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AppGameKit Studio Chat / Is Appgamekit Going to Get a 3D scene editor?

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En929
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Posted: 25th Jul 2019 09:47
I have been using Appgamekit Studios and it is an EXCELLENT toolset. But, I was wondering are there any plans for a 3D scene editor? And if so, when will it come out?
Santman
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Posted: 25th Jul 2019 14:39
Game guru loader output, I think, can be converted.
Zigi
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Posted: 25th Jul 2019 23:01
Rick from TGC mentioned in an other topic discussing ideas for Studio, if the 2D level editor is going to be a success, they are going to consider to implement a 3D editor too.
Amon
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Posted: 27th Jul 2019 15:34
They should study the AGE3D editor and either write one for Studio from scratch or incorporate it into studio. AGE3D is pretty cool.
Win 10 Pro - AMD RYZEN 7 Octacore 3.8ghz - 32GB DDR4 - RTX 2070 8GB
Zigi
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Posted: 28th Jul 2019 09:35 Edited at: 28th Jul 2019 09:45
I never tried Age3D, I did download the source a while ago but it doesn't seems to be complete, it does not compile for me.
https://github.com/blendman/Age3D

But I think TGC got some experience with developing 3D level editors from FPSC and GameGuru. Some of the AppGameKit budget could be used to implement the GG level editor in to Studio. Preben also got experience from GGLoader with converting the level data in to Tier1 code and can also consult with Lee if get stuck somewhere.
I remember once Lee posted on the forum TGC was looking for someone with C++ and AppGameKit Tier 1 experience to take part in a "cool project" between GG and AGK. Maybe they have already tried it or doing it
psychoanima
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Posted: 28th Jul 2019 11:28
I was really surprised with announcement that TGC is making new DLC - Particle editor. I didn't know that demand for that is bigger than for Scene editor.
Zigi
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Posted: 28th Jul 2019 14:45 Edited at: 28th Jul 2019 14:49
Regarding the particles editor DLC, we just don't know really if the DLC is being developed instead of the level editor and if the level editor is not under development already. I mean Studio was announced from out of nowhere with no indication ever they consider to do something like this. So the DLC does not mean the level editor is not coming.

But also, probably what TGC focusing on right now is to develop features and tools that makes you want to use Studio something that no other tool offer or not many instead of just copy common features that all other engines already has.
Resources are limited and they need to be careful where they spend it. Of course a 3D level editor is important but if someone ask the question what Studio can do that Godot, Unity, Unreal, Defold..etc can not, if all Studio got is the same common features that all other engines has, there would be no reason to use and offer Studio.

I think currently TGC does a really good job at implementing features that offer some advantages and make you want to use Studio:
-easy scripting
-publish to all platforms with the same code
-broadcasting
-powerful debugger and code editor
-live editing
-code properties
-preview in the asset manager
-support wide range of 2D, 3D and audio formats including .x which allow us to use tons of assets available for FPSC and GameGuru.
-native 2D and 3D engine with the ability to easily render 2D in 3D and 3D in 2D
-support AR
-got terrain generation
-offer easy way to implement reward video ads and in-app purchase using different ad providers not just Google.

For the above reasons Studio got my attention because no other engine offer all the above in one package but AppGameKit Studio.
I'm certain the 3D level editor eventually going to come but a particles editor might be also an other interesting feature in the box to bring more people to Studio while they working on the 3D level editor.
Also the particles editor might be a community project that TGC publish so not TGC working on it they just publish it similar to GGLoader and VR.
Xaby
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Posted: 30th Jul 2019 11:39
I never really understood the MyRPG World thingly. I thought, that this would be the "new" "level editor". (https://store.steampowered.com/app/492150/RPG_World__Action_RPG_Maker/)

I thought, is has a nice placement editor inside, you could run arround and test things, and you have also some low-poly models to start with. On the Kickstarter for MyWorld (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tgc/myworld-imagine-create-play/)
They also had a "Car Builder" and "Track Builder". That would be great. But it is was canceled 2,5 years back. So I am kind of glad, that the project still exsists.

The Game Guru thingly doesn't work for me. Problem, that I had was the FPSC genre at the first place and a lot of gore and weapons and shooting. Also technical the Game Guru editor is slow as hell on a fair PC or notebook. It can't compete with the fast build time of App Game Kit.

I guess, what they could do is, to implement more helper functions into the AppGameKit Studio IDE. Where you would have not only the media-folder and preview, but could also set some values before importing it.
I also thought about, what if you would place your scene 2D with the 3D objects like in FPS Creator (Classic), but without multiple stories. And without terrain and water. But a plane, where you could set X, Z and Y would be automated drop to the floor.

You would need to have an Entity-System. And I guess, what makes 3D complecated is the loading and streaming of assets. You also don't want to pre- bake anything.

What would help are a good 3rd person camera, and FPS camera script, and some of these types of scripts, but not in a forum or board, but more like "Help" or "Templates" from the IDE.

I also guess, that a 3D editor has some other problems, because a picture in 2D has X, Y and Width and Height. You could calculate that very easy. But what about 3D objects with some have only a few polygones and some have a lot. So that could potentialy slow down the editor and gave you a not so good experience with AppGameKit Studio 3D.

I also guess, at this point, they target more Game Maker Studio audience with its 2D editor and not Unity or Unreal.
Zigi
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Posted: 30th Jul 2019 22:46 Edited at: 30th Jul 2019 22:48
Quote: "I never really understood the MyRPG World thingly. "

I think RPG World is never meant to integrate with AGK. It is made in Unity, a completely different engine and also it is meant to be a game where people create and share their own worlds. It is never meant to be more than that really. Just a game to introduce people to basic game making concepts maybe.

Quote: "I also thought about, what if you would place your scene 2D with the 3D objects like in FPS Creator...without terrain and water"

It would be too limited. the 2D level editor with no terrain was one of the weak points of FPSC. I don't personally would like that in Studio, we definitely need a WYSIWYG 3D editor with terrain and water, can not settle for anything less.

Quote: "a 3D editor has some other problems... 3D objects with some have only a few polygones and some have a lot. So that could potentialy slow down the editor and gave you a not so good experience with AppGameKit Studio 3D."

Well, eventually your config need to be able to handle the game you are making at max settings, if you can handle that, you should be able to handle the WYSIWYG 3D editor too. But most modern editors also include options to turn light mapping, water, shaders, textures, terrain on and off or reduce quality in the editor so you can improve performance if you need to. It is all missing from GameGuru, in Studio obviously we need something better than GameGuru got, Studio should get the best 3D editor TGC ever made but the editor of GameGuru could be a good starting point to avoid developing the editor from scratch. I mean things like, add lights and objects to a level and position, scale, rotate them maybe also set properties like physics, collision, color, texture..etc and of course also need a terrain editor and a 2D layer to add, position, scale GUI elements too and their properties. So yeah, it is definitely need to be better than GameGuru.

Quote: "at this point, they target more Game Maker Studio audience with its 2D editor and not Unity or Unreal."

Yes, but studio also got a full featured 3D engine under the hood that support even AR and VR, In my opinion it would be a waste of opportunity not to take advantage of that and should offer a 3D editor too. Not to compete with Unity and Unreal but simply to take advantage of the awesome 3D engine in Studio. Without a 3D editor it is just feels like Studio is missing a leg.
Xaby
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Posted: 31st Jul 2019 10:52 Edited at: 31st Jul 2019 10:53
@Zigi

would be nice, to have such an editor in Studio, but that would also mean, that we would need a lot of the features we don't have yet in GameGuru or other TheGameCreators tools.

We have a lot of Tween-Commands, also bone manipulation and so on, but missing since 3 years back are e.g. some Skeleton commands for a great Spine / Spriter integration. So here also the 2D editor needs much more stuff.
Pathes and timed events for animations, cut-scenes and story driven "games".

And if you want that full integration in a 3D editor, there are a lot more challenges at this moment. e.g. scaling 3D objects with integrated animations does not work. We can't export / save 3D models, only export Meshes. So creating our own tools is also limited or we would create our own file format.

I understand, that a great full function 3D editor would be the best with terrain and so on, but at the moment, I rather would see a placement editor with some limited functionality instead of having non option.

If we look in our tools:

AGK --> non editor, later DLC placement editor 2D, I tried, but was very limited
AGK S --> preview for 3D objects, and 2D editor integrated which creates code
Game Guru --> FPS Creator Reloaded with Terrain, LUA scripting

I guess, most of us created there own 3D editors with not all functions, but for creating some kind of level.

The best for prototyping would be something like that
https://unity3d.com/de/unity/features/worldbuilding/probuilder


https://unity3d.com/profiles/unity3d/themes/unity/images/unity/features/probuilder/probuilder-dynamic-gui.jpg

But before that, I would also like some more improvements in 2D, e.g.:

A tool like that:
https://ferrlib.itch.io/ferr2d


Or an physics editor like R.U.B.E. 2D
https://www.iforce2d.net/rube/




I guess, we need some PlugIns, maybe from the community. I guess, a completly 3D new editor, not based on Game Guru, that would be about another three 3 years and there is also Godot arround.
So the question would be, where are the benefits. Also Unreal and Unity are also used in bigger production pipelines and used for animations, cartoons and so on. Have full support of Autodesk integrated tools and so on.
And for bigger productions, the cost of Unity or Unreal are not as important as having all the people working together and creating the assets.

So the idea of Game Guru was also, to have a lot of 3D assets for easy creating. Yes, it would be possible, to use also Game Guru assets in App Game Kit. I guess, the better 3D editor would make more sense, if they would reboot maybe there Game Guru asset store or something like that.

Also with support of Android and Raspberry Pi, and the very easy App-Broadcasting, the media folders could be big, but mostly for some little prototype games, they would not or don't have to be. The little filesize is a very great benefit. And with aiming agains Unity and Unreal, you would also have some of there problems. Big texture files, assets all over the place, longer loading times, and maybe also re-compress or re-construct assets and or creating light-maps and other things.

The new renderer has the potential for great visuals. The question would be more like, if the core audience would really need it. The reason why Unity and Unreal also introduced 2D where because of the success of Game Maker and Indie devolpers are more capeable to create 2D assets and games.
If you want to create a unique 3D game with great visuals, you would have a very good knowledge of a 3D program like Blender. And rigging, texturing, animation and so on. So you would invest a very large amount of time / money into such a project.

Also with XBox, Playstation, Switch. These bigger projects in budget would also target not only Steam and the PC or the Android market. So at this point maybe TheGameCreators would have to invest into beautiful assets, create there own showcase game and also publish it on other consoles.

------------

a big benefit for creating our own tools would be an integrated native GUI thingly, not only the VirtualButtons, but also other GUI elements. The data-binding seems also a little bit complecated at the moment. So there are also a lot of room for improvements in the 2D area. And because of that, I guess, before we see something like a Source Film Maker, it would be some years in the future.
Xaby
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Posted: 31st Jul 2019 11:29
I know, that is not a full grown editor, but Portal Level Editor and the Hammer Tool
Zigi
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Posted: 31st Jul 2019 21:23
@Xaby
Yes, I agree the 2D editor also got some important features missing and quality of life improvements to add that I'm also looking forward to see and the 3D editor I have described would be a lot of work not to mention the fact TGC might don't even want to make Studio compete with GameGuru.
If there would be a superior 3D editor in Studio that happen to also able to load GG assets with no problem, that would definitely create a conflict between the two especially if someone smart would release an FPS template for Studio that would take advantage of the editor and GG assets.
Not sure how TGC plan to continue with two products heading toward very similar directions but from different roots.

Regarding 3rd party editors, I'm not sure if we are allowed to use Hammer and Portal2 outside the games they made for and I don't really know any good 3rd party general purpose 3D editor. The best one was 3D World Studio and Cartography Shop by Leadwerks but the guy stopped the development with the plan his own game engine Leadwerks 3 is going to be also a level editor to be used by 3rd party engines but it is never been done and never will be, the guy changed focus totally.

At this moment and time GameGuru with GGloader is our best option for 3rd party 3D level editor but I find the import process in GameGuru very problematic, my models never look right in GameGuru and using it to design levels with custom assets is a real pain. I don't like GameGuru, in my opinion it is a piece of garbage from top to bottom. The only thing I would want from it is the level editor but not even that is so great but at the moment it is our best option.
Even if we would get an exact copy of the GG level editor built on top of the Studio codebase with support for all the 3D formats Studio support and uses the same rendering engine Studio using so we get in-game what we see in the editor, would be fine (for now).
Qube_
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 01:05
2D scene editor, 3D scene editor. What's next?, visual shader graph, animation editor, cinegraph, LWRP, HDRP. Before long we'll end up with a Unity clone with a BASIC dialect.

AGK's strengths lie with it being a coding environment and a bloomin good one at that. if you want super whizzy visual stuff then go use Unity / Unreal. Please for the love of God don't focus on turning AppGameKit into a Unity type environment.

What is wrong with concentrating on making the coding environment of AppGameKit rock solid? Is our passion with coding or dragging and dropping and having our hand held along the way?

Are we all now incapable of creating games without having our hands held with visual tools? Is dragging and dropping + boilerplate code all we are reduced too? - You want visual tools? code them, that's the whole fun of AGK.

In our hearts we're all coders so let's keep one of the last surviving pure game coding language alive and skip pushing it into the realms of drag and drop madness. Before long we'll end up with one button "Create Game" and that's one road I don't want to go down.

So let's skip these requests for adding XYZ visual madness to AppGameKit and keep pushing for the LANGUAGE to evolve and become rock solid stable goto place for multi platform creativity.

AGK is popular because it's a great programming language. To ditch all that and concentrate on visual tools will just alienate the audience that loves it.

To me AppGameKit is pretty much the last stand of pure game coding languages. Please keep it as that or else we'll be forever in drag and drop land of mindless game creation.

RobbSnow
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 04:45
I having a 3D editor as additional DLC product. It is something that wouldn’t change the base product. A lot like the planned particle editor, you certainly don’t have to use it and it doesn’t change the base product.
Zigi
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 07:39 Edited at: 1st Aug 2019 07:46
Quote: "2D scene editor, 3D scene editor. What's next?, visual shader graph, animation editor, cinegraph, LWRP, HDRP.
AGK's strengths lie with it being a coding environment
What is wrong with concentrating on making the coding environment of AppGameKit rock solid?"

It won't change, so far TGC doing a great job at allowing you to do everything using nothing but code if you want to. The level editor also generating Tier1 code.
Being a coding environment is not going to change, you are free to ignore the visual tools.

Quote: "Are we all now incapable of creating games without having our hands held with visual tools?"

Please let us decide how we want to make games. If you want to code only and develop your own tools, feel free to do it that way and let TGC bring the tools for us we need and benefit from the advantages of AppGameKit without need to reinvent the wheel first and while you working on your editor we can work on our games.

Then you might say go and use...
Unity? No, it is bloated, slow, fake 2D and require royalties and 3rd party SDK"s to be installed and configured.
Unreal? No, it is bloated, slow, fake 2D, require royalties, Windows only and does require 3rd party SDK's to be installed and configured.
Defold? No, it is 2D only with a poor code editor and debugger.
GameGuru? Please don't joke.
Godot? Yes, I love it and this is what I'm using actually but Studio got my attention for the visual tools.

Seriously, if Studio and the visual tools not going to work out TGC can decide any time to release AppGameKit 3 but even if it works it doesn't mean TGC taking the coding environment away. So far they do a pretty good job at allowing old users to do everything in code without any visual tools in the way. I honestly don't understand why everyone is so afraid of the visual tools. Just don't use them if you don't want to.
Xaby
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 10:10 Edited at: 1st Aug 2019 10:37
@Qube_

Let's say, you have an idea for a game. You know 4 people, and you want to realize the idea. One makes the music, one the 2D art, two do 3D stuff and maybe you are the coder.
You don't re-create a music program first in App Game Kit, you would use the tools the artists are using to create there music.
You don't re-create Photoshop, Affinity Photo, ...
You don't re-create Maya, 3DMax or Blender, ...

So what would your games look like, if you only code? You could write text and or code and create 2D and 3D objects. But that would be very limited and the artists could not participate. So at the end, you would create your game alone.
The game would cost you more time to create, and maybe the motivation is lost.

If you are creating your own tools, you are more a tool creator, but not a game creator. If you want to tell a story, a game needs also media. And a level editor would be a good way, to integrate the media.
You do not lose anything. You could still create your game from Scratch with only code. And if there would be a 3D placement editor, there still would be a lot to program. Logic in a game, some events maybe, or some particles, you could create your GUI and so on.
Menus, behavior of character AI, and so on.

We are not talking about drag-n-drop game creation, we are talking about getting important things done, to see a faster prototype. So at this moment everyone would need to think about an entity system and how to create there object-loading and so on.
You don't have a preview for your 3D scene, you would have to create it by code and test your program or have to imagine OR have to create your own placement editor.

So we will end up with every App Game Kit user creating her / his own placement editor for 3D, and after some weeks or month, the Indie developer will switch to Unity or give up entirly. Because nothing for the unique game is done, but some unfinished tool development.

It is called App Game Kit Studio, not App CreateYourTools Kit Studio

@Zigi, I understand, that some are using Game Guru, but FPSC Classic works much faster. There was a tool arround FPSC2AGK

That was all, I would needed, but unfortunately it is not in development anymore and it is not easy to find it. I would like to see the source code and be able to change some output of that.

What I meant with the Portal Editor was more like that it is not a fully functional editor, but you could create some nice 3D levels with it. But all elements are done before by Valve. So you could only focus on a puzzle, you don't need to know about 3D modeling or programming.
And there is also a 3rd Party "Hammer"-Like editor. called J.A.C.K.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/496450/JACK/


So maybe we could create something like that as a community project, what could "interprete" the J.A.C.K. / Quake / Half-Life format. Or we could create something own, what only would create App Game Kit source like the 2D Visual placement editor.

The problem I had with 3D objects in App Game Kit was, that some of the X-files e.g. would stop my app from working.
https://forum.thegamecreators.com/thread/224558

My idea was, to convert all useable FPSC Classic free models into one pack and have something like a placement editor, so that it would be possible to have an easy start for programming.
My idea was, that you would work arround 3rd person or first person and could grab 3D objects and place them. Like Minecraft. That would not be for fast level building, but would be more like playing a game. And this level could be used also in own games.

The thing is, that every 3D object could also be loaded as an instance and could / would also have some properties.
A Sprite in 2D e.g. has only one Image, and the Image is also the Size of the Sprite. But for 3D it is more complex, because textures, objects and the physics representation and so on.
So the question is also, how much would be in the entity and how much the user would have to code later. Like in the 2D editor at the moment, it is not a Level editor like "Tiled". It is a start.
Qube_
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 10:44 Edited at: 1st Aug 2019 10:45
There are already 3D modellers, tilemap makers, music creation software etc etc, so why does Studio need cut down versions of such things? The creation tools are already there and personally I don’t see a reason to bloat out AppGameKit with visual tools beyond a temporary new selling point.

I get why some want them and if the general consensus is for Studio to become some baby form of Unity then I’m sure TGC will listen to the vocal ones.

Did AppGameKit become popular because of its visual tools? No, so why push to turn it away from what made it popular in the first place?

How about TGC concentrate 1st on getting the core rock solid? Fix the bugs, update the 3D physics, improve 3D model, texture and animation support. Add things like faster pixel access, 2D lighting, media protection etc etc.

There is a truck load of things that TGC can do to improve AppGameKit but I guess I’m in the minority in not wanting visual whizzy features first.
Xaby
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 11:04
@Qube_

I am with you. I am "waiting" for years for a correct implementation of Spine / Spriter playback.
And I also would like to program like intended and not search in the board, if it is a bug or if it is a common behavior.

AND! I don't want App Game Kit to become a Mini-Unity. I love how simple it is. I love, that I could use App Game Kit / Studio without Admin rights on a PC. And don't need to login in some online thingly.
I love to have all in one place. No need for Android Studio and out of the box APK deployment. And it is fast. That was the reason, why I switch vom Game Maker Studio to AGK. Compiling time.
And Unity and Unreal are ~ 40 GByte installation and can do nothing at that point, and if you create a simple program it could be about 800 MB out of the box, without anything. Also the examples in Unreal or Unity are over sized.

So I also understand what you not wanted and I don't want that neither.
Bored of the Rings
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 11:12 Edited at: 1st Aug 2019 11:15
I am working on various tools at the moment for AppGameKit e.g. similar to FPSC2AGK as I did with FPSC- 2-GameGuru. It's a shame the AppGameKit 3D editor got ditched.
Still have FPSC2AGK on my external drive and recently couldn't get it to work as it's been a while since I used it, ditched it to write my own.
Professional Programmer, languages: SAS, C++, SQL, PL-SQL, DBPro, Purebasic, JavaScript, others
Xaby
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 13:43 Edited at: 1st Aug 2019 13:44
I started a "new" 3D placement editor today, but something is wrong with App Game Kit sometimes, so I don't know ... I know, that the ObjectIDs are not global at this point, but I don't get, why I can't create other objects in a function without destroying my UV-map.



The idea was, to have a Raycast on a plane and put and move some objects like a Cube/Box, Cone, Cylinder, Ball ... arround and so on. Not very fancy.
But I struggle with the logic on AppGameKit itself sometimes.

Also the Raycast gets you the object, that was hit, but you could create an Object with the ID = 0. So how do you distinguish from that Object and NON hitten object.
For that reason, I wanted to create another "Zero"/"Null" object, which I wouldn't use. But after creating another Object AppGameKit seems to don't understand any of my IDs anymore. Strange.

Maybe someone could look at my code. And this is mostly the problem with AGK. That the things don't work as expected in some cases and that is very time consuming.

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Tarkus1971
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 16:21
If AGK-S had a 3D editor it would surely impact on sales for gameguru..... but..

I hope AGK-S has Prebens GGLoader intergated more closely so it becomes easier to load up GG maps, and also read through the entities within the map and load the LUA scripts as well, then we can use gameguru to create levels and
use AGK-S to code all the extras we need.

The vulkan engine has the potential to be fast, so an editor within AGK-S would be great, but when?

I use GG a lot and will continue to do so., as it fits in with what I need to create, easy terrain editor, easy to place entities, great store to get objects, music etc, lua is easy to code, fast map editor, very easy to learn as well.

the downers on GG are

Awkward save and loading of standalone game progress, doesnt always save everything, so you have to code your own parts, no real time shadows on flashlight or dynamic lights (yet!!)
twitchy widget to rotate, scale and move entities.
terrain textures leave a horrid banding look if you are not careful.
still GG is a 32bit app, 64bit would be nice, but that would take a while.
memory use is HEAVY.
Zigi
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 21:21 Edited at: 1st Aug 2019 21:45
@Xaby
i was totally forget about FPSC2AGK. Yes there is that too and it is also free now. I also have the tool somewhere on my backup drive.
But I would honestly prefer something built-in so I don't need to jump back and forth and convert between tools. I'm also switched to Linux for some time and there is that too. FPSC and GG is not running on Linux.
I did know about J.A.C.K but since it is not compatible I did not really paid any attention to it but yes, even something like Hammer and J.A.C.K would be nice. I keep mentioning GG level editor though because it would not require a complete rewrite so TGC could save some time I guess.

Regarding your attempt on a placement editor, what you want to do is create instances of object and then get their ID value when hit by the ray cast using this command:
https://www.appgamekit.com/documentation/Reference/3D/GetObjectRayCastHitID.htm
Then use the ID to pick the instance you want to manipulate.

@Qube_
See, this is the point. No one is "pushing away" anything. When you open Studio what do you see? The code editor right? Do you see a level editor anywhere? No. As long you don't create a level and open it you don't even see any level editor anywhere but even if you create and open a level, you don't need to constantly running around the level editor and jump in and out from the editor as in Unity, Unreal and others. Studio is still focusing and continue to focus on coding and not designed around any visual editing tools so you can simply ignore and forget about all the visual editing parts and focus on coding if you want.
So I really don't understand why people are afraid and please forget Unity. It is not going to become Unity just because you have a level editor integrated so you don't need to jump back and forth between two tools.
The key thing you and everyone with any concerns must remember is that Studio is NOT designed around any visual editing tools. The tools are there for those who need it, if you don't need them, nobody force you to use them.
In Unity, Unreal..etc yes you are forced to use visual tools and if you don't want to, you need to go through lots of pain to avoid them. Yes I get that but so far it is not the direction Studio is going. It is going down on a road where nobody else was going before. Studio trying to offer the best of both worlds, a framework with a cross platform IDE for coders and a complete game development kit with visual editing tools without any tight integration between the two so you can choose if you want to use one or the other or both.

I would like to say I understand where your concerns coming from but I don't. You keep comparing Studio to Unity but Studio is not Unity and never be in a good sense. Simply because the moment Studio going to offer the same as Unity, a really sad news going to arrive in to all inboxes about TGC shutting down. If TGC would like to avoid that, they can not follow and copy Unity simply because they would be always 100 steps behind. So TGC need to come up with something different but at the same time they also need to keep in mind what direction the industry is moving and like it or not it is the All in One tools and not only that, but Unity and Unreal even begin to offer their own hosting, monetizing, multiplayer, education and all kind of services integrated with their engines and incorporated in to their licenses. So life is about to get only more difficult if you do want to avoid Unity and Unreal because they are taking over the entire industry our only hopes are in small gems like Studio and Godot and yes you can of course make your own engines and editors anytime, but if you choose that path, you don't really need AppGameKit imo.
Qube_
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 22:48
@Zigi
Don't get me wrong and perhaps I should have explained it better... I don't mind if Studio gains loads of tools along the way to aid in game making. My concern is that TGC concentrates on adding more and more tools for cash income ( nothing wrong with that and can't blame them ) but in the meantime the main language could use some love to squash bugs and make things feature complete.

There are many sides of AGK's features that just cover the basics so wouldn't it be great if the physics side was feature complete, 3D model / texture and animation support fully integrated, 2D animation( Spine / Spriter ) being feature complete, better lighting and shadows for both 3D and 2D, media protection, 3D audio, native compilers etc etc.

I do love the new Studio IDE and it's a huge improvement over the older Geany one. I just personally dislike the idea of Studio lumping more and more visual tools and trinkets on top and ignoring the underlying language and it's feature set. I just think the core language could do with some love and finishing touches before moving on with all the "on top" tools. AppGameKit is really great and so much fun to use, I'd just hate to see the main focus being on new shiny tools.

Strong fully feature rich bug free core and then build on top with new tools. That's my personal preference.
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Posted: 1st Aug 2019 23:21
Well im kinda hoping Santmans World builder becomes something we can all use

In the meantime there are several people who have developed there own versions
making 3D editors was a popuplar thing at one stage. I even created a bare bones
one and supplied full source at the top of this thread
https://forum.thegamecreators.com/thread/222027?page=3 Its very basic
and i never got around to finishing it as i wasnt happy with the camera movements.
I also found that blink has a lovely tool which allows you to load you scene into blender
and name the objects according to clone etc and then save and his scene exporter
exports the scene that you just gotta load according to the map file created. Some
mods were done to it to allow pathfinding etc And this is a good reason why often its
best to design one that suits your personal needs as some may want the physics settings
etc stored while others may not
fubarpk
fubarpk on Itch...………...https://fubarpk.itch.io/
fubarpk on googleplay..https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=fubarpk
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2019 10:10
We might have Vulkan now and new rendering possibility in AppGameKit S, but they are not going to be used as long as we don't see some 3D scene editor, where you can attach scripts on each 3D model and where you can light your scene visually.

Now, I don't see that anyone have tried to push some demanding Vulkan tests in AppGameKit, and maybe it's not truly ready, and 3D scene editor is not going to be available until TGC implement Vulkan to the fullest. Anyhow, we can only guess until developer give his own explanation


3D scene editor, and even animation timeline for keyframing cutscene cameras at least, are must have nowadays.
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2019 11:44
I'm with Cube_ on this one. I would love to have a 3D editor, but please fix the core stuff first. Collision detection is pretty much broken in both 2D and 3D. You need to design all your game assets to be either rectangles or circles (or in case of 3D, boxes and balls) because that's practically the only accepted collision shapes.
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2019 12:45




I found my mistakes with the false image reference. Also created a global array for the objects.
But sliding the objects is not "perfect" now. But you can select the object and get infos about it.

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Tsung
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2019 13:02
I'm with Qube_ on this one; too.. I've tried Unity, several times, but my head cannot get around the drag/drop environment it provides. I've watched tutorials, where they will build a breakout clone and drag drop individual bricks onto the scene. I'm like, wtf? something that would take seconds to code in a couple of loops (in agk) appears to require me to use a mouse and place objects individually which then means I have to be pixel perfect or spend ages, clicking on objects and changing the settings manually. OK, I'm certain there is a "code" way to do it in unity; but I've lost all interest by the time a tutorial has got around to explaining that.

I think having importers for existing tools is more important that having a dedicated tool that does the job half as well. I'd argue the supplied 2d editor is 1/2 a tool, I tried using it with the sprite split option, but it didn't really split the sprite-sheet I was importing correctly (the sprites I was importing were 32x32, but, after the split AppGameKit tool had somehow messed them up, and there doesn't seem to be an option to specify the sprite width/height nor any information on exactly what the correct/expected sprite width/heights should be).

Fix the bugs first; sort out the documentation; then.. work on any additional editors..
Xaby
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Posted: 2nd Aug 2019 15:38
@Tsung and documentation

in Studio we can press F1 on AppGameKit functions, but not on keywords. I also can't search in the help for : array, float, integer, function, endfunction, for, loop and so on
I will find Shader things if I am searching for array, but not how to create one and how .Insert works. Therefor I have to look up and hope I find it in Guides, or Language and so on, but there is no Shortcut for the array-functions. There is also no foreach ... so, puh.

Also at this moment I do miss: [-]/[+] on functions e.g. so I could collapse them.

And when I use on Windows 10, sometimes there is a problem with Maxmize / Minimize and this thingly between, where you could choose your own window size. From Minimized in the taskbar you can't sometimes go into your custom size gadget. The application window will not show up. A workarround is, to Maximize and use the sizing-corners on the window ...

But these little annoyances are the time wasters. I also love namespaces but that would be another topic
Zigi
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Posted: 3rd Aug 2019 10:46 Edited at: 3rd Aug 2019 11:00
As far as I know Paul is working on the engine and Preben (and other community members) is working on the IDE and editor(s), so the work on any IDE and editor feature have no effect on the engine.
Of course could say that Preben should also work on the engine but I doubt TGC can afford to do that especially now that they decided to develop their own IDE and editor(s).
But I agree on that a stable and polished core is more important than any IDE feature but It was their decision to ship their own engine inside their own IDE, so they need to step up and delivery what we all need for both the engine and the IDE.

I know it is not that simple and I was actually constantly suggesting to TGC in the past few years for both GG and AppGameKit and even before that they should build their tools on top of 3rd party engines possibly open-source ones instead of developing their own engines from scratch. So they could focusing on designing easy to use tools and solutions and the core engine and technology stack would be developed by 3rd party.
But Lee told me he prefer to have full control and not rely on 3rd party because if there is any problem, in their own engine they can go and fix it while in case there is any problem in the tech of 3rd party, they need to wait for them to fix and they also don't want us to agree to 3rd party EULA which I did not really understand because in case of open-source you can also fix it, implement it for your own needs then contribute back to source and tyipically the EULA of open-source is the most permissible. This is the strength of open-source.
I was also suggesting to them a lot to add support for 3rd party tools out of the box.

But here we are they choose to develop their very own IDE, editor(s) and engine so it is no longer concern me, TGC probably know better how big their budget is and what is good for business and they choose to develop their own tech from the ground up so they need to step up then and do it.
This is only my 2 cents regarding what they should develop first and what is more important.

Now, what I would suggest to TGC is to work on a single product only and that should be Studio, bring Lee and the GG budget maybe even the DirectX engine and the level editor over to Studio and trash GG. But obviously they just did invest tons of money and time in to the engine of GameGuru last year alone not to mention the past X years since the development begin so they can't afford to abandon GG just yet I get that too but I honestly believe it is a decision that must be made and sooner the better.
Xaby
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Posted: 3rd Aug 2019 11:47
@Zigi

I love TGC for what they do. Because we are not restricted, what we can build with App Game Kit. Unity and Unreal are changing there terms of use every few weeks it feels like.
And with OpenSource in somecases you don't no, if you also have to publish your own source code, or could make changes. Blender e.g. had also an Engine for games. Suddenly it wasn't developed anymore.
Third-Party ... yeah, we see Unity e.g. with its store. And there are a lot of plugIns but sometimes the publishers don't even have the rights to publish the code, because they uploaded it illigaly or something like that.
Also if the Third-Party-Tools is developed by one person and than don't develops it anymore, but the main Engine is updated, you have a problem again.

There is a reason why a lot of Indie and AAA games are not made with Unity or Unreal Engine, but use there own Engines and tools.

Let's look:

Frostbite-Engine (EA), Source Engine (Valve), FOX Engine (Konami), Decima (Kojima Productions), AnvilNext (Ubisoft) Assassin's Creed, Dunia (Ubisoft) FarCry, SnowDrop (Ubisoft), UbiArt (Ubisoft) Rayman Legends, Id Tech 5 (id Software)
And a lot more.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Spiel-Engines

With the Engine they also have the eco-system. 3D-objects, Source-code and so on.

At the moment, when TGC started there DarkBasic, there was not much arround for the casual user, who don't have a game studio and tenthousend of dollars to licence one of the bigger engines.
That was ever the reason, why point and click adventure games mostly looked not so good in 3D. They didn't had the budget for a big engine and there was not much else around.

Also TGC ever had game tools from start to finish. DarkBasic -> EXE with the right to sell your game, no matter how often or for which price.
The only other Compiler I know in ~ 2003 was PureBasic, but they used OgreEngine and only a DLL for Ogre, so mostly they depended on Ogre and there progression.

And if we look at the other Engines about that time, there was Quake Engine, and every other Engine nearly was a branch of that.

And App Game Kit came in 2013, when also the other Engines cost much money. Game Maker Studio could also provide 3D, but had not the build in tools for that. And was around the same price.
Also Flash Professional was around, it was much more expensive and was very limited in 3D. And how about Unity? Okay. On iOS that could be a thing back in 2010.

Unreal Engine 3 (2004 to 2012) supported mobile iOS since 2010. (was not free for commercial use, and not cheap. There was a Indie / FireFox version out somehow)

Godot? Has not yet the exporter it needs and was created from 2014 on.

So what I am trying to tell is, that TGC is on track with Unity, Unreal, Godot, and they also implemt features like Vulkan and PBR as soon as they can do it. They where the only once who still trying to have easy-deployment.

And Unity and Unreal don't see the gaming market anymore, I guess, they are more focused on Visuals and Entertainment. Movie-Production and so on.


@Zigi, the question would be, which ThirdParty or OpenSource Engine should they have used?

Also a lot of the Engine where licencend on a per game basis. So the licence thing is a big deal with AGK. And in the time around 2010 to 2013, I guess, with Corona SDK, "Corona introduces an SDK starter, will raise Pro price to $599"
Now it is free in the Basic version, but you would have to buy PlugIns and so on. And only 2D.

That was to much for most Android Indie developers and that could be also a reason, why there where not so much games for the OUYA at this time around.

So I understand, that we want some tools and so on in 2019, but in 2013, TGC had done all the right things. And they only could, I guess, build there own tools and engines again, and they are around long enough, to know the 3D stuff.

The best thing: No strings attached it is there own compiler. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compilers

Before Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition, also a compiler was not "free" at all. Some C++ Linux thinglys, but no IDE and so on. I am talking about the time before 2000. And how complicated it could be for a beginner to start somewhere, if you have to install everything before you get even a "Hello World" on the screen. So therefor they do a really good job.
Zigi
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Posted: 3rd Aug 2019 17:30 Edited at: 3rd Aug 2019 17:44
@Xaby.
I also do like what TGC do in general.
All I was saying if it comes down to the question of budget and man power to choose what to develop first, engine or IDE, TGC and we might have benefit from building on top of 3rd party engines and tools that already have some of the features that TGC is just about to implement for us.

I understand the risks of building on top of 3rd party tech but there is a few free and open gems that would be good material to build on top in my opinion.
Obviously it is more secure to have your own engine no doubt but when even big companies like Microsoft and Google begin to build on top of open-source and we also see more and more game engines using open-source, wondering how long a small company like TGC can survive building their very own in-house tech from scratch. But I'm not in the position to judge really, all I want is the features I personally need. As long TGC can bring that to me, everything is fine.

Regarding what open-source engines could have been used.
For FPSC:Reloaded I was suggesting to use Torque3D and build on top of that.
http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d
Shared under MIT, no strings attached. Already got a decent world editor, FPS game engine, terrain system, physics, everything we wished for in FPSC and they could have built on top to create an awesome FPS game making software or even a general purpose engine.
At the time Lee told they can not afford to start from scratch, they plan to build on top of FPSC:Classic so they already have a codebase they know how to use and build on top and save time.

Then when it become GG and they decided to completely rewrite the whole thing in C++, on a bad day it seemed Lee is giving up on GameGuru and was considering to turn it in to a tool for Unity or Unreal but then they dropped the idea because of 3rd party EULA and license problems.
At this point I was throw up Torque3D again but also Godot
https://godotengine.org/
Shared under MIT, no strings attached, already got a decent editor and workflow but indeed at the time it was not quiet complete and was not that popular as now, but the editor was good already.
My suggestion was if GG would be nothing but an FPS template for Godot including ready-scripted assets I would buy it but they could even choose to take and fork Godot and embed their own FPS engine.
Lee told he don't want to rely on 3rd party tech..etc and he begin to work on the new PBR renderer instead.... And now we got a pretty pile of trash.

For AppGameKit at some point TGC asked what direction AppGameKit should be going and I was suggesting to create a high level framework for MonoGame which also support Visual Basic so in theory it would be totally possible to come up with something very similar to AppGameKit with Tier1 scripting built on top of MonoGame and also offer C# which would have been awesome and thanks to MonoGame could have been targeting Linux, Windows Phone and PS4 and Xbox One too.
http://www.monogame.net/
Shared under MIT, no strings attached and the officiall .NET compiler also completely free and open-source under MIT with no strings attached, Mono framework also completely free and open and could have been using SharpDevelop for IDE or fork MonoDevelop.
Received no reply I know it was crazy idea.....
Some time later got the question again, what direction AppGameKit should be going this time more specifically if we want a level editor, more visual editiing experience..etc and I was like hell yeah and recommend to fork Godot and use it as an IDE for AppGameKit with the buil-in editors but they decided to release their own Visual Editor DLC and now they released their very own IDE with Studio.

I'm not saying any of what I was suggesting would have been a better choice long term, probably not. Developing your own engine and tools is always better but only if you have the budget.
Torque3D for example is no longer actively developed yes that's true, but would be GG in a bad position now if it was built on top of Torque3D? The editor and even the engine is still superior to GameGuru and after all it is open-source, nothing would stop TGC from developing and redistributing.
MonoGame devs also considering to bring Vulkan to MonoGame so even if it takes a year or two from now, would AppGameKit be that far behind without Vulkan for another year or two but having a decent coding experience in Basic and C# and the ability to target PS4, Switch, Xbox and also protect our assets with encryption?

But it is all pointless to talk about really, with implementing a new PBR renderer in to GG and also recently announced to bring VR to GG and with the recent release of Studio, TGC just made their decision. Which I honestly don't mind, I'm not saying it was the wrong decision as long they don't start complaining about budget and man power when it comes to questions what to develop first IDE or engine.
Xaby
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Posted: 5th Aug 2019 11:09
@Zigi

I guess, it is not as easy as it was before 2000 to have a claim. Unity Technologies and Epic (Mega) Games (Unreal) also have it not easy like CryTek. If you grow and grow and have a lot of employees, you constantly have to evolve and look for other oportunities in the business market.
I guess, in the next 10 years with Blender as a production ready 3D, 2D animation suite, companies like Adobe, Autodesk and so on, have to look elsewhere. Adobe e.g. tries to have there business conference tools based on Flash (still). And Autodesk has not only Maya, 3DMax, but other tools for the Industry like CAD. So if gaming or game creation tools are not a business anymore, they have there food in the industry and also in the offices around the globe. Like IBM had to go to Servers, an e-Businesses and did not sell PCs anymore.

If we are looking at Mono e.g., or more Celeste:
https://celestegame.tumblr.com/tools

We see, Visual Studio, C#

I guess, if you (or other programmers) want to use the Visual Studio, they don't use BASIC, they would use C++ or C#. And I also used a long time Game Maker Studio with Game Maker Language, so also they tried to give a complete tool.

I don't know, how complecated it would be, to use Mono and re-skin it. The question would be, if also the user than would use App Game Kit Mono-Skin-Basic instead of Mono and the Visual Studio.
What I like at most is on App Game Kit, that you don't have to install the Visual Studio in the first place. And also the simple Export to Android build in AND, didn't get it to work, but that there is a version for Raspberry Pi.

So with there code-base at this moment, they maybe are not able to export as easy as Mono or Unity to Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch or Universal Windows Platform .. but they have an ARM-Compiler, for Raspberry and Android
So if we will have RISC-V, ARM-PCs or more schools equiped with Raspberry Pis or what ever, I see there claim.

I also see the PICO8 and so on
https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
With it's fantasy-console and it could do 3D


... I will try to create the little placement editor, maybe that could be grow to something. I am struggleing at this moment with a good way for TYPE-structure and not having CLASSes also don't know, how I will name all the things for better implementation in other environments later. No Namespace
psychoanima
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Posted: 5th Aug 2019 15:04
Instead of writting a new 3D level editor why no one wants to continue on development of AGE3D editor?
Zigi
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Posted: 5th Aug 2019 19:35
@Xaby
I did not meant to simply base AppGameKit on Mono but my suggestion was that to build on top of MonoGame which is uses Mono but offer a lot more on top, then for an IDE could have taken maybe SharpDevelop or MonoDevelop, fork it and redistribute the entire thing in a single package including an IDE and a complete game development framework based on MonoGame. So no Visual Studio or any other 3rd party tool or SDK would be required, the experience would be the same one click install experience basically, Also because as I mentioned MonoGame do support Visual Basic too as the Mono framework which is very similar to Tier1 except, more modern, can even do OOP in VB so the coding experience could be as simple as Tier1 BASIC but generally could be a lot better with VB.
Then, naturally there would be also C# which would be great not only because I like it but the most important advantage of C# and .NET and Mono is the number of libs available.
For example, for C# and .NET/Mono we have libs to connect to SQL databases, parse JSON, connect to Cloud and Multiplayer services, embed GUI frameworks, speech synthesis, voice recognition..etc anything you want to interface with there is probably a C# library to do it and it is a lot more simple than C++. Then, there is also the fact, MonoGame is actively developed professionally, the lead developer uses MonoGame in his game studio and this is why it does support all existing platforms on the planet but not so easy to code. Can be very complicated to code so an easy to use framework on top like AppGameKit could also make sense imo.

Anyway, it is definitely not happening, so doesn't really worth any more breath...

@psychoanima
At the moment the licensing of Age3D doesn't allow anyone to redistribute it commercially, (to sell it and make money with it) and I guess there is no one who interested to pick it up just for fun.


Rick Nasher
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Posted: 5th Aug 2019 20:48 Edited at: 5th Aug 2019 21:02
@psychoanima
Best would probably be to combine AGE3D with Santman's and GameGuru;s stuff.. And... it would have to be an *optional* add-on.
[strike out after reading above post]


Imho TGC could be just as well have Preben work on the 3D-editor, which should in essence be a '3D-placement-editor' or '3D- scene- configurator' if you like, *not* a full blown 3D-scene editor, to avoid any confusion.


It would only be saving positions, rotation, color, textures of objects such npo's, spawn locations, pickup items, lights, particle emitters, sound emitters and other such things.
It could also include a basic terrain editor, skybox, water, particle and shader editor, all of which could be separate DLC plugins, working gracegfully together, neatly integrated and for sale at TGC's store/Steam.

It could be done relatively easy and introduced step-by-step overtime, but these would save all of us tons of work, much like Studio's 2D-scene-editor does, for basically now everyone creating a 3D game has to either model entire scenes in 3D editors, which is sometimes impractical and overkill or place everything in code by trial and error to see what works well or write your own placement/scene editor.
This eats up precious time an Indy dev has never enough of opposed to large companies.


Paul and others could meanwhile focus on perfecting the AppGameKit engine, commands, ironing out bugs and add new features.
blink0k
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Posted: 5th Aug 2019 23:46
I think a blender exporter would be the way to go.
Xaby
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Posted: 6th Aug 2019 13:52
@blink0k

that is, what I was thinking since Blender 2.80 stable is released

Maybe we have to write some python script in this community

@Zigi, I did understud you, but had to finish the post early. I am also watching sometimes GamesFromScratch on YouTube and it seems, there are every week another great 3D Engine is going Open Source like


And I also get, why TheGameCreators don't want to figure out, what the bugs and ideas behind other OpenSource projects are, when they know there suff the best.


We could try to create our own 3D editor oder model placement builder. But here I see the first problem. The namespaces. How do we do that in App Game Kit?
We would have to create some rules, that we are not overwriting eachothers code or do the same work again and again.

At first I would focus on a 2D GUI. Like the one in PureBasic with the Gadgets is in place nativly. So that we are all on the same page with GUI elements and could do new functions with menu-points and buttons and so on.

Why we don't need a terrain editor in the first place? In my opinion we could use CreateObjectFromHeightMap()
And maybe build in a little 2D Paint(Brush) like Window for textures and so on. We could create a "Vector"-Drawing-PlugIn, which would create Lines, Boxes, Elipses and so on via Code after using a Pen-Tool on a Canvas / Image.

I would like a tool like SketchUp. Where you are somehow fixed to the axes.

A tool, where we could create Sokoban 3D or something like that. Also we could use still a grid, because a lot of our 3D files, I guess, compatible with the FPSC (Classic) size and gridsystem.

The only compatible output for all of us would be the source-code output, but I don't know, if that is the best for a 3D level / environment editor.
Because for reading the source code, you would need to have a parser or something like that.

I have a 2.5D editor in mind, where you could switch between the 6 sides of a cube and switch between layers and floors of FPSC-units. And maybe a unit could have sub-units, wo a chair don't have to be exactly on the center of a floor-plate. And also a meal could be placed onto the table.
And lamps or lights don't have to be setup in a prefab before, but could placed on a sub-grid.

But maybe we would create our own prefabs and introduce another proprietary system again
Xaby
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Posted: 6th Aug 2019 14:13
I could "watch" sketchfab the whole day

https://sketchfab.com/ZeroByte/collections/made-with-sprytile

Something like SpryTile, unfortunality it doesn't work in Blender 2.80 anymore out of the box.

https://sketchfab.com/pekharn.99works/collections/beautiful-low-poly-3d?cursor=cD0yMDE4LTA1LTE2KzAxJTNBMjglM0EwNS4zODAzMDU%3D

So a little editor, that don't needs to be a 3D "world" editor for a Open World, but more like for a little scene. A room, or a location. Not so big in all dimensions.
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Posted: 12th Aug 2019 17:32
One more vote for a 3D editor. It's kind of needed really. Although I must say I like the idea of a particle editor too. But a 3D scene editor should be a way higher priority IMHO.
Xaby
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Posted: 14th Aug 2019 09:29 Edited at: 14th Aug 2019 09:36
So, I opened AGE 3D
https://forum.thegamecreators.com/thread/221796

But at first, I don't get, how I could add any model, object, what ever. So I guess, there is much work done, but not a demo project I can see. I looked at the code a little bit. The LAG (button, window system) seems to work well.

I guess, at this stage, a Blender-Python-Exporter could be a thing. Which would create objects, textures, and App Game Kit Tier 1 Basic source code.

What I see as a problem is, that we want an easy editor, but some of us want to create projects like Open Worlds like Skyrim or GTA V, others try to have some games on one screen.

2.5D -> one Screen per Level

2.5D -> Scrolling

Third Person RPG style

FPS more clean, 1 floor at the same time, simple elements

FPS with Light and Details, complex geometry and effects


We would not need a terrain editor or something like that. And I guess, these kind of games could be done in App Game Kit with somekind of grid layout.

Importing 3D objects and textures with "Drag & Drop" from an explorer to the App Game Kit 3D Editor program would be great. To open every 3D object and texture with a OpenFile-Gadget would be "insane". ( ChooseRawFile(); )
Xaby
FPSC Reloaded TGC Backer
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Posted: 14th Aug 2019 10:18
So, AGE 3D, to create a box, you have to press "A", for setting a camera "C" and with middle mouse button rotating the camera, with arrow keys, moving the camera.



So it seems, that there is a lot implemented yet. So maybe we could use some of this code and re-create a new one out of that, that fits the most needed needs. I also don't know, if all UI elements are shown correctly.

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Cliff Mellangard 3DEGS
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Posted: 14th Aug 2019 15:56
I would probably prefer a 3d placement editor as a plugin to keep the price down.
Then could people select if they purchase or not.
I see studio getting extremely messy and tedious with a 3d placement editor on top of everything.

A plugin you select to use with a tab in the editor ?

Agk is a very easy to use tool right now and works pretty well.
Noob Programmer
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2019 23:16
IF was me, I did focus on improving core of AppGameKit Studio and 3D Editor is big job to do which I think they will do next in 3 years time.
psychoanima
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2019 12:16
They can just do better integration of GameGuru with Studio version and end of story. Who needs placement editor - buy GameGuru. 80percent of the job with preben's loader is already done. That way we are supporting development of both software.
Zigi
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Posted: 26th Aug 2019 10:50 Edited at: 26th Aug 2019 10:53
Quote: "GameGuru. 80percent of the job with preben's loader is already done."

GameGuru is a piece of garbage and also WIndows only. Have you ever tried to import some mesh from 3rd party sources? It is a nightmare.
GGLoader is also bloated. I don't need any gameplay, AI, FPS game engine but the level and an easy and simple way to access any mesh, lights and textures in the level.

Quote: "Who needs placement editor "

If it is buil-in, fully integrated and cross-platform, I do.
I would trade GameGuru with all DLC's for a basic placement editor in Studio any time.
psychoanima
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Posted: 26th Aug 2019 17:06
Quote: "I don't need any gameplay, AI, FPS game engine but the level and an easy and simple way to access any mesh, lights and textures in the level."


When it comes to GGLoader I agree with this, I don't need any logic capabilities from GameGuru but visual only (mesh placement, textures/pbr)
Onomatopoesie
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Posted: 27th Aug 2019 07:42
In the scene editor, there are three buttons in the upper left corner: 2D, Script, Save. Why was it called "2D" and not "editor" or something similar? I could imagine that there is sometime a "3D" to choose from.
TGC has a long history behind it. With DarkBasic, they have focused fully on 3D and gained experience. I'm actually sure that the 3D sector will continue to evolve.
Zigi
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Posted: 8th Sep 2019 11:30 Edited at: 8th Sep 2019 11:41
Quote: "I'm actually sure that the 3D sector will continue to evolve."

I really do hope, since I have just realized something today.

I was focusing on 2D game development for the most part in the past few years, maybe some 2.5D/Isometric games, but I decided I would like to go full 3D now.
But I'm using Linux and I would like to stay on Linux. Not because I hate Windows but because I love the Gnome3 desktop, the workflow, the tools and speed it has to offer. I feel more productive and yes I also enjoy that I don't need to run an AV that only further slow down the system.
So I begin to search for a 3D game engine with terrain, decent level editor, fbx support and physics. And I've found nothing except Unity.
But I don't like Unity, it is bloated, the basic download on it own is 6GB and even though it does offer officially native Linux support now, it is extremely unstable and slow on my PC and has lot of bugs. By the time the Unity editor open up and respond to anything I do in the editor, I can finish a game in Studio with using 2 fingers only. Apart from Unity there is nothing for Linux. Godot has no terrain and fbx support. Leadwerks is no longer support Linux, Essenthel is an interesting engine and even though it uses C++ for scripting, it is relatively easy to code, but I just dislike the workflow really. It is feels more like modding a game than developing one from scratch.

So there is absolutely nothing for Linux except Unity but it is really sucks on Linux, the fact is, If GameGuru would be available for Linux I would even consider using GG instead of Unity. Because the game idea I have does not really require any advanced game logic but nice 3D graphics, phyiscs, lights, terrain and some interaction with objects in the world. So yeah, even tough I don't like it that much I was even considering GameGuru in the past few days and I tried to run it with Wine and Proton on Steam but no luck. I also tried others but had no luck with any engine. Nothing is available for Linux and nothing available on Windows and I would use runs on Linux with Wine and Proton.

So have just realised, I am totally screwed. I either go back to Windows which I really don't want to. Or I use Unity, which I also don't want to. Or I can use Godot and try to find a solution for the lack of terrain and fbx support. Or I'll use Studio and I could potentially create the level in Blender which would be fine, but I'm not sure if there would be any solution for the terrain. I could also go ahead and develop my own 3D level editor for my game in Studio, but then I would not work on my game but a tool that already exist except for Linux.

Anyhow, the point I'm trying to make here, if at this very moment Studio would have a decent 3D level editor with terrain it would be a pretty good choice compared to all other options out there including Godot and Unity, so it is also something that TGC might want to consider. I know, there is very few full time Linux users who don't use Windows and even less who also need a level editor, and even less who also care to have terrain, some might say that. But wondering what the reality is and how many people sucking balls with Unity on Linux only because practically there is nothing else out there not even if you try Wine or Proton because nothing is working.
So, a decent 3D editor would definitely boost how many people using AppGameKit in my opinion. At least on Linux for sure. At this moment, I want a 3D level editor more than anything
Santman
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Posted: 9th Sep 2019 13:32
How do you compile to linux, or does it just run windows compiled apps? What I mean is, do you have to compile it on a machine running linux?

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