BLADE3D PRICES HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED!

Along with the latest build of this amazing framework (that is, build 1595), the guys behind its development have finally announced both licenses and prices.

From GameDev.net's announcing post: "... Pricing for Blade3D 1.x will be $99 for non-commercial use, and $249 for commercial use. The open and free Beta 1 of Blade3D can be downloaded from the product website at http://www.blade3d.com ..."

Let's the games begin ...

GAMEVIDEOS.COM'S GDC2007 COVERAGE ON XNA

News in line with my previous post: GameVideos.Com has published a series of 3 videos interviewing Shane Kim (Microsoft Game Studios Vice-President) and Dave Mitchell (Microsoft Game Developer Group Director of Marketing).

Part 1 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

Part 3 of 3:

Enjoy!

"THE YOUTUBE OF GAMES: MICROSOFT GAME STUDIO'S SHANE KIM ON XNA STUDIO EXPRESS"

Gamasutra has published a 3-page article entitled "The YouTube of Games: Microsoft Game Studio's Shane Kim on XNA Studio Express", covering among other topics, the future of XNA GSE.

From the article: "... With the release of XNA Game Studio Express just behind them, Gamasutra met with Microsoft Game Studios' corporate vice president Shane Kim, and Microsoft Game Developer Group director of marketing Dave Mitchell in the heat of the 2007 Game Developers Conference.

In this extensive interview, we discussed the Xbox 360's current placement in the market, the possibility of making harddrives mandatory, the state of Microsoft Game Studios in Japan, future Zune connectivity with the 360, Kim's thoughts about the competition, and the future of XNA Game Studio Express, both commercially and for educational purposes. ...".

Interesting read.

BLADE3D BETA 1 (BUILD 1543) NOW AVAILABLE

The latest build of this impressive framework is now available for registered beta-1 testers.

From Blade3D's forums: "We are happy to announce the availability of the latest build of Blade3D.

Here is a list of features and improvements for this weeks release. 

• Entirely new multimedia help system with embedded video tutorials
• Integrated web based asset delivery mechanism for textures, models and modules
• Over 400 free textures and more than 70 models ready for delivery
• New menu commands for quick model import, selection and scene insertion
• Improved, more intuitive translation tool
• Ability to define custom bone controllers for animated models
• New animation graphs provide basis for total animation control in future
• Ability to import/export any part of the module to shareable packages
• Many bugs fixed

Registered Beta 1 users should go here to download the latest build

Enjoy!"

So, ... enjoy!

VISUAL3D.NET VIDEOS

Many of us may have been lately asking what have happened to this promising framework. Well, at least, I did.

Two new videos show the power of Visual3D.Net:

Pretty impressive, imho ... :)

NEWS, MORE NEWS AND EVEN MORE NEWS!!!

Spread the word! A new update for XNA GSE is on its way: bug fixes, changes, new additions, and potential features being investigated.

You can find complementary information on the following sites:

• XNA Team Blog,
• TheZBuffer (which also includes a rumor), and
• Shawn Hargreaves Blog.

And if you think this is it, you are wrong! Browse to this link and download Microsoft XNA Developer Slides presented to this year's GDC (which cover many interesting topics).

Too much info to process in no time. Ok, let's start ...

REMEMBER 'BLADE3D'?

And no, I'm not referring to a 3D representation of the Marvel's hero.

I mean this upcoming XNA-based framework. Today, Zyggy has informed us that the first open beta is now available for testing.

Check out this screenshot:

Worth testing, imho ...

[Note: in order to receive the beta you must register here.]

GAME MAKER STUDIO .NET

A new framework built on top of XNA has arrived: 'Game Maker Studio .NET'.

You can check the author's blog, visit the forums, view some screenshots, browse the Wiki and of course, download the latest version of the framework.

From GMS .NET's site: "Through working with RMXP building scripts and seeing the limits of the engine I left RMXP to build a new editor and engine. I had an idea for a good system for building 2d games or at least 2d RPG games. So I asked around and found people willing to help with the project. But sadly they have all left one way or another. That forced me to rethink the development since I was depending on some of these people for different parts of development. I changed the direction of the project and went away from ruby as my programming language and away from developing an in-house graphics package and maybe from a graphics package all together. When this process was working itself out I found the XNA framework the brain child from MS for a simple and easy way to develop games. Well in truth it does make life a lot simpler in terms of lower level control but lacks a great deal of higher level control and content control. The idea struck. Build an editor to layer over the XNA framework. But the hard part was how to do it away that lets the user and community develop the product’s future. So I designed a shell in which new elements can be added to a project and thus changing the editor the engines and the game. Thus through community development this product can be changed to model the needs of the community. It was at this point that Game Maker Studio .Net was born and The Game Wizard died."
Enjoy!

NEW NAME TO XNA MAGIC: 'BLADE3D'

At last! The new name for XNA Magic framework has been announced: Blade3D.

So don't forget to update your favorites with the new link.

Congrats to the winner!

'VISUAL3D.NET' VS. 'XNA MAGIC'

As we wait for news and updates related to the Dream.Build.Play contest, there are a couple of sites worth checking (imho).

On one corner we have Visual3D.NET. A public CTP had been announced, but last time I visited the forums, someone asked, but no news were added.

On the other corner we have XNA MAGIC. Two things: i) the "Naming Competition" is over, so the new name for this framework (and the winner of the Pro license) may be announced soon, and ii) information about the beta 1 can be found on the "Beta One Development Roadmap" page.

Both look very promising but none has revealed the price for commercial licenses, thought ... :(

XNA: COUPLE OF NEW FRAMEWORKS

I was wondering lately what had happened with Visual3D.Net's CTP -due to be released this month, so I directed my browser ro V3D's forums so as to get some answers -which I did not, but for my surprise someone posted a couple of links to new XNA-targeted frameworks: "3D Evolution" and "XNA Magic".

To be honest, I didn't have time to browse 3D Evolution's site as much as I did for XNA Magic's one -I promise I will sometime soon, so I will talk about the latter in this post.

XNA Magic looks pretty cool. It reminds me of "Unity" (for MAC). The demo videos do a great job on showing off what this framework has to offer.

So, pay a visit to both frameworks' site and compare them while we still wait for V3D's CTP (c'mon guys, hurry up!).

More later.

MY FIRST GRAPHIC AD: REALM CRAFTER

Wow! I'm excited ... I have witnessed the appearance of a graphic ad in my blog: "Realm Crafter - Make Your Own MMORPG". Sometimes it shows up at the top-left corner of the side bar.

It's very difficult to get those kind of ads even if you set "Only graphic ads". Believe me ...

This blog is going up in the world ... ;)

Anyway, Realm Crafter is a framework that helps you create a Masive-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). Until this year-end (December 31st, 2006) you can buy the current version for only $65 and get the upcoming version 2 for free.

If you want to know more about this promotion visit RC's site as well as check out the public portions of its forums to see some screenshots and read some news related to version 2.

Later.

TORQUE X OPEN BETA AVAILABLE

Well, yes. It's true. I have received an email message from GarageGame notifying the availability of an open beta of TorqueX.

You can download and test the demo of it as well as pay a visit to the new forums areas related to this product.

Now, it's time for Visual3D.Net to come out, don't you think? Let's hope so ...

Later.

XNA GSE V1.0 RELEASED!!!

As you may already known -given the large amount of blogs' news pointing out the same- XNA GSE v1.0 is out. Check the official words from the XNA Team itself.

One question though, any news regarding the release of TorqueX? We are still on December 11th ...

WE ARE ALMOST THERE!

Yeap! December is comming ... sales, presents, christmas, XBOX360, PS3, Wii, XNA, TorqueX, Visual3D.Net ... phewww! Everything accelerates as we approach the year-end.

For us, "indies", it is a very important month as we are waiting for the final release of XNA GSE and with it, the parallel releases of TorqueX and Visual3D.Net.

Developers post questions over and over in every forum asking for CTPs, betas, demos, screenshots and such, as if they were children traveling in a car with their parents and continuously asking them: "Are we there yet?".

Patience. Even if they need some extra time to finish the products it will benefit us in the end: more stability, less bugs, more fun.

In the meantime, check "HeroEngine", it seems quite interesting. Unfortunately, neither demos nor prices are available in the site so I cannot comment about it (I don't know about the engine itself but the tools seem to be .NET-based). If someone has more information about this framework please drop me some lines.

Cheers!

VISUAL3D.NET CLOSED BETA

According to xeonx the close beta program for Visual3d.NET has started.

Check the forum's thread for more information.

TORQUE X NEWS

The guys from 360 Homebrew have posted some interesting information regarding the versions, price and release date for TorqueX.

• TorqueX Engine Binary: free (for direct coding through .NET).
• TorqueX Pro: USD 150,oo (will include source code).

Ok. That is cool for developers -like me- that love coding with C#. Now, what if you desperately need a level editor right now? Well, fear not. You will be able to use Torque Game Builder tool with TorqueX upon release of the latter.

When it is going to be released? Good you asked. According to what has been posted TorqueX will be released the same day XNA GSE is officially released.

So go ahead and check the demo of TGB.

Ahh! And don't forget the "XNA Homebrew Development Contest", where you may win some prizes from GarageGames, like TorqueX Pro and TGB -if you win the compo.

Hurry up!

NEW VIDEO SHOWING XNA

The XNA Team has released a new video featuring games created with XNA.

In the video you will find games developed by members of the XNA community like Blobbit Dash, Sharky's Air Legends, and Particle Wars. Also, you will get a sneak preview of upcoming starter kits like "Pocket Jongg" and the superb "XNA Racer".

Enjoy!

BRING IT ON!!!

As announced, beta 2 version of XNA is out so for those of us who want to use C# to program videogames these will be interesting times.

Also, I have received an email message by GarageGame's postmaster announcing the closed beta program for TorqueX and at almost the same time RightRiot has confirmed that Visual3D.Net is coming towards the public beta release this month.

On the console fields, I have read an article published by Gamasutra where it is commented that Sony will be take more into account "indies" for game development for PS3 since, among other reasons, they deem XBox360 as its main direct competitor, mostly in the US market.

Thus, as said, everything is set for interesting times which will likely mean "opportunity".

The fun is about to start: many tests, assessment and decisions shall be done to choose the right framework but in the end, I guess we -"indie" developers- will be the winners.

GAME ENGINES AND OTHERS: PART 3 OF 3

At last! The final part of the series ...

Where were we? ... On part 1 I had introduced some general concepts about game engines and other components and on part 2 I had presented some examples for each category. Well, now is time to reduce the spectrum to .NET world.

There may be a lot of well-known components that I'll forget to mention (as wll as new additions made to the market and upcoming ones), so I recommend you for the n-th time to pay a visit to "DevMaster.net" and check the "3D Engines Database" section.

Not too many components were built for .NET using C# from scratch, but I can remember two of them which did: Purple# and Haddd.

Purple# was one of the first engines to appear that were written using C# 1.1 and if I remember well -please correct me if I'm wrong- it'd be ported to version 2.0 of .NET. However, things have been quiet for a while since no news have been posted and the forum's activity has almost stopped. Also, last time I checked the "Downloads" section had no files to download (?).

Tip: you can always use the rate of new posts, both for news and forum's threads, as a proxy of the activity related to the component's site. I mean, whether a component is still updated or under development, whether it has been abandoned by the developers and or its users, etc.

Haddd was one the most (relatively) recent ones to appear and was pretty much impressive. Open source, its rendering process was designed for the use of shaders (mostly, model 2 ones), a physics middleware was successfully plugged in and some AI implementations were interesting. Unfortunately, Haddd project was suddenly stopped. Fear not! Fortunately, the source code for the latest review was distributed free to the community and now there's a new successor: Jadengine.

What about components ported to .NET and or targeted for .NET but built upon non-NET components? "Err ... what? Please rephrase ..."

I remember AXIOM3D. This engine was built upon OGRE and let me tell you it was quite good on the offered features and open source. One of the things I liked most about it was the BSP implementation.

Then it came Realmforge GDK. Built upon AXIOM3D -but from a different team, this component was meant to ease your game-creation experience by providing a handy GUI which one could use to set and edit your worlds properties and such.

Both components were discontinued. Fear not ..... again! Visual3D.Net is on its way.

But, what is it? Well, to sum up, the next phase of evolution that results from the cumulative experiences of the developers of Realmforge3D (the original developer of AXIOM3D joined the project a few months ago). Correct me if I'm wrong but it has been built from scratch using C# and MDX so it's not AXIOM nor OGRE dependant anymore.

For what it can be seen in the screenshots and read in the forums, Visual3D.net promises to be a very useful framework when released with support to .NET Framework v2.0 and XNA Framework. A Community Technology Preview ("CTP") of Visual3D.net is comming this October so if you're interested don't forget to visit its site and sign up to get the latest news about the CTP.

Its nemesis? Or at least, for what I understand, TorqueX ... Garagegames' future product which is a combination of its newest product ("Torque Game Builder") and some features of other products (like "Torque Game Engine" and "Torque Shader Engine") all ported to XNA Framework. This also promises to be very useful so as to reduce coding time.

Some videos have been released to the public showing TorqueX's features and a public beta has been announced (even though no release date has been confirmed yet), so again if you're interested, go and sign up to receive the newsletter on the product.

As already said, Visual3D.net and TorqueX will both support XNA framework, so this match is going to be interesting ...

"Wait! You have mentioned XNA for the third time now ... but what is XNA?"

According to XNA's FAQ it "is not acronymed". XNA Framework is a collection of classes and tools that can be used for the production of DirectX-enabled programs with VisualStudio 2005 that can be run in both, PC and XBox 360 platforms. One of its most important features is the content pipeline it offers (a handy way of "incrementally" deal with your assets for the game, like meshes, music and sounds).

Think of it like the successor of Managed DirectX 2.0, given that it has been recently announced that no further development shall be provided for MDX 2.0. Sooooo, when you choose a component for your project bear this information in mind in order to avoid ugly surprises.

"Ok, but what is XNA Game Studio Express?". XNA GSE is the ... you know what? Just read it here (I promise I'll post my comments about it in future posts but currently you can find some source code for it I've already posted in this blog).

I cannot bring the series to a proper end without mentioning some other components that supports .NET technologies through the provision of wrappers which are worth checking:

• 3Impact,
  
• Irrlitch,
  
• SDL.NET, and
  
• Truevision3D.

I could include "3DState" to that list since it has been around for a long time now, but last time I checked there were no news nor forum page. The website was revamped with some flash components but it seems that there is no sign of further activity (?).

Remember MAC developers to check "Unity3D": based on its features, users' comments, demos and examples, this framework seems to have nothing to envy to PC-platform's ones. And yes, for those of us who may consider buying a MAC, Unity3D can produce cross-platform executables.

To sum up, as you can guess for what you have read in the whole series of posts, there are a lot of engines, middleware and frameworks which will help you produce videogames from square one (as well as, in some cases, other multimedia applications). Thus, the whole process of selecting the one/s for your project demands a high amount of man/hour efforts so as not to fail by making a wrong choice. Therefore, before starting a project make sure you spend some time to develop a systematic method to evaluate the component candidates efficiently in order to seek and get optimal results.

Well folks, I hope you have enjoyed reading "Game Engines And Others" as well as found it useful.

'till next time. See ya!