I think the end is near.

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
#1

I was watching the blender conference introduction video - more specifically, the part where Ton went over the pending goals and explained (very generally) what new projects the foundation was currently working on.

What I really found interesting were his statements on Apricot:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6380481124722565797#13m22s

So there you have it. No effort to work on the internal engine, for the reasons we all already knew, and which Ton just mentioned (insufficient development power).

I don’t know about you guys, but I’v always considered the Apricot project to be the “nail in the coffin” for the BGE, and now hearing Ton himself spell out the bleak situation that the internal engine is in…it feels official.

Hopefully, ditching the integrated engine for this new CS-based “pipeline” (what I think is happening here when all is said and done) will be worth it in the long run. It certainly seems like a logical step at this point, if nothing else.

Your opinions on this matter? - feel free to chime in.

#2

Insufficient developmental power is not a reasonable excuse for cutting the internal engine.

If the engine were being used by a bunch of worthwhile projects (read either “big name commercial projects” or “incredibly impressive open source projects”), then the Blender dev crew would find the developers to make it more worthwhile.

We’ve talked about all the reasons that the GE work being done now is not “impressive” enough, but the big one is the huge amounts of time it takes to make a worthwhile game in comparison to worthwhile renders. If we had the equivalent of “great renders” with the GE, then the rest of the Blender community might be taking us more seriously.

Anyway, my thoughts? If Apricot is the nail in the coffin, they’re burying us alive.

#3

well I guess it’s logical ,but they let it get like this, which I think was pretty inconsiderate on their par to ignore a large part of their user base and not push for more development… and lets be realistic… nothing major is going to happen unless Ton is interested in making it happen.

It’s a circular argument… there’s not enough interest, because so much has to be done because we/blender devs, left it too long to keep it up to date…?? (I’m not critting all the hard work of Erwin and the others who contribute… I just feel they should’ve got more support from the institute or who ever.)

so I guess it’s bitter sweet.

I also agree it’s probably worth it in the long run…but only because of the lack of interest in making it better. Sheesh I dunno it’s kinda depressing… to me the only thing I like about blender IS the game engine. So logically if it was dumped completely I think they’d lose a lot of users which would be shame.

I also don’t like the fact that in order to make a game even a simple one… you have to become a programmer. Now I don’t mind writing scripts and coding AI etc… but why should I have to to be a genuis at programming and and artist just to make simple demos. This is why the Blender GE is such an awesome development tool.

It’s gives people the opportunity to experiment with game development who arn’t hardcore programmers. I feel losing that would be a major mistake.

#4

what can we do for saving GE??? make some petition?? donate money?? make realy good game??

#5

I think the view of Ton is to demonstrate Blender in a commercial external pipeline to get the attention of pro game makers… I didn’t took this as a total abandon of internal engine.
I think the internal engine could be made far better with some dev, and also I think it could be helped with some indie project, not realy game but kind of “interactive thing” (be it an installation in space, or cd-rom like or anything) …

I’m currently trying to get support for my projects using the BGE, it could include some cash for some coders at some point…

Personnaly the BGE is a wonderfull tool for rapid prototyping or idea developments, and has a great potential in “experimental” new media, as it is open and quite powerfull when you do not search to have all the AAA features of a modern game engine but rather something easy to develop with…

Letting it die is not an option.

#6

Bump map, normal map, 2d filters, bullet…did you see the new graphic demos tuts…I think blender GE can do an AAA game…just it takes professional gamemakers and sponsors and time to do it. Dont underestimate blender GE, dont let it go.
In other side BGE is a competitor(free) to other commercial(not free) GEs…every one of them will be happy to hear that BGE is gone…

#7

I agree with the point that as they are so few examples of good games made it means the BGE doesn’t look like an attractive option for developers. But then again if the engine isn’t good enough you cant make decent games. Its catch 22.

Ive been playing around with the game engine for quite a while and its always been like this. Its always had that potential to cross the gap between artists and coders but its not been able to keep pace with other engines.

Im looking forward to seeing what comes about as part of Apricot though, I think its the right choice to move to CS.

#8

Once again…collecting money will HELP A LOT in my opinion
Blender is “here” because we’ve collected 100 .000 EURO
A more complete and "finished " game engine with a working
web-plugin will be very attractive, I think.

#9

but it is growing , x blender , 2d filters , etc …
isn’t that enough ??

#10

I’ve only just found BGE after buying a6gamestudio and radishworks. BGE blows them out of the water for a non programmer like me. I hope it sticks around and continues to improve. I have also no doubt that it is capable of an amazing game /demo.

Glenn
http://www.glennmelenhorst.com

#11

I don’t think this was just a rash decision, I’m sure they considered the pros and cons of developing GE further more. If there are too few people (as good as they may be) to keep working on it, that could very easily bring to a slow and painfull death. As I see it, this is a very big step in trying out the alternatives, to see where this leads to. BGE is definitely a great game engine but it also needs a lot more work to make it commercialy interesting. I enjoy working with it every day and it is the last thing I would like to see it shut down but would also like to see where this leads to.

#12

I don’t normally post in this section, but it seems sad that two days ago blender nation announces this: http://www.blendernation.com/2007/11/23/game-engine-branch-2d-image-filtering-speedup/
then the bge is dead. I doubt it.
I would like to believe that there are other devs out there also who are building their own custom bge fixes/patches.
Bringing these people all together to work towards a common goal, for free, with language barriers & other obstacles, is another thing all together.
But it is possible.
The only thing lacking in the bge is solid leadership to bring together a respectable team of developers to fix it/update better the bge.
This is not Ton’s fault, nor is it unwise to have better integration with external ge, such as cs or ogre. It is simply that there are not the devs out there or enough devs united towards the goal of a better internal ge.
Just as the internal render engine gets minor updates & there are more options for external renderers, the game engine can have the same. more options.
Maybe in the future such a team will arise, Blender is a World wide 3d tool, has every forum in every major country put out a call to arms to fix the bge, not yet…
I know as I hunt for scripts in foreign forums that theres a wealth of untapped talent out there. Many people who don’t have the bandwidth to even download cs, so bge is their only option.
end meta’s bge rant 101.
m.a.

#13

If the CS pipeline is good enough, I’d gladly switch from the current BGE. So far, however, I’ve continue limping along with the internal simply because I can’t figure out how to use Crystal Space. That makes me feel stupid, but it’s the truth. CS baffles me. I have yet to even understand the installation procedure. If the Apricot project results in a CS that I can understand to the same extent I understand the BGE. . .I’ll gladly switch.

#14

no way…:(:no:
i think the blender game engine have a great future…
its free and open source…:slight_smile:
Every day more programmers and coders
In addition to the task
Create a better GE
Ton please dont Closures the GE and the Creativity;)

pd: sorry for my bad english

#15

Hello ! BGE is not dead since an engine live if people still using it and we see plenty of newcomers every weeks. Now even if blender is evolving it lacks of developpers and the engine outdated. Thinking bge can make AAA games seems to be unrealistic … BUt it’s true that blender need a really good games to attract more developpers because most of the game don’t look serious and for a developpers I would be interesting spend a lot of time building tool no one can use properly.
So as Oto said a contribution seems a good idea and also making real project and not just samll test all the time because most of the work in progress goes nowhere.

#16

Ok look at the screen of one AAA game…yes this game is great…but…look closely…the textures, the shadows(what shadows!?)…the models.
This screen is from the official site. I think BGE can do this…and alot more.
http://www.bogdana2005-bg.com/temp/pop.jpg

#17

Yes, with enough hard work you can assemble a scene like that in Blender’s internal GE. The problem is that the engine is slow, and once you create a scene of professional complexity it can become almost unusably slow.

#18

If the CS pipeline is good enough, I’d gladly switch from the current BGE. So far, however, I’ve continue limping along with the internal simply because I can’t figure out how to use Crystal Space. That makes me feel stupid, but it’s the truth. CS baffles me. I have yet to even understand the installation procedure. If the Apricot project results in a CS that I can understand to the same extent I understand the BGE. . .I’ll gladly switch.
I completely agree with Plantperson… CS is just um confusing… I’d also switch if it was less confusing. I really do like the BULLET physics engine tho… despite it’s current lack of a few features. CS it’s also quite large… maybe this project will make it easier.

But as far as I can see the aim of the project it to make blender more efficient at creating game content… not games itself. Which is still cool… but serious artists can use other software already to make game content. Question is this… is crystal blend going to be maintained by the Blender and Crystal space now…? Will the two become one?

Heck if I had the cash I would pay devs to improve the GE. Okay, put it this way… in order to improve the GE do they need a project that can make money… like the existing peach? ie. if there was no project that could inject cash into it… would it never get fixed?

What are the results of the Peach game project going to be do you think? Is blender going to be able to render tangent space normal maps? Are they going to improve the texture painting and better export of meshes and animations to crystal space?.. it would be interesting to know what changes would be planned for blender… seeing as this project won’t effect the GE.

I suppose the real question is this… what to you think would attract more people to using blender… a better GE or better modeling/animation/texturing tools?

#19

Here I have about quad the faces(about 15,000) compare the upper screenshot, and with completely rewritten logic in pure python with no logic bricks(like near,ray,radar) on my PC I achieve about 50-55FPS in this scene.
http://www.bogdana2005-bg.com/temp/omg.jpg

#20

http://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12400

what Ton has to say on the topic… looks to me like mainly export features will added to blender specifically for CS…

Lastly; many 3D game studios suffer big bottlenecks in getting character animation integrated well in the pipeline. Their tools don’t work all together as seamless and fluently as we can do with Blender and CS in our open source pipeline. Proving that this works well is our challenge… http://www.blender.org/forum/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif
other than that… um… not much…

–>maybe some animation prototyping using the GE or not at all? Still struggling to see how this benefits blender… if someone is seriously going to use it for game content then they’ll hire someone to code exporters to fit it in with there graphics pipeline anyway? :eyebrowlift2: