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Geek Culture / Advice on whether to buy a TGC product

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Lord Herakles the Great
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 01:11
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As some of you may know, I am using UDK for my game creation needs. However, learning to use said engine is taking far longer than I anticipated, so I have decided to go back to one of my DarkGDK games that I never finished. I will split my time between finishing that and continuing to learn UDK.

In the past, I have been using Cartography Shop 4 for level creation. However, this program is pitiful in comparison to the UDK editor. Is it worth the $50 to get 3D World Studio, which is advertised as being comparable to the Unreal editor? Or should Cartography Shop 4 suffice for the game I am attempting to create.

The game in question will be a retro-style FPS, like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D, in a fantasy setting with some light RPG gameplay mechanics. My skills lie in 3D, not pixel art, so I may need to do a team request when I get to that point, though I've still got a lot to do before I get to that point.

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TheComet
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 01:22 Edited at: 18th Oct 2012 01:23
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DarkGDK over UDK? Really?

DarkGDK would take far longer to learn than UDK for sure. I personally don't know UDK so I guess I'm not qualified to say this, but I still have the impression that UDK will produce good results faster than DGDK.

And besides, UDK supports DX11 and other platforms where DGDK is Windows only and supports DX9. It's also a lot slower than UDK so you would have to cut back on model quality.

TheComet

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Van B
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 01:51
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The difference is the scope of the project you want to do now, not 3 years down the line. How many solo UDK projects actually reach completion? - UDK is really more for teams of people, the media demands and internal knowledge, it's a helluva lot for 1 person to undertake.

The UDK system is great, it's probably as close to an ideal development environment as you can get, but why use a clawhammer to open a peanut. If you want to make something a bit retro, something fun to work on, then you should use the platform that is good enough to get the results you want. Personally, I flip between XCode, AppGameKit, DBPro, Purebasic, VB, VBA... the right tool for the job, it's how projects get completed.

What about AppGameKit? - frankly, I'd really like to see a less linear tablet RPG, less about selling you gear, more about just enjoying a game. Seriously, some of the RPG's on mobile devices are pathetic. A survival horror game in the same style as Amnesia for instance, with some RPG elements, well I'd buy it. Mobile games tend to be about little portions of gameplay, bite sized chunks, even though there's a solid market for people who like these games. Look at Enderman, some trees, some empty, basic buildings, 1 bad model, vague lighting - and it's hugely popular!. Enderman could have been written in DBC, never mind DBPro, never mind GDK. I mean, if you like to concentrate on art, surely it makes sense to keep concentrating on art, because AppGameKit doesn't take much learning at all. Make an artistic game that let's you adhere to your talents and is still fun to develop.

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Lord Herakles the Great
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 03:14
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Quote: "DarkGDK would take far longer to learn than UDK for sure."


But I don't need to learn DarkGDK. I've been using it for a while now, so I'm already pretty comfortable with it. And the game I'm discussing has already moved from the proverbial "drawing board" to an early pre-alpha phase. I stopped working on it at a certain point and switched to a 3rd person stealth / cover based shooter game.

Eventually, once I am comfortable enough with UDK, I will continue the stealth game in that engine. But, in the meantime, I can go back and finish the retro style FPS I was working on in DarkGDK.

Quote: "the right tool for the job, it's how projects get completed."


Exactly. UDK will be great for my future games, but it would be overkill for this one. Doom style games only need basic 3D levels and 2D sprites for characters. DarkGDK can handle that just fine.

The funny thing is that, though I'm perfectly fine making ultra-realistic characters with Zbrush for use in UDK, I have no experience whatsoever with doing pixel art. So I'll probably have to ask for help with that at some point in the future. I'll wait until I have at least something to show, so that I don't violate the "team request" rules.

But anyway, what about 3D World Studio? Should I buy it, or should I just keep using Cartography Shop 4?

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Benjamin
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 05:15 Edited at: 18th Oct 2012 05:15
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I guess you have to try to weigh how long it'll take you to complete the project in DarkGDK against learning to use UDK. With sufficient knowledge it would be much, much faster to develop your game with UDK since the framework - a world class framework - is already there.

Even if you wanted to make drastic changes to the standard functionality you still have the support of a highly efficient engine with everything integrated, rather than the loose collection of libraries that DarkGDK is. Graphics, physics, audio, networking, it's all tied together which will save you a lot of time and headaches.

Quote: "How many solo UDK projects actually reach completion?"


Quote: " UDK is really more for teams of people, the media demands and internal knowledge, it's a helluva lot for 1 person to undertake."


How many DarkGDK projects have reached completion? I don't really think it's any more work going solo with UDK, it's just that the work is shifted from building the engine to learning to use an existing engine. Since from the get-go you pretty much already have a working game to play with it doesn't matter whether the coding or media comes first.

Quote: "the right tool for the job, it's how projects get completed."


Right, it's just a matter of deciding which is the right tool for the job. Since he already knows DarkGDK and doesn't seem to want to do too ambitious a project, I think it may be best if he sticks with that.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 13:08
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Well you already know Dark GDK and if you don't want to do anything too big, I think Dark GDK is a fair route to take. Sometimes it's good to stick with what you know, especially as you'll be able to set realistic goals and know where you can go and what you have the skill to do. When learning something, I think your goals become less realistic and of course you have to factor in how long it'll take you to learn it to a degree where you're knowledgeable enough to take on your project.

UDK is a fantastic toolset and definitely worth learning if you want to give it a go. But if you're looking for something more short term, Dark GDK is a great tool. The TGC product line are actually designed to make things quick and easy in comparison to other libraries/languages. Though Dark GDK and UDK are 2 completely different products appealing to different needs. Which is odd when you think about it because both are for creating games, but UDK is fully-fledged customisable game engine, whilst Dark GDK is a library for coding your game. Naturally, pick the best tool for the job. You're not necessarily going to need all of UDK's amazing features, but to create your game based around the elements you need.

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Lord Herakles the Great
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 18:35
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I've already made the decision to split my time between learning to use UDK and making this game in DarkGDK. What I can't yet decide is whether to continue using Cartography Shop 4 for my level design needs, or buy 3D World Studio.

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TheComet
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 19:03
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Why not use blender? It's far more powerful than both of those programs and it's for free.

It does have a steep learning curve, so if you don't want to have to learn how to use it then there are other free programs out there. Just to name a few off the top of my head:

-Fragmotion
-Wings 3D
-Sketchup

TheComet

"Why geeks like computers: unzip, strip, touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, more, yes, fsck, fsck, fsck, umount, sleep." - Unknown
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 18th Oct 2012 22:41
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Also MapScape, built in Dark Basic Pro, for Dark Basic & Dark GDK, works like C-shop but has Ambient Occlusion and is pretty powerful for making scenes.

Oh and it's free.

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Lord Herakles the Great
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Posted: 19th Oct 2012 01:47
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Where is that? Is it on this forum? Or does it have it's own site?

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Aaron Miller
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Posted: 19th Oct 2012 03:30
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http://www.evolved-software.com/mapscape/mapscape

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Van B
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Posted: 19th Oct 2012 09:49
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Good old Evolved ehh!
You should check out his Quake demo as well, see what can be done with Mapscape and his shaders...

http://www.evolved-software.com/darkquake/darkquake

I got a fever, and the only prescription, is more memes.
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Lord Herakles the Great
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Posted: 19th Oct 2012 20:41
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Thanks, guys, Mapscape is great. It's still not quite on the level of the UDK editor, but it's better than Cartography Shop.

Quote: "You should check out his Quake demo as well, see what can be done with Mapscape and his shaders..."


Curious... Malwarebytes Anti Malware gave me some crap about "Dark Quake.exe" being spyware?

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Airslide
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Posted: 20th Oct 2012 10:26 Edited at: 20th Oct 2012 10:28
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Glad you like Map Scape, because as much as I hate to say it, 3D World Studio would probably be a pretty poor investment. I loved it in its time but the last time I tried using it I couldn't get the thing to even start because it got hung trying to search for updates. I think it just took a back seat to Leadwerks, and while there was talk of updating it to use Leadwerks as the rendering engine (I think) I never saw it come to fruition.

EDIT: I looked it up again real quick and the Leadwerks page still advertises it, and notably mentions using it with the Leadwerks engine - so it may have been spruced up and fixed since the last I used it. Not sure if the version being sold by TGC is up to date though or how easy it is to get the latest version.
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