Prepairing the BGE for upgrades, then Kickstart

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
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Idea - Produce games using any engine, sell on steam, donate % of game revenue to pay for a stable android blenderplayer and to integrate the new viewport into blender game engine,

I am not sure about anyone else, but for me the workflow on the bge is insanely fast.

I want to see the BGE ruling steam and the android market.

Phase 1 = collect money and get a developer signed on

Phase 2 = the work - Develop the ability to publish to andorid

Phase 3 = collect more ideas on improving the engine for indie developers and impliment - was thinking android compatible and PC compatible flexible multiplayer systems and in game store system

Who is with me?

Edit: kickstart Pending is 35,000 enough?

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Right now I can sell bge games as is, Android support and view-port integration will be enough for me,

if Ton decides to remove standalone support, I will make a fork, that is stable @ 2.75+ android support

I actually was going to use the money to recruit off the blender developer network.

I want everything to hit master,

Phase 3 = another separate campaign

You can be critical all you desire, but there are developers that have BGE games that are already made
that can port their content to Android once support exists.

I want to see the BGE pay for it’s own development, this will not be possible if standalone is removed.

With the systems I designed, I can write a game in about two weeks now, not including art and levels,

I intend to polish these resources and give them away for free, (just like the resources I already donate)

With these systems, you can drop a actor controller in a scene, drop a actor rig base, attach a armature, name you animations and have a working rig. in under 1 hour.

this is not my project, it is ours,

any adjustments that need to be made, will be made.

I intended to do this for a few reasons .

Reason 1 = Blender game engine based Augmented communication device for android
-why? proloquo2go = 250$+ usd , IPAD = 200 -> 600 dollars = Too expensive to donate for free,

What if I write my own, that runs on donated android devices? I can give it away for free.

Reason 2 = Indie developers don’t use the bge becuase it has limited publishing options and poor GFX support,
this will undo these reasons.

Reason 3 = I don’t want to see the work of all who contributed to the bge be swept into the trash.

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IIRC OpenGL ES is needed for android support… and that support will probably be coming with the viewport modernisation.

Would you be hiring devs to help with the viewport modernisation? do you have any developers in mind who know the blender codebase?

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If the viewport integration is what is required, and standalone is achieved then yes, I just want the feature available for the community,

I could see games like dead cyborg using google cardboard running in the bge doing quite well,

If all people are involved with the bge evolving, I am happy.

I would gladly pay Psy-fi or cambel or even the foundation itself,

as long as our goals were in line.

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Ok, firstly & most importantly, forget the BGE. I know you have this compulsion to point out just how good the BGE is every time you post, but the most glaring issues with your campaign have nothing to do with the game engine.

It doesn’t matter if your intention was to improve the game engine, cycles, animation tool, user interface, or any other part of Blender - the problems are still the same:

  • Your communication skills (as seen in the forums & on the mailing list) leave a lot to be desired when it comes to selling something. Not everyone has what it takes to be a salesman (I don’t) and make no mistake - a crowd-funding campaign is a sustained sales job.

  • You don’t have a developer for the job yet. In other words, you are raising money without knowing who the hell will actually be paid for the job. This is a showstopper.

  • You don’t know how much the task is going to cost. This is another showstopper.

Feel free to ignore me. I honestly couldn’t care less whether you think I’m being unfair, over critical, or just conspiring to bring down the BGE for unstated nefarious reasons. Right now, as you’ve detailed the project, if Kickstarter launches the campaign tomorrow - it’s going to fail. No ifs, buts, or maybes about it - it’s going to fail so hard your grandchildren will feel the pain. No-one wants that.

However, if you are serious about the idea - do yourself a favour. Pull your head out of the clouds, stop pretending this has anything whatsoever to do with people’s like/dislike of the BGE, and go ask someone who has run a successful crowd-funding campaign what they think of your plan as written above. Then actually listen to their response. They’re going to tell you the same thing I did.

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I think the idea is self explanatory,
I don’t care to debate you, I don’t need to.

The idea is to port the blender player to android,
and integrate the new view-port project into the bge if that is what
is required to see it through,

I don’t think I stuttered.

I will be donating to the fund myself,
regardless of if the kickstarter succeeds or fails using wrectified.
I aim for greenlight in 3 weeks,

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Modernisation… not integration… blender calls have loads of old school opengl code… this sort of code is not supported on android devices.

Have you looked into the blender android build from 2011? (maybe 2012 if my memory fails me)

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http://download.blender.org/demo/android/

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BPR, Have you considered making goals you can reach with your own effort in a week? Maybe setting some stretch goals to work to?

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This. There have been successful independently managed crowdfunding efforts in Blender’s past. However, the successful ones have all had these attributes:

  • A small, singular, focused goal… clearly communicated.

  • A relatively small funding target (low four-figures… or less).

  • Some form of approval (however small) from at least one core Blender developer… preferably relevant module owner.

  • Enough research to know exactly how much effort and time would be necessary to achieve the goal.

  • An agreement from a capable developer to do the work if sufficient funds are raised.

At this point, it appears that this project only [barely] matches one of these attributes (most folks agree that having OpenGL ES would be nice). If you want a picture of what a successfully-run independent crowdfunding effort looks like, I highly suggest that you read this interview with Todd McIntosh, the person responsible for the campaign that resulted in the Ocean Sim modifier.

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http://download.blender.org/demo/android/

and the pipeline is in place to publish all of game logic ?

How do you use it? is their a GSL shader translator that grabs data out of the .blend and writes shaders?

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I give up. Some people apparently need to learn things the hard way.

When your attempt to raise $35K fails, perhaps then you’ll be willing to listen to those actually trying to help you… or maybe just blame it on hate for the BGE. That never gets old. :rolleyes:

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No, I am listing to your concerns, and addressing them,

the goals are pretty evident, and I have researched this for a time,

The kickstart is to get blender game into modern shading and android support,

That is pretty much it, either a dev will sign on (some already expressed passing intrest)

or I will ask ton how to best proceed, once funding is reached,

all that is really left is a document outlining the best way to move forward,
get a accurate cost analysis and then spread the word.

I will either open a google doc, or use some docs from the precious attempts.

My G+ has 1.5 million views, I help people all over the net, and can probably get some money colletcted and get this done.

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There’s also another thing, and that is no matter what you do you won’t be able to fix the issue that is the restriction of the GPL (so no iOS or console support no matter how much money you throw around).

Can we at least see some tangible evidence of what the 2.8x refactor into the Interative engine looks like before you ask us on yet another thread calling to ‘save’ the BGE?

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I said android support.

Nothing about IOS or consoles.

I would ask anyone who knows on the forum,
what is the most tangible clear path forward to achieve
this , and how much do you think it will cost in
time and money.

I will do the same directly to ton, and #blendercoders

and get a estimated cost and time of completion

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No, you are not listening, BPR.

  • You still don’t have someone on board that can sell the campaign better than you. Note the reaction this thread is getting? Note the lack of people stating they’re on board and willing to pony up cash for it? That’s a problem and you’re still not dealing with it.

  • You still don’t know the developer doing the work and (more importantly) whether or not they have the skills necessary to do the job. If the campaign is to have any chance whatsoever of even raising 10% of your current target - you need a developer people trust can get the job done & code committed to trunk. That you do not have that developer is a problem and “passing interest” isn’t going to cut it.

  • You still don’t know how much effort (& hence money) is required to make the necessary changes. You pulled a $35K estimate out of the air, admitted that to the community you need funding from, and still expect that’s a figure people are going to accept? That’s a problem and you really can’t deal with it now you’ve locked the price in on your campaign.

Better organised, better researched, and better communicated crowd-funding campaigns have failed asking for LESS money than you’re pitching for. Burying your head in the sand isn’t going to magically make the community contribute.

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BluePrintRandom, Your intentions are no doubt great and welcomed! But if you want to crowd fund something You’re going to need to take a few more steps. I have some experience in this so hopefully my 2c can help.

Your plan kinda looks like this right now.

profit.jpg800×1000 134 KB

Now you should not give up, on the contrary you need to take some steps before you’re indie-gogo on us.
Don’t start a campaign until you’ve done at least these suggestions. Remember, you want to reach your goal, you want others to share that goal, and you want to do this right.

  1. Get at least one good developer behind you. I’d get two.

  2. Get other people to help manage and help convey the goal with you. Basically a guy or two more as supporting members of the campaign, ideally people who use the game engine a lot.

  3. Do more to convey/communicate the goal. Make a good video, make at least a few well written paragraphs, organize a really good information and progress thread here. Make a cool graphic for the project, give the project a name, put stuff about it in your signature.

  4. Get in direct contact with a core blender developer(s) ideally over skype or the phone and talk to them about what it would take for this goal. That shows a lot of effort and means a lot. It will also help you know things like possible time tables, what kind of development it will take, it will give you a better idea of what kind of money you need.

  5. Think bigger, try at least $100,000.

  6. Make an amazing crowd funding page and do your best to get it out there and keep up enthusiasm until the goal is met. Seek out as many sources as you can, not just these forums, no just blender forums. Take your goal to game developers currently using other engines, tell them about Blender’s and tell them about what it could do with some improvements your campaign seeks to help bring.

  7. Work with people as much as you can in the process of trying to get this stuff in Blender.

Hope this helps!

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I am not, 35,000 was quoted some time ago the first time I asked,

and was for it to happen in 1 month,
however then their was not roots started yet in
the viewport drawing code update, the time is right,
I am talking with black shell media publisher tonight,
and will research how to get more indie developers on board,

and attempt to secure a developer tonight, and ask everyone who knows anything about development cost for doing something like this,

I will reach out , and try and get help from high places.

And if I fail, I will be better informed and try again,

I already frequent indie developer forums on facebook, and G+
and Twitter,

I’ll try and branch out more as well to all the smaller forums, etc.

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I believe the first instance was that it could output an apk which was playable on android, then the dev realised that he could get full blender working under the apk… the code base is still around somewhere IIRC.

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The first thing (and most important thing) you should do is to please stop writing “GSL”. It drives me nuts.

It’s GLSL.

Secondly, I would suggest you contact AlexKu, because he’s the one who did the preliminary Android port, to see if he’s interested in working on this, if you manage to raise any money. If that doesn’t pan out, request quotes from people who do Android game ports professionally.

Once you have a reasonable quote (not some number a forum dude pulled out of his butt), try finding some help with setting up the crowdfunding page. I strongly suspect that you don’t have the necessary presentation and communication skills to set this up properly.

Also, you have to focus. Stop spamming your ideas everywhere and out of context. To me, that behavior is a warning to not work with someone.

Set the goal to “get the BGE running on Android” and nothing else. This is a clear goal which a competent developer can work with on their own. Having the developer work self-directed is important, because you don’t have the competence to direct development. (You should also promise that you’ll stay out of their way with your constant flow of ideas)

I shall also point out to you that you haven’t finished anything. You’re nowhere near finishing your current project, and I’ve seen you claim you could make a game in one week with what you have so far. These are pure delusions.

Forget about making games to sell on Steam from which to donate a percentage. You don’t have a game to sell, nor does anyone else (from what I can see). You must completely remove this idea from your crowdfunding concept.

Also, forget about the connection to the Viewport project. None of the work done lately has anything to do with the BGE.

Good Luck. If you don’t fail with this (which I’m sure 98% of the people here are expecting), you will basically have proven the American Dream, or something…