New User (be gentle)
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/New User (be gentle)
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| Another new user checking in and saying hello (Blitz3D seems to be selling well these days). I've been reading these forums for about 6 months now an finally took the plunge and bought Blitz3D. I found the code archives invaluable in deciding that Blitz3D was the one for me. Intially, I'm looking to develop an engine to be used for realtime architectural visualisations (basically a FPS framework, without the shooting) which I can then drop buildings etc into to allow a user/client to walkthrough "their" property before it's built. Speed of application development is the key here and Blitz ticked all the boxes. As I researched this I realised that I could practically build the application in its entirety by utilising the code archives. Result. I'm not one for following tutorials or asking questions, I prefer to study working code and disect it. Not having to worry about coding for a mass market and aged hardware allows me to concentrate on the presentation of the design rather than endless optimising and all the problems that entails. Having said that, the ability to deliver a Blitz3D application through a web interface (OSA Kit) is appealing for future development and directions, I've a couple of game ideas bubbling around my head. In addition to Blitz3D I've purchased Gile[s] for lightmapping, SpriteCandy for information overlays and BlitzTree for adding spice to landscapes. Building and prop modelling will be handled by AutoCAD for 2D, SketchUp for 3D and animating, character modelling, UV mapping etc will be handled by the jewel in the crown that is Blender (I love Blender) exporting as DirectX into Fragmotion for conversion to the .b3d format. I intend to write some tutorials on interfacing with Blender for animated model export as there seems to be a need for it. It does work (very well in fact) but it has it's "quirks". Stay tuned for an update on this. Texture creation will be handled by Photoshop v6 (I obtained an old licence from work) though maybe I should utilise the Gimp in keeping with my "low cost" set-up. So there you have it, I'm away to trawl through the code archives again to see what else I can learn/steal. I hope I can be of some use to a community I've learned so much from. |
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| welcome |
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| Hello. |
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| Yeah, welcome to the club, ardee. Immediate recommendation: Protean IDE is a great, easy to use program for Blitz which I practically swear by... Plus it's free. If you can't get it, just contact me and I'll email the installer to you. Happy coding! |
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| Hi. Unfortunately most Architecture Apps are not LowPoly oriented. A simple house often has millions of tris. Probably a polygon reduction tool could fix this partially. The walktrough code will be a snap. Especially since "Walktrough" in Architecture Apps usually is extremly weak. Almost every time I tried one I thought "wow I'd do this better in under 5 minutes". You could add big weapons to the Programm, so when the customer feels like somewhere should be a window, he might fire a rocket against the wall. :o) |
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| ardee Welcome - and you've made some good choices regarding your starting apps ;-) |
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| Thanks to everyone for the welcome. <jfk E0-11110> SketchUp produces wonderfully clean meshes and is an absolute breeze to optimise by deleting uneeded, hidden faces. Add that to disciplined modelling (I'm a Design Engineer) and my inital trials have shown I can run quite big meshes from within Blitz at locked framerates, very smoothly. I intend to rapidly model the buildings from scrath (from drawings or measurements) rather than utilise existing architectural models from, say, architects. Hence the choice of SketchUp which is a revelation to someone who uses high end CAD packages every day. Remove the need to code for every Tom, Dick and Harry's obsolete computer set-up and Blitz3D, for me, is the perfect tool without the headache of endless mesh and code optimisation just to get something to run on 0.01% of Windows98 rigs. I don't envy Game Developers one little bit ;-) Blitz3D 2001 technology running on 2007 computers is pretty darned nice. <MadJack> Thanks, it took a lot of research before settling on some of them. <ADAM>I'll take a look at the IDE. I definitely need something to organise Blitz3D templates and functions lifted from the code archives. This would help with my "rapid development" requirement. |
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| Also try IDEal, it's FREE and a HUGLY powerful IDE. |
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| Welcome to the forum, you made the right decision for a 3D engine, it doesn't get much quicker or easier than Blitz3D. There are some limitations, but in all likelihood these shouldn't hinder you and your plans. Seems like you know a fair bit about the graphics pipelines, have you used other languages in the past, or just familiar with Blitz? |
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| <sonicfactory> I haven't coded since learning Pascal and C at Uni many years ago, but Blitz is just so easy as you say, I'm quite excited :) My mind is spinning with the possibilities. I have an uncanny knack of absorbing information which leads to the down side of being a jack of all trades, master of none. I do have a distant memory of playing with Blitz on the Amiga (amazed at the speed of a racing game Skid??? something or other), but I had AMOS. Happy days. |
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| IDEal? Hmm, I might look into that - thanks Boiled Sweets! |
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| Welcome ardee! I'm sure you'll find the forums useful if you have any probrems or need help. |
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