the BGE according to that video!! Instead of putting that money to work in making the BGE better, they let it die and then deleted it completely from 2.8!

The BGE has barely been developed in quite some time and it is known to have some serious design issues, like being pretty far away code-wise from the actual Blender. Ton’s goal is to bring it closer to Blender, such that it can directly benefit from improvements being made in parts like Eevee and as such becomes more maintained and hopefully an actively developed part of Blender.
That’s the long term goal and saving money for this isn’t such a bad idea in my opinion.

@ethicalfive

This “interactive mode” sounds like shift-w with object interactions, big whoop. Thanks for throwing us BGE users under the bus Ton and taking the donations and repurposing them for a better follow camera. Im sure you will make all the BGE critics happy. Who cares about your users when you can please the critics who probably cant model or code to save their lives.

Reporposing donations is a serious allegation! Do you have proofs for that?

@ethicalfive

Or maybe as some have eluded to, its not in BFs financial interests to go head to head with unity or other game engines?

The Blender Foundation would need orders of magnitude more money to be able to get head to head with Unity!

[Fred_K.S]

Lol, people are tryina scare dev’s and noobs saying,

BGE AND UPBGE ARE DEAD !!!

Sooooooo? (So what if its active development is dead?)

Let me just remind you guys that,

ITS DEVELOPMENTS ARE DEAD, NOT THE GAME ENGINE ITSELF !!!

Let me just remind you guys that in its current state its good enough to produce good content games !!!
(Though it might struggle to render AAA Quality graphics. The blender GE & UPBGE CAN STILL PERORM ALOT IN ITS CURRRNT STATE !!!

Its got stable builds and its still got Doc’s as well as alot of resource material. I dont care about the licences all i want is to make a game from scratch right inside blender !!!

And all this is possible in UPBGE/BGE !!!

Fred/K.S

[BluePrintRandom]

I purpose we work on my fork, since Tristan is not working upbge anymore to apply patches,

I think the next thing we need, is a method to store a grid of IBL probes as a image, and load this all or in pieces, and gather a reflection

import ourModule

image = ourModule.gridSample(Vector, grid)

rendering a grid of probes is slow in py, but does not need to happen in runtime,
(render to texture module and plot function)

However, we will need a compiled command to accelerate gathering lighting, (IBL)

[MichelleSea]

@Fred/K.S

Lol, people are tryina scare dev’s and noobs saying,

Sooooooo? (So what if its active development is dead?)

Let me just remind you guys that,

Let me just remind you guys that in its current state its good enough to produce good content games !!!
(Though it might struggle to render AAA Quality graphics. The blender GE & UPBGE CAN STILL PERORM ALOT IN ITS CURRRNT STATE !!!

Its got stable builds and its still got Doc’s as well as alot of resource material. I dont care about the licences all i want is to make a game from scratch right inside blender !!!

And all this is possible in UPBGE/BGE !!!

Fred/K.S

If everyone kept using game development tools that were no longer being updated, we’d all still be making Atari games, dude. All software reaches a point where it’s just not viable anymore. And I’m sorry, but BGE hit that point a while ago.

More than just games, look at IRC. Thanks to Skype and Discord, you barely EVER see an IRC room anymore. And when you do, it’s all but totally abandoned in favor of a Discord server. Things change, and programs outdate. That’s the reality of it.

BGE was great, for what it was. Thanks to it, I’m a lot better versed in game development, design, theory, etc. than ever before. And it’s made my transition to another engine easier than if I had no experience whatsoever. But it’s outdated now. And if you stick to it after the end, you’re only doing yourself a disservice. I’m sorry.

[barrymaritime (b)]

@MichelleSea

If everyone kept using game development tools that were no longer being updated, we’d all still be making Atari games, dude. All software reaches a point where it’s just not viable anymore. And I’m sorry, but BGE hit that point a while ago.

More than just games, look at IRC. Thanks to Skype and Discord, you barely EVER see an IRC room anymore. And when you do, it’s all but totally abandoned in favor of a Discord server. Things change, and programs outdate. That’s the reality of it.

BGE was great, for what it was. Thanks to it, I’m a lot better versed in game development, design, theory, etc. than ever before. And it’s made my transition to another engine easier than if I had no experience whatsoever. But it’s outdated now. And if you stick to it after the end, you’re only doing yourself a disservice. I’m sorry.

---

There is another side to this story which seems ti be ignored!
It all depends what you make. Not everybody wishes to make small games, artwork, zapping games, etc, etc as thay are more intersted in creating real life as simulations whether archaeological sites of the past ages and in my case maritime routes of coastal UK.

The Game Ebgine as it works now is just fine as it is all to do with what content you make to illustrate the past and current ages.
Satellite data and the script in Blender makes creating 25km or larger size routes very easy.
Add water and add some ports, docks, harbours… and scenarios if you wish.

Complex scripting is not necessay just basic skills creating whatever you want.
Tidal and animated locks can fairly easily be made just using the timeline and logic bricks.
Also even on routes at this sizs with one drivable ship frane rates on 7year old conmputer are stil at 60 default vert.sync.

So there are two sides to this story and Blender Artists seem to concentrate only on one side of the general scene.

B

[Chucker]

A solution I’m sure some like me will miss with BGE’s passing is the Record Animation feature. You could use the game engine to record animation from AI pathfinding (crowd placement animation), animating a vehicle via game controls (rather than keyframing) or simple puppet and physics animation from the game environment.

Withing just Blender itself, and now moving on to 2.8 can anyone tell me any solutions that would be able to do this going forward that work within Blender?

My point is the BGE wasn’t just useful for prototyping/making games it was a unique tool for animating! Without plugins this was a useful and unusual feature that wasn’t common in other 3D software.

[BluePrintRandom]

I have a glsl scripter whom is trying to convert to c dev I am working with

I will get back with details as soon as I have more

[Dantus]

@Chucker

A solution I’m sure some like me will miss with BGE’s passing is the Record Animation feature. You could use the game engine to record animation from AI pathfinding (crowd placement animation), animating a vehicle via game controls (rather than keyframing) or simple puppet and physics animation from the game environment.

Withing just Blender itself, and now moving on to 2.8 can anyone tell me any solutions that would be able to do this going forward that work within Blender?

My point is the BGE wasn’t just useful for prototyping/making games it was a unique tool for animating! Without plugins this was a useful and unusual feature that wasn’t common in other 3D software.

That’s why there are plans to create an interactive mode, which would be a lot closer to Blender. Features like that are incredibly useful and I am sure that those kinds of features would be covered if not further developed in the interactive mode.

[barrymaritime (b)]

With reading the apparent different details of the ‘demise’ of the Blender Game Engine is it actually confirmed that the Blender Game Engine is going to be replaced and current simulations made by myself will not then run or load. No too important but would be useful to know. Perhaps then I could concentrate on just small areas of anout 5 to 10k instead of 25km to 40 km or so. I am a bit lost at the the present time with apparent differing details.

Thanks

Barry.

P…S I know I can allways use older versions of Blender but should I make routes available for download again (doubtful now as ISP problems), if others download routes they probably then won’t run or open? All very confusing (smile).