I know you are hesistant to, but I think the ONLY way you’ll get a truly accurate picture of the interest is to give something to see, whether it be screenshots, a demo, a sample game, anything… We can’t really give you a yes or no as to purchase probability without seeing what it is we are being asked to buy. And you certainly can’t negotiate a deal without being able to guarantee some sales for the owners. Otherwise, how do they benifit? If you could work that in as part of the negotiation, I think it would do a LOT of good!
The name of the product is AxelEdge 2.0 and, for the time being, it is a “suspended” project. Only overwhelming user interest will bring it back, and, at a price everyone can afford. The company, Mindavenue, has been purchased by a large Canadian company that specializes in cabinet design software. If they are not presented with a very good reason to continue selling AxelEdge, they will, most likely, digest the product and assimilate it as a part of their cabinet making software product line. They have already had many emails sent to them by loyal AxelEdge developers, and a lot of encouragement from me, personally.
If they agree to releasing their latest version at a much reduced price, I am negotiating with them to support the product, not with new and updated releases, but with a continuing series of training modules covering AxelEdge inside and out. I would also sponsor a dedicated community of developers and assist with marketing everyone’s creations. There is a market for smaller, yet engaging game projects. They are growing up right alongside the “state of the art” games that are being currently released.
So, take a good look at the Mindavenue legacy site and be sure to try out many of their example files to get an idea of Axel’s capabilities, and then let me know what you think.
well, it has some good features for the web, but it’s pretty lightweight. i don’t think it can even touch blender. even blender has quicker code than this. plus, just as i feared, it’s too high-level - too easy and too limited. you couldn’t make squat in the way of serious game design. thank you for bringing this to our attention greg, but i don’t think it’s gonna fly with blenderheads. blender is MUCH better.
have you used the blender plugin? It seems like a slight improvement to the gameengine and blender browser plugins could give equivalent results. Also the upcoming blender release will have an indirect path to macromedia shockwave (via the new XSI exporter + XSI to shockwave) which would also get us a fair way of the way there.
I just emailed asking if any work has been done on it recently, there were some developers who mentioned they were updating it but the last email on the subject was quite awhile ago.
It’s just as a feared: A 3D equivalent of The Games Factory. Nice for kids or simple stuff for the web but at the end of the day I left The Games Factory for GameBlender. Going over to something like this would be a huge step backwards.
Even if you could convince this canadian cabinet maker to release another version of the engine, there’s no guarantee they would continue developing it. They could kill the project at any time. They do after all have other plans for the software, and they are NOT in the gaming industry. This software might get a revival, but it will be short lived. Blender on the other hand is GPL licensed and it’s got a strong user base already, so it’ll be around for years to come!
Where can I find the press release for this? Is it actually an exporter for the game engine? With logic bricks and python supported? (I can’t see how it can support python). Or will it just export animations? :-?
Will you still require Macromedia software to convert from XSI to Shockwave? Or are there suitable 3rd-party freeware tools?
Since you feel so free to express your disapproval and immediately come to the conclusion that this brilliant piece of software engineering is nothing more than a child’s toy or web 3D gadget, maybe you can post a list of very specific objections to the software and a detailed description of what you think are its limitations. Also, if you could point out in which specific ways it is inferior to Blender’s current, non-working, game engine, that would be great too. It would help all of us who are seriously considering using this tool. Your experience must hold a wealth of wisdom. Why not share with all of us so we can learn.
About killing software and ceasing to support it. Do you realize that any manufacturer of software, whether it is open source or not, has made no legally binding commitment to its users to continuing to develop or support what they sell or give to you? What you buy, or download, you are automatically consenting to use “as is”. That is the bottom line. The rest is all based on your hope and trust, which doesn’t carry much weight in the business world, ever. They, every one of them, could wake up one morning, Ton included, and decide they have had enough. The entire business of software production and consumption is nothing but a giant crap shoot.
They, every one of them, could wake up one morning, Ton included, and decide they have had enough. The entire business of software production and consumption is nothing but a giant crap shoot.
the difference between closed and open source is that if a closed source developer decides it no longer makes sense to support the software then it is impossible to have it developed further get bug fixes etc. They have the final word. For open source users can either support themselves or combine their resources to hire someone to support them regardless of what the orginal source code developer chooses to do. Also for closed source software, you can’t get a feature no matter how much you want it until the original developers add it themselves. Same with bug fixes, no matter how important it is to your bottom line that a bug needs to be fixed, until the company chooses to fix it you are at their mercy. Worst case scenario for open source is you hire someone to do it for you, or do it yourself.
Regarding the software you’ve brought to our attention - it does seem to be a very well integrated and designed product. I’m not overly familar with blenders current game engine and web plugin - but from what I know it isn’t too much beyond the GEs current capabilities.
-real-time lighting
-runtime .exe’s
-fullscreen
-cd soundtrack support
-fairly fast framerates
-support
-open-source
-huge community of users
-it can be web based or stand alone
-available for all OS’s
-integrated 3D animation/rendering capabilities
-yafray integration
-ipo animation
-ika animation
-modeling capabilities integrated
-everything in one app.!!!
-it’s been used and positivly reviewed by some large companies
-GNU license
-LSCM unwrapping
-python integration - python is easier than javascript!
-UV texture mapping
-non-linear animation mixer
-constraint system
-character animation pose editor
-animatible lattice deformation
-program itself is extensible using python scripts!
-edge-rendering for toon shading
-export scripts for external renderers
-dynamic physics simulation - sumo, ode AND bullet!
-supports all opengl lighting modes
-audio uses the sdl toolkit
-multi-layering scenes
-one .blend file contains everything you need!
-.blend format supports compression, digital signatures, encryption, forwards/backwards compatibility and can be used as a library to link to from other .blend files
-native import/export for .dxf and inventor files
-mesh smoothing
-your choice of modeling style - simply convert to mesh when finished
-non-overlapping, non-blocking user interface
this program does have amazing potential… what i propose is instead of continuing their project they could somehow, by fundraising perhaps, gain a way to help gameblender reach this, maybe work with jorrit. I was pretty amazed with the potential but the engine seemed limited to small spaces. i mean consider our game crescent dawn, do a google search of it. look what can be done with gameblender and python and then come here and say if this engine can do even close to what we accomplished with gameblender.
if it can, talk to me because i will do anything in my strength to help out. dont give up on these proposals, but i do fear that in its current state, it cannot do anything even close to gameblender proportions.
Your list is primarily composed of functionality found in the general Blender application, not in the game engine, itself. Aren’t we talking about game engines in this thread?
