I'm thinking about getting 3D Blitz
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/I'm thinking about getting 3D Blitz
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| I'm thinking about taking the plunge and getting 3D Blitz Basic. As of lately, I've been learning 2D Blitz Basic (for a year) and have been enjoying it (and I'm a COMPLETE amature). But, I'm wondering how much similar is 2D Blitz Basic compared to 3D? Are the commands the same and can I still make my 2D games in 3D Basic (so that I can just work out of one of the Blitz Basic versions all together)? If I copied and pasted what I did in 2D Blizt Basic, into 3D Blitz Basic would it work? I haven't mastered 2D Blitz Basic, but I was thinking why not jump in anyway. I'm sorry. I'm such an amature at programming I feel like I don't know anything at times. Thanks Last edited 2011 |
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| I say go for it. Blitz3D is an excellent product and you will have tons of fun using it. It is a very stable tool to use and has some great libraries available for it that will do nearly everything that you could want. Another plus is that it is fully backwards compatible with Blitz 2D and contains all of the same commands plus the added benefit of 3D so you should have no trouble just porting it over. The help system is fantastic too. Well worth the money and still my favourite Blitz purchase. Good luck with your programming. Jason. |
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| You should also consider blitzmax and the free minib3d. You'll get more life out of it, as Blitz3D has some problems with windows 7 and vista. You can work around them, but what about when windows 8 comes out? Best to future proof yourself? |
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| Are the commands the same and can I still make my 2D games in 3D Basic (so that I can just work out of one of the Blitz Basic versions all together)? Kinda. Blitz3D supports all of the basic set of 2D graphics commands. Since games will mostly make use of these, they can be designed in a fairly similar way. However, it doesn't have any built-in support for BlitzPlus' GUI, or event-based programming (admittedly BP's own event system is pretty minimalistic, but it is at least there). These would have been relevant if you were making applications, and you might have been using a few components from them anyway depending on the nature of your game. As long as you were only using simple drawing commands (images, buffers, pixels, on a plain graphics window) and polled input (KeyDown, KeyHit etc. as opposed to WaitEvent), then Blitz3D should support your game out of the box with no changes. It does however use a simpler and slower 2D graphics engine "behind the scenes", so the game may get a bit slower in some cases - Blitz3D uses the original 2D engine, while BlitzPlus' was a minor improvement. (An aside note: Blitz2D was actually a separate product which is now discontinued. Both Blitz3D and BlitzPlus support the original Blitz2D command set, and Blitz3D adds a 3D engine while BlitzPlus adds an application framework.) You also have two other options: -- upgrade to BlitzMax and use one of those 3D engines. This involves a change of programming language though. You won't regret it if you do this, but I won't specifically recommend it either. -- get a third-party 3D engine such as Xors3D or Leadwerks or SoftPixel, and continue to use BlitzPlus. Xors3D is essentially a DirectX 9 rewrite of the Blitz3D engine, so it's faster, and more future-proof, and has a good match with the Blitz3D command set. You'll need to learn how userlibs work, but you'll be able to keep using BlitzPlus as your compiler. If you start with a free engine such as SoftPixel, you can start working in 3D, in Basic, without paying anything more to get there - I personally think this is a good option for testing the waters, and then you can buy a more robust solution later once you know a bit more about what you're doing. Good luck, and welcome to the third dimension! *woooeeewooeewoo* |
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| Thanks everyone. I value all of your input and will consider all of the ideas that you all gave me. Last edited 2011 |
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