Future of Max?
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/Future of Max?
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| For my next project, I've been thinking about moving to PTK and I was wondering how people feel about the future of Max? Here are some thoughts: 1) I've been a max Customer for about a year and the default IDE is not better than the day I bought the product. 2) There are a lot of third party plugins. However, many of them don't seem to be updated any longer. For example, IGLASS. 3) The Max language does not support some of the basic object oriented aspects. For example, private member variables and methods. 4) Still no idea of the 3D module. Although, it doesn't seem like it will be as compatable as Blitz3D from what I've read. 5) You can not reverse engineer the code into UML because the language is not supported by any of the UML products. 6) Memory management seems to have a lot of issues if handled incorrectly. For example, if a points to b and b points to c and c point to b; then if I kill a the memory will not be freed. 7) All the debuggers the I have used are slow and not very good. On the other hand there are a lot of good points that I'm not going to type. I guess I more interested in what people feel will be done in the next 6 months to a year. Also, if anyone has used PTK? Thanks PS: This is not meant to be a negative post at BRL. I'm just doing to thinking. |
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| PTK is much slower.... I suggest Delphi + Asphyre if you're really into 2D games... BMax is good, but still got space for improvement, especially sound part..... |
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| @yoko, my understanding if PTK supports batching and should be faster? Max doesn't support batching, does it? Also, the official BRL word on sound is they are not going to address it. Thats why I left it off me list. I'm using FMOD with Max and it seems to work pretty well. |
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| Max2d batches if you batch. It doesn't do it for you. Having said that, last time I checked the GL implementation, it was still wrapping every single draw operation in a glbegin glend pair, so that's not optimal for batching. Also, it checks for state changes automatically,whether you want it to or not. It doesn't rebind the texture every operation, but it does check to see if it should, which is all more time wasted if you've written yourself a nice, optimized render loop. I proposed a simple, elegant solution to this over a year ago and it was completely ignored so it was either a really stupid solution or they're not really bothered about optimizing the rendering. This doesn't really bother me as I plan to write my own 2d engine soon, which will support proper batching, compressed textures and a few other little things that Max2D doesn't do as I would like. I haven't yet decided if I'll write it from scratch or write a module around something else, but adding a nice 2d engine to Max really isn't hard. In fact, I briefly considered writing a module for PTK, but it's quite expensive and considering the complete lack of interest in my HGE module, when HGE is free, I figured people weren't going to be falling over themselves to buy PTK, so my wrapper wouldn't be much use to anyone. |
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| I'm sorry but :/ IGLASS is updated with each bmax version ! the latest release for blitmax 1.21 and 1.22 has been send. |
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| @filax, The last version of IGlass I received was 1.20 of 4-29-2006? Also, when I say updated I'm talking about new features. Has IGlass had any new features in the last year? How many? I can't find any new features since version 1.5.3 on 11-14-2005. I had higher expectations for the product when I purched it! @Gabriel, HGE looks pretty interesting? How does it compare to Max and PTK? |
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| It has slightly higher requirements ( DX8 as opposed to DX7 ) but these days, there doesn't seem to be much difference between DX7 and DX8 install base. HGE is fast, even without batching, and with batching it's blistering. It has a wonderful built-in particle system, and support for compressed textures ( which I personally believe is much more important in 2d games than 3d games. ) It integrates with Bass for Audio, if you want it to, or you can disable that and use whatever else you want instead. I haven't looked at 1.60 just yet, which adds a few new features as well. I may yet build my 2d engine on top of HGE. I wrote Car Jockey entirely in BMax and HGE, so I obviously liked it. |
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| @Gabriel, HGE looks really good. The only down side I can see is it seems to have the RTFM crowd that often comes with open source. Or at least I assume it is open source. What would the difference be between the engine you would write and the one on your web site or just using HGE without your engine? |
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| Well I've only recently been thinking about going ahead and writing this engine. In order for it to be any more popular than the HGE wrapper ( for precisely the RTFM reasons you indicate ) it would require me to properly document it and support it, which means I wouldn't be able to give it away for free. If I went ahead with it, I'd want to organize the classes in a more friendly and more BMax-style than HGE, which is easy to understand but organized in quite a strange way, I feel. I'd also want a better way of organizing the batch rendering than HGE offers. Batching is really important, and if it's going to be a major feature of the engine, I would want to do it in a way that makes it as simple to use as I wanted it to be in BMax. I'll have to have a look this week and see how much work it would be, how much interest there would be, how much time support and documentation would take and how cheap I could afford to make it. |
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| Sean : Iglass have all the necessary features for the moment ! i assume support with thebest i can :) But you are right some stuff are missing. But for my defense, I thought that bmax would evolve/move more quickly :/ And for the moment it's a little bit dead ... No news , no screen, i don't know where bmax go ? And it is not easy to be motivated when you don't know where you go... But don't panic sean :), i assume always support for my products, but nobody report me bugs with Iglass ? I don't know why :) |
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| I am also getting a bit worried about max/max3d. It is my favorite language right now, but I share the same concern as others. Some kind of reassurance would be good, but the silence is killing me. |
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| When I read what BlitzResearch tells us about their current work I have no hope that we will get a compact product like good old Blitz3D combining commands for 2D, 3D, sound and movies. So I concentrate totally on working with BlitzMax for 2D and try not to think about anything which starts with a "3". |
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| @Sean Doherty I can't give you exact speed, but some much routine in PTK i slow as hell on mine and my friends' PCs that same task won't slowdown in BMax... As to HGE, get da pak Here... http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=152899 As to (Windows Only) sound solution, I made an Audiere wrapper if anybody wants it.. |
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| I've been a max Customer for about a year and the default IDE is not better than the day I bought the product. I would be annoyed if BRL itself spent anytime makeing the IDE better. I didnt use the default Ide with B3d, and I dont use the default IDE with Bmax. There are a lot of third party plugins. However, many of them don't seem to be updated any longer. For example, IGLASS. Well I think you picked the wrong example. And to be honest all the 3rd Party plugins by people I Trust (ie NOT ANT), seem to be updated regularly The Max language does not support some of the basic object oriented aspects. For example, private member variables and methods I would count Private as a "Basic" aspect of oop, I would like it, but its not really that important in a single programmer envioment. But it wiuld be nice. Still no idea of the 3D module. Although, it doesn't seem like it will be as compatable as Blitz3D from what I've read. Ive said this before, why are people convinced that they need Marks addon for 3d. The Irrict addon, the tv3d addon, the Elize (sadlly dead, but still useable), and if you really really want b3d compatability miniB3d (or whatever its called) Memory management seems to have a lot of issues if handled incorrectly. For example, if a points to b and b points to c and c point to b; then if I kill a the memory will not be freed And which memory would you like to be freed? you have three variables pointing to the same place, you dont want the memory freed untill a,b and c are freed |
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| I've been a max Customer for about a year and the default IDE is not better than the day I bought the product. It's actually worse now, thanks to the newly hijacked shortcut keys. There are a lot of third party plugins. However, many of them don't seem to be updated any longer. For example, IGLASS. That one is hardly BRL's fault, although they didn't make it easy in that the earlier releases of BMax broke any pre-compile 3rd party mod. the newer releases, however, don't do that anymore. Still no idea of the 3D module. Although, it doesn't seem like it will be as compatable as Blitz3D from what I've read. Better done right than releasing a rush-job just to get it out the door. |
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| And better using actual technology than something that is as broken as Blitz3D on current gen cards which get more and more incompatible to DX7 (and sadly, thats less a problem on the high end card than it actually is on Intel and other "no 3D" cards ...) It will be compatible ... it will just require shader cards at least at start. but thats actually no problem ... there hasn't been a 3d card released within the last 4 years which didn't have shader support ... That 2D cards can't do 3D is a logic consequence ... they didn't do well with B3D and now they won't do at all. Will only save you headache when it comes to strange errors and the like. |
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| Sean : Iglass have all the necessary features for the moment ! i assume support with best i can :) But you are right some stuff are missing. But for my defense, I thought that bmax would evolve/move more quickly :/ And for the moment it's a little bit dead ... No news , no screen, i don't know where bmax go ? And it is not easy to be motivated when you don't know where you go... But don't panic sean :), i assume always support for my products, but nobody report me bugs with Iglass ? I don't know why :) Filax, I hate to be the one to say it, but IGlass to me has been the same as Max has been to you. I bought the product just about the time you started working on your terran editor. There were almost no few features added to IGlass in almost a year. I recommended some of the features myself; many times. I mean, the max guys are never going to communicate at the level we would like. If everyone stops adding features to there products there will be no growth. As it is, I no longer use IGlass because of all the limiations. In fact, I took me a long time to rip it out of my game. Sorry, but not being able to change the font sizes and style on the gadget is a big problem. @H&K, encapsolation "spelled correctly" is a fundamental object oriented building block. --------------- Lastly, if it wasn't for Blide, I'm sure I would have given up long ago. Not really sure why he even bothers...It free? |
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| If you find that blitzmax is not working for you, you beleive that nothing seems to be getting updated, are frustrated that certain things don't work ect ect.. Maybe it would be best to contact BRL for a refund. I'm not having a go, I'm just saying, why stick with a product that obviously isn't working for you? |
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| I own Blitzplus and have purchased blitzmax just recently. While I find max to be much better with OOP, Alpha and all that other lovely stuff, I was a little dissapointed in it's sound. sure it can play wav and ogg (I understand why mp3 was dropped) but no midi?. Also whenever I load an ogg file it takes 2 days before it plays. I hope something is done to fix the loading/playing times of ogg files and implementation of midi, as I tend to prefer using midi files for music instead of 3+mb ogg files. Anyways that's my 2 cents worth. |
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| encapsolation "spelled correctly" is a fundamental object oriented building block As long as the type is in a different file my understanding was that private worked had hence we had encapsulation.And in any language, even if you had Private, if the type is there infrount of you, you can just edit it, and hence not have encapsulation. Common sence really says that private is only anyuse accross files. |
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| @Amon, I'm really not saying that and I can produce a list of good things about Max as well. Just wondering what people feel about the direction of the product. I think they are making updates. Filax and I diagree with the updates/features being made in IGlass; but that's a separate mater. I'm not sure it has what it takes to make the next jump. There aren't very many industries where you have the ability to say it will be ready when its ready. Example, Max3D. |
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| Yoko, What is the Audiere wrapper? Is it for HGE? Does it replace this Bass product? It seems a commercial license of Bass is $950. I'm not sure exactly where they draw the line? If you have a company of one and contractor is that shareware or commercial? I wish I never say HGE, it looks beter every time I loook. It has a GUI, particle engine, and a tile map editor coming soon. The only thing that seems to be missing is collision detection at the pixel level (coming soon). Also, I wonder if you can page resource files into the exe like in Max? |
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| BRl isnt a huge company so I dont think you can expect a totally high end ultra professional all bells and wistles thing in 3 months flat. It's great for what it can do and it is getting gradually better. You can't hold third party anything against the language itself, and it doesnt seem to me like you've listed anything that is significantly bad about - those are all mostly issues that you personally have based on what you want to do with it, which are obstacles that you need to overcome in your own specialized way. |
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| Partial Agree. The debuger, memory manegment, and IDE are needs improvement. I list memory manegment because it should take less time to do memory manegment in this type of language. I've observed that it is actually harder to do than it should be IMHO. |
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| You can not reverse engineer the code into UML because the language is not supported by any of the UML products. That's true. Perhaps you should move to Java instead. Eclipse would cover point 1. There are probably lots of third-party things out by now for Java, it's been around for a couple of years now. 3 is also covered, although there's no multiple inheritence... Actually, perhaps you need to go C++, where you will likely find all the things you need somewhere. Don't M$ do a free IDE for it too? |
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| ) I've been a max Customer for about a year and the default IDE is not better than the day I bought the product. Don't use the default IDE. 2) There are a lot of third party plugins. However, many of them don't seem to be updated any longer. For example, IGLASS. I have been disappointed less by buying products 'as advertised'. If IGLass doesn't have a feature you want then it wasn't the product for you. On the other hand, if it has any bugs I'd expect them fixed. 3) The Max language does not support some of the basic object oriented aspects. For example, private member variables and methods. I haven't seen too many people asking for this and games have been produced without it. What makes it so necessary? 4) Still no idea of the 3D module. Although, it doesn't seem like it will be as compatable as Blitz3D from what I've read. IMO, the latest Max3D worklog wasn't too promising but I don't really care about 3D. However, if you look at Max3D as a seperate product to BlitzMax then it doesn't take away from it. 5) You can not reverse engineer the code into UML because the language is not supported by any of the UML products. Are there any 'basic' programming languages costing less than $100 which allow this? Maybe, as Amon says, you shouldn't be using Bmax. 6) Memory management seems to have a lot of issues if handled incorrectly. For example, if a points to b and b points to c and c point to b; then if I kill a the memory will not be freed. What was the response to the bug report for the memory management problems? 7) All the debuggers the I have used are slow and not very good. You might want to write your own. Nothing fancy, just add stuff you think is missing and build it up over time. |
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| There were almost no few features added to IGlass in almost a year. It was my impression that IGlass was feature complete. Thus expecting additional features is possibly a bit extravagant, wouldn't you agree? I haven't seen too many people asking for this That's because people have gotten tired of asking. Private fields and constructors are an essential requirement for the singleton pattern. Although, it doesn't seem like it will be as compatable as Blitz3D from what I've read. You always trade compatibility for capability. 5) You can not reverse engineer the code into UML because the language is not supported by any of the UML products. That's just a matter of chosing the right product. Because JUDE can't reverse engineer C# doesn't mean C# is a poor language.You can write your own tool for this tho' - it's a fairly straightforward ordeal. 6) Memory management seems to have a lot of issues if handled incorrectly. Solution: Stop doing it incorrectly. |
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| @Sean Doherty Audiere is an open-sourced Sound library that I used to replace bass in HGE, then using HGE is completely free, actually you can alter the source to make it replace bass from the SDK level. I don't release it in Blitz scene simply because most users using Fmod when BMax comes to sound issue, Fmod is a common solution. |
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| @Tonyg, I'm glad you feel Max has no cons :) The things I mentioned are not Max product bugs. However, they can be considered cons when deciding which engine to use for my next game. Which if you recall was the context of my question. That said, I'm not going to go point by point through the list. I'll just say that I didn't buy Max so I could write my own IDE or Debuger. Lastly, on the IGlass thing, which only started as a example. I think it would be pretty hard to claim this product is fully functional for writting a game when you can't change the font or the size of the font in any of the controls. Yes, I know I can go in to the code and add this functionality myself. |
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| @Yoko, Looks like HGE is not cross platform. Figures :) |
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| I'm glad you feel Max has no cons :) I never said that :) I could probably come up with a list just as long as your own. The difference is you've posted yours for comment ;) |
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| I'm aiming to making a practical pipeline of creating games that really got played. Not considering Mac/Linux port of my work, if I need, I don't think porting mt game and even entire HGE is impossible. While you yelling around, others have done something, and I user C++ primarily, BMax is just for learn and fun. |
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| Max, HGE, Asphyre, PTK, TGB, ... Sadly ALL of these engines has many features missing. 2006 and still no full featured 2D middleware engines... Well some of then are good if you only tend to write simple games or existing gameplay. A good idea would be taking every middleware community over the web and think about what's make a Good 2D engine nowdays. Maybe we aren't skilled enough to do it but thousand of people with minimal fund could maybe hire those technicians. Think about the Blender open source story... |
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| @tonyg, I was hoping people would post some postive things Max was doing to address some on my cons. Maybe I wasn't all that clear. @yoko, I didn't really follow your last response, but I wrote Starchon in BlitzMax. So I not exactly doing nothing with the product. Maybe, that's not what you implied? --------------- Lastly, maybe we can twist this thread into. What would you like BRL to add to Max? Top 3 things... |
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| I was hoping people would post some postive things Max was doing to address some on my cons. Positive things. 1) Community : CE edition, BLIDE and others BRL : Released IDE source code. 2) BRL : Made it less likely a user module will break between releases. 3) ... 4) Community : Multiple 3D modules available. BRL : Max3D worklog. 5) ... 6) Community : Happy to debate (at length) whether a memory issue is valid or not if you post your example code. BRL : Generally, respond to bug reports so report your memory issues with your example code. 7) Post which debuggers you've used, why they're slow and how do they 'not work'. |
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| I generally use the debugger in Blide. My application runs at 1 FPS in debug mode, so its not really unusable at that speed. I posted memory examples in the past and the conclusion from the group seemed to be that was just the way it works. I've been told that Max doesn't use a real aggressive memory manager. |
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| My application runs at 1 FPS in debug mode What do you get non-debug? What part of your application takes the resource in debug? What have other people reported? etc etc. . Memory Management has changed plus people understand it better now so, if it's still an issue, you might want to try posting again. Plus you stated Memory management seems to have a lot of issues if handled incorrectly. As FD said, if you know it's incorrect then don't do it. I'm not trying to run down your quibbles as we probably use the product in different ways for different things but, like most problems, there are probably answers. My own list involves a few things where I *know* there's a solution but I'm too lazy to get it working properly and/or part of me feels it's BRL's duty to do it for me. After x number of years with BRL products I should realise it just doesn't work like that. |
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| I personally would prefer to see a better debugger, more language features, better docs, and a higher price tag, rather than a 3D module. Writing a programming language and writing a 3D engine are two separate tasks. I'm really happy with the way the BlitzMax language has progressed, and I think it can be a much bigger product than a 3D engine written for BlitzMax users. |
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| The problem is, without the 3D engine, it would need to be really usefull for apps. And at least on windows, the GUI module actually does not stand against anything as it is "too blitz plus" and too less BM / OO Missing "standards" for pure applications not counted in(EventHandler based UI, multi threading which is actually needed for a real app thats more than a little clicky blink) |
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| I personally would prefer to see a better debugger, more language features, better docs, and a higher price tag, rather than a 3D module. Amen to that. |
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| In brief, if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have purchased BlitzMax. All of the posters in here making excuses for all the flaws and missing functionality in BlitzMax are the reason we get a second-rate product. It's amazing to me that so many people are so willing to accept less than they should once they've become emotionally invested in a decision. It is clear to me from reading responses from the Blitz people that they really don't care what we want; we'll get what they give us and we'll like it. I get the feeling that BlitzMax is an unloved stepchild in the Blitz family. SpaceAce |
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| Not sure on that. Currently I think the main problem is that it is too spread. 5 plattforms is a lot of stuff after all (thinking that 3 of that plattforms make up 5% of the users really pisses me as part of the 60%+ usergroup but thats a different thing) and the BRL team is just too small to keep that up. And as Mark is working on 3D instead of getting BM "application ready" before doing so I don't see a that large chance for BM to become what one might have thought it was meant to become: A successor to Blitz3D, not a managed OO addition to outdated application behaviors. at least not in the near future. (we all know that deving BM took over a year longer than originally planned and that it was nearly useless for the first 12 months does actually not make it better. I'm a little sad that it will take until 1.70+ again to make BM what it should and could have been originally if testers and users were not ignored and stuff wouldn't rely on old blitz code instead of new code for the special task called BM) |
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| in here making excuses I'm not making excuses just saying the things on Sean's list are not issues for me. I have a list BUT, as mentioned above, I can solve them... - Lack of official functions for streaming sound. (MaxMod) - Poorly implemented MaxGUI (HighGui, IGlass) - Bad documentation. (HotDocs and keep my own examples) - Focus on 3D rather than improving 2D. (Custom modules : e.g. Tim's RTT, TexturePoly, Single-surface) - Lowest common denominator approach for functions to make them x-platform. (Customer DX functions, Budman's DX9 driver) - No visibility of planned improvements outside Max3D. (Assume 'none') etc etc. I do try to make sure I only user Custom modules (either free or fee) which provide source. BTW : Contact BRL as they have offered refunds before. |
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| I'm sorry but :/ IGLASS is updated with each bmax version ! Like somebody else said here, I haven't received an update to IGlass since April 29, 2006. My email address on record when I purchased IGlass in September, 2005 has not changed.the lastest release for blitmax 1.21 and 1.22 has been send. Quoting from the last update I have received for this product (version 1.5.5, April 29 2006), Hi dear customer ! One more time, Mark make stupid changes under blitzmax 1.20 :/ And this stuff need many changes under IGlass .... |
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| All of the posters in here making excuses for all the flaws and missing functionality in BlitzMax are the reason we get a second-rate product. How's that working out for you? Name one 80 USD product that is better than BlitzMAX. It is clear to me from reading responses from the Blitz people that they really don't care what we want; we'll get what they give us and we'll like it. No product-oriented company caresw what you want. They offer a product, and you can shose to buy it or not. Good luck finding a solution-oriented company that will give you what you want for less than 80 USD. You get what you pay for. |
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| I second FlameDuck's statement: Show me ONE product for 80 USD that is better than BlitzMax. And also show me an Open Source product that is as good as BlitzMax at what BlitzMax does and is. As for Dreamora's "BlitzMax is too spread" argument and the user percentage: Well, I guess I am probably one of those 5% minority customers, and I would not have bought BlitzMax if it was Windows only. To say it as plainly as possible: I don't give a shit for Windows support. I only touch Windows when I get paid for it, and that means I only touch it in my daytime job. I bought BlitzMax because it runs on the Mac, and that is the only platform I care for. And guess what? That is the platform BlitzMax was released for first, and, again, that is why I bought it. And I also think it works reasonably well on the Mac. It has bugs, like any other software development tool out there, but I do have the feeling that the BRL guys are fixing them slowly but surely. You other guys out there want a fancy IDE and full buzzword support? Go and use .NET. Not even Java will give you more buzzwords. And once you've grown up and found out that this is all just marketing bullshit and never helped you solve any real problems, you can come back and work with a nice programming language that will actually help you getting a job done instead of asking you to keep on learning academic nonsense and writing gazillion lines of codes - or worse: clicking your shit together instead of knowing what you are doing. Did you guys ever wonder why in any serious book about Java programming the authors specifically want that you use the command line and a simple text editor instead of one of those superfancy IDEs? And once you were there and have been doing that for a while, did you also notice that a makefile and the command line tools usually are everything that you -really- need? If you do not know what I am talking about, then you should read Charles Petzold's great article about how Visual Studio makes the developer stupid. Sure it's fun to have a good IDE. But that actually has the lowest priority for me. A --GOOD-- documentation would be on top of the list. Sorry guys, but what BRL offers here is the worst you can possibly imagine. The BlitzMax doc usually leaves you guessing what you have to do, but not knowing. And that is unacceptable. But, well: What can you expect from an 80 USD product? If I had paid for Max what I have paid for REALbasic (which really sucks, by the way, and I am no longer using it), I would be really pissed off. So I can live with it. Anyway, the poss is already long enough now. |
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| I couple of points, but before you quote what I'm going to say, quote the entire paragraph or not at all! People that are trying to develop games to sell as a commercial or shareware product aren't buying Max because it is only $80. There willing to pay more for a product that is complete and will save them time. Moreover, many people purchased Max thinking it would be a lot beter buy know. Also, I believe people thought they were paying only $80 because it wasn't really done? That said, you can't really make the statement that Max is $80 when most people are using FMOD to solve their sound issues. Also, if IGlass if the solution to the GUI problems then you have to add that to your price tag. Max is not $80: True Price of Max = Max Price + FMod Price + GUI Editor Price Dreamora has the right idea about BRL. I would say that they have so many things on the go that they can't do any of them well because of the lack of focus. @Tonyg, What is the name of your game? Is there a demo? Are you using IGlass? I find it hard to believe you can make a game with Gadgets that only support a default font with a static size. If your not using it, you might want to purchase it so you will have a bases for your comments. @Flameduck, That is just sad that you think no product cares what their customer want in their products. I hope your not planning to offer any products for sale :) Lastly, I still think Max is a good product and it is worth $80 with Blide. BRL needs to focus their efforts if the product is going to grow among shareware developers. |
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| I couple of points, but before you quote what I'm going to say, quote the entire paragraph or not at all! People that are trying to develop games to sell as a commercial or shareware product aren't buying Max because it is only $80. There willing to pay more for a product that is complete and will save them time. Moreover, many people purchased Max thinking it would be a lot beter buy know. Also, I believe people thought they were paying only $80 because it wasn't really done? That said, you can't really make the statement that Max is $80 when most people are using FMOD to solve their sound issues. Also, if IGlass if the solution to the GUI problems then you have to add that to your price tag. Max is not $80: Yes it is. True Price of Max = Max Price + FMod Price + GUI Editor Price I agree that it's terrible BRL didn't solve the sound problems. It's good somebody else has bothered (reminder to self to donate). MaxGUI was never advertised as a Game GUI system so it was obvious a 3rd party or user-written GUI was needed... wasn't it? Dreamora has the right idea about BRL. I would say that they have so many things on the go that they can't do any of them well because of the lack of focus. I agree to some extent but 'holes' are being filled by developers who are releasing into this community. @Tonyg, What is the name of your game? I'm not writing a game Is there a demo? Are you using IGlass? I have IGlass and have used it in the past. I found it a bit too slow. I find it hard to believe you can make a game with Gadgets that only support a default font with a static size. If your not using it, you might want to purchase it so you will have a bases for your comments. I have bought it. I tried it, thought it was OK but a bit too slow. If I need a GUI, I'd either try HighGUI or write what I need. @Flameduck, That is just sad that you think no product cares what their customer want in their products. I hope your not planning to offer any products for sale :) Not directed at me but left in as instructed. Lastly, I still think Max is a good product and it is worth $80 with Blide. BRL needs to focus their efforts if the product is going to grow among shareware developers. I agree even without Blide. I have had $80 worth of fun from it already. |
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| I guess buying a programming language when what you actually need is a professional game engine might be not the ideal solution. I bought BlitzMax mainly because I believe that it can be used to write applications, and not "just" games. I see your point, but I also see that people actually licence Source or Doom engines for the games when they are going the professional route. Or they use one of the older open source engines from id Software. But then you need to code in C. BlitzMax mainly is a language with some features that -can- be used for writing games. However, it is quite obvious that you very soon reach a point where you either have to write your own engines or buy/adopt something that is available on the market. Again: BlitzMax is a LANGUAGE. Not a game or sound engine. Once you get used to that idea, you will see Blitz from a different perspective. If this is not what you want, go and use Unity or something similar. There you can write your scripts in (Mono) C# and otherwise focus on your game. The engine is already there. With all its features and limits. And there won't be anything you could fix yourself. It always comes down to what you actually want, but I think you cannot blame BlitzMax for not being a complete game engine pack with included Basic programming language. |
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| @tonyg, I not trying to give you a hard time. I'm just trying to make the point that unless you try to use IGlass to write a game you can't really say whether it has functionality. Maybe it wasn't sold a game development GUI? And maybe Max wasn't sold as a game development language? Also, if your going to tell people to write your own GUI, you need to add that to the max price. Time is not free! HighGui might be an option for people; has anyone written a game using it? |
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| @Sean, same here. I did try using IGlass to create a Map Editor and didn't get along with it. I know you used IGlass as an example but, because IGlass doesn't do what you want, it can't be considered a fault of BRL. Maybe look at Bmax another way. You paid $80 for a framework to write games. The DX/GL drivers alone would have saved you that money in time it would have taken to write them. Again, it's all about personal opinion and circumstances. $80 is a couple of nights heavy drinking so Bmax got it's money back the first weekend I stayed in with it. On the other hand, I don't ever see myself releasing anything so there's no pressure to 'polish'. |
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| NoBoDo : I'm sorry my dear but, if you have receive the update for 1.20 version , you HAVE RECEIVE the others ! why ? Simply because my outlook is the same, and my database is alway updated ! so, stop to say : "Filax never send update" it is the kind of sentences which irritates me :/ i don't know why some users receive updates, and other's not ! I'm not a stupid guy :) i have 3 backup of all my emails. Possible problems : - EMail change :/ can't do anything if the user don't tell me... - Antispam filter (automatic email/attached file trash ). - Antivirus with email scaning (automatic email/attached file trash) I'm not a swindler ! i send alway updates to the customer's... and i try to make my possible to help them when they have trash or delete my products (hard drive crash , isp changing etc) |
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| Is there a higher IGlass version than 1.55? I thought the Bmax 1.20 version worked OK with 1.21 and 1.22 but I could be wrong. |
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| No it's ok ! you have the last tony :) But i repeat : I post alway in this forum some topic to say that one of my products is updated. If you don't receive it, do not hesitate to send me an email!!. I find that this topic finally speaks more ego instead the true problem:) Where blitzmax go ? :) |
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| Also, I believe people thought they were paying only $80 because it wasn't really done? What you think other people think is not an arguement. If people buy something in the hopes of having more than what it says on the tin - people are fools (no offense), and are likely to have already payed a lot more on a lot less. True Price of Max = Max Price + FMod Price + GUI Editor Price True price of yours maybe, not mine. I don't need FMOD, because FreeAudio works fine at this time as it is, and I don't need a GUI Editor, because I have a pen and peice of paper handy, in the cases where a mental image is not enough. That is just sad that you think no product cares what their customer want in their products. I hope your not planning to offer any products for sale :) It's not something I think, is just my experience. Eventually I might have a product for sale. But I'm going to tell you up front that I don't care about what you think about it, instead of pretending I do, and then promptly patching you through to some underpaid, undereducated crippled kid in India whose English is rubbish and who doesn't even know what RAID is much less how the COMPAQ controller I have works, or where to get drivers for it.I provide the product, you decide whether you want to buy it or not. I'm not going to send the boys around your place to force you at gunpoint to buy it (although I might send them around just for fun). :o> Where blitzmax go ? :) I can answer that one for you. It's going to go wherever you decide to take it. And that's really all that should matter. |
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| True price of yours maybe, not mine. I don't need FMOD, because FreeAudio works fine at this time as it is, and I don't need a GUI Editor, because I have a pen and peice of paper handy, in the cases where a mental image is not enough. Are you writting a Tic-TacToe game :) |
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| I can answer that one for you. It's going to go wherever you decide to take it. And that's really all that should matter. And provided it is still being improved. Maybe what is upsetting people is the lack of communication ? Silence ? Either way, I will still continue to support BlitzMax, it does everything I need it to do as of now, and is stable enough for me. |
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| Can i now have Max3D please? |
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| Can i now have Max3D please? That is without a doubt, the most irritating question at the moment. |
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| I, for one, am very interested in HGE. I just have been busy with real world issues and have only very recently got back to coding in BlitzMax. -AF |
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| I guess HGE is not cross platform. I think it is a good option for the PC. |
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| Yeah, I am interested in HGE most of all to get rid of some of the compatibility issues on Windows. -AF |
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| i love BMAX but i wish they would support mp3s because a lot of the music i find that i want to use is in mp3 format i will probably check out FMOD or FreeAudio, MaxGUI is not important to me because any apps i make are purely for my convience and don't need to have a great interface the main reasons i use BMAX is because of the multi-platform abilities, OOP and it is still very much like old Blitz |
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| Link1426: Convert the mp3s to WAV or OGG, then you won't need another third party tool just to play music. If you don't have a good sound editor, use Audacity, it supports mp3, wav and ogg and can convert the files for you. |
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| There are MP3 to OGG converters available. |
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| are they free? i am broke nad can't afford to buy much software these days |
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| Link: Audacity is open source and platform independent. http://audacity.sourceforge.net |
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| The funny thing is that i've found the same topic inside every forum of these tools ^^ |
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| NoBoDo : I'm sorry my dear but, if you have receive the update for 1.20 version , you HAVE RECEIVE the others ! why ? Simply because my outlook is the same, and my database is alway updated ! so, stop to say : "Filax never send update" it is the kind of sentences which irritates me :/ i don't know why some users receive updates, and other's not ! I'm not a stupid guy :) i have 3 backup of all my emails. Possible problems : - EMail change :/ can't do anything if the user don't tell me... - Antispam filter (automatic email/attached file trash ). - Antivirus with email scaning (automatic email/attached file trash) I'm not a swindler ! i send alway updates to the customer's... and i try to make my possible to help them when they have trash or delete my products (hard drive crash , isp changing etc) Filax, The problem is on your end, not on my end. I do have spam filtering on the account, but it does not delete emails but instead delivers them to another mailbox. I check that other mailbox to ensure there's nothing but spam in it, and no email from you has ever appeared there. You can criticize your customers all you want (you have done it plenty of times before), but take responsibility for problems caused by the fact that your choice of delivery methods for your software updates is email and you make no contact attempts other than the single email with a zip file attached. If it gets to the customers great, if it doesn't then it is their fault and never filax's. I do not check your IGLass thread in these forums to see if you have an update or not, mostly because you have not updated anything in IGlass for a very long time unless you absolutely have to because a new version of bmax breaks IGlass. And then even those updates you do send come with some nasty remark about how you had to do the update because Mark made some stupid change to bmax. Your customers have asked many times for features that the product is lacking and sorely needs, but each time those requests come in you've responded that you're working on a different project instead and not touching IGlass. filax, I'll save you the trouble. Don't bother sending me another update to IGlass, I don't want it. Thanks, Mark. |
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| This topic tired me... Nobodo : I find your email absolutly stupid ! "Please remove me from the list to receive updates to IGlass. I don’t want it, and am very tired of your smartass attitude. I’ll consider my purchase from you to be a lesson learned, and it won’t happen again. Mark." Why ? I don't want enemy ! i have no time to manage them ... What do you really want from me ? - a secured web site for updates ? - excuses? - my wife ? - what ? I'm defending myself against false charges, you say : "Filax never send update", i say no ! that all. you must know that i'm no eating with my blitz sales ! i have a job, a boss, some projects with short planing, a wife etc... i can't offer a professional support like kinetix or others... and my product have not the same prices.... I have nothing against you! and i hate conflicts! It is possible to find a deal to avoid the problems? |
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| Filax I bought Iglass a while ago and I chanded email, maybe I can email you my personal info so I can get new update. updating via email is for me not a great idea because something like this can append for my point I have a 56k connection and dowloading 5 or 6 meg with my email client is a pain, if the connection drop then I must start over again, I duno in france but a lot of people don't have highspeed connection. it's probaly why I did't email my new email address. with newbie.com you can host your file for 80usd a years and you have 3gig bandwith a day available and you have 300 meg of web space. it's really cheap Regard |
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| @NoBoDo : You have 1.55... right? Thats *IS* the latest version. |
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| Ok, I agree that Filax might have a delivery problem, I've never experianced any problems, quite the contery, Ive sent emails directly to him and gotten promte resposes every time. I will conced that my "Normal Email Address", (Due to all the type of reasons you would expect), was unsutable for delivery of Filaxs products, but it was made quite clear on the various purchase pages that this was going to be so. And hence the problem was solved at my end in less than 10 MINs Anyway the main reason Im posting here, is to say that each time I have bought a product from him, it has been a finished product. That is its not a beta, and I dont expect updates. When you buy from him, you dont expect Five updates in a week. (I still cannot beleve that Ant bragged about that). And yet even then, if there is an update I am notified by Email, on this sight, and on the French site. Now, it would be stupid of me to say that simply because I have not had any problems, then no one else can have, and so I accept that maybe others have. However, Filax is easily contactable, and I feel that this is not the place to besmirch his reputation. |
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| Filax is easily contactable, and I feel that this is not the place to besmirch his reputation. What he said. |
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| Hi Smokey glad to ear you :) Of course ! give me your email adress i'll update my adress base, and send the update. H&K : Glad to ear you too... you are right. I prefer release a final version rather than alpha which require one update per week! For example, TerraEd represents six full months of work, but when i release, it's a program which was been tested and tortured thousands of times !!! believe me ... I have buy more than 50 euros some blitz softwares without doc or example, and bugged... All my products have CHM doc in english and french and many examples (easytok).I consider that i make my better to provide a product finished to my customers... So, i understand that the user's want many features added... But i repeat, coding blitz apps is not my job ! I'm a user like you guys... and i have a life too. But i promise, actually i'm moving house ! when my internet connection will be operational, i'll try to make a support web site.... |
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| Hi All, I guess I’m responsible to bring focus to filax and some of the features we would like to see in the product. On reflection, I should have contacted him directly. I’ve since spoken to him directly, and I believe there may be other reasons for some of the some of the things I and other perceive and issues. Perhaps we should start a thread called IGlass feature requests to discuss in a positive light some of the features we would like to see. Maybe, collectively we can help filax solve some of the issues he is facing. I believe that if filax explains the reasons behind some of our issues, our feature requests can be added to the product over time. Just keep in mind that he is only one person with a full time job. Lastly, I want to respond to filax comment above. What do you really want from me ? - a secured web site for updates ? - excuses? - my wife ? - what ? If this doesn’t work out, can you post a picture of your wife? Just in case! :) Kidding… I think this thread has probably run its course. Get back to work... Thanks All |
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| Filax is easily contactable, and I feel that this is not the place to besmirch his reputation. I have no intention of besmirching anybody's reputation. I have emailed filax several times, and have received no reply except in this forum. Even with my most recent email to him, instead of replying he quotes the entire text of the email and pastes it into this thread, and calls it "stupid". Who exactly is besmirching whose reputation, and choosing where it happens?I'm defending myself against false charges, you say : "Filax never send update", i say no ! In my opinion, IGlass is far from a finished product. The author of the product even admits in this thread that many updates are needed to the product, but many months have passed without any of those updates being addressed. It's that reason that I've chosen to remove the product and ask that I receive no more updates of it. Thanks, Mark. |
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| Hi Filax :) yes long time no see , did't have time to code a lot but I have more time now :) like you said I have a life too , job, paying biil lol Filax, I always really like your work and nice looking product you are an Artist I think :) I gona email you. Cya. |
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| Sean Doherty : Lol :) if you want, but you will see she's nice :) Smokey : It's done. |
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| Can i now have Max3D please? That is without a doubt, the most irritating question at the moment.  Sigh. I'm sorry... But really, it's getting pretty annoying to have the same question pop up over and over and over, when everyone already knows the answer. C'mon people, It'll be done when its done, and asking about it every other post is not going to make it come out any faster. Can we please just give it a rest for a while? |
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| Lol :) Excellent! |
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| Indeed. Should go in the gallery. :o> |
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| I want a proper development environment,better documentation and a debugger, that's all. That can't be too much to ask for. BlitzMax could have a huge market on Macs if they made just a bit more effort. Never forget that there is competition in the Mac basic market, BlitzMax isn't the only basic out there! Holy cow look at the formats DarkBasic calls friends. BlitzMax needs these in order to compete. Now if only DarkBasic had a Mac version :( 2D Image - BMP BMP Yes Yes 2D Image - Run Length Encoded BMP RLE Yes 2D Image - Device Independant Bitmap DIB Yes 2D Image - Portable Network Graphics PNG Yes 2D Image - JPEG JPG Yes Yes 2D Image - DirectDraw Surface DDS Yes 2D Image - Targa TGA Yes 2D Image - PCX PCX Yes 2D Image - PhotoShop PSD Yes 2D Image - Tagged Interchange Format TIFF Yes 3D Object - 3D Studio 3DS Yes 3D Object - DirectX X Yes Yes Sound - Wave File WAV Yes Yes Sound - Windows Media Audio WMA Yes Sound - Mpeg Layer 2 MP2 Yes Sound - Mpeg Layer 3 MP3 Yes Music - MIDI playback MIDI Yes Music - RMI RMI Yes Music - Scream Tracker S3M Yes Music - Fast Tracker XT Yes Music - Impulse Tracker IT Yes Music - SoundTracker MOD Yes Music - CD Audio Tracks CD-Audio Yes Animation AVI Yes Animation MPEG Yes |
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| Holy cow look at the formats DarkBasic calls friends. Holy Cow! I wasn't aware that the Mac didn't have a tool for converting between different file formats! Get Steve Jobs on this ASAP! BlitzMax needs these in order to compete. No it doesn't. Now if only DarkBasic had a Mac version :( Yes, because what the Mac really needs are more applications and games that crash randomly and arbitrarily. |
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| Holy cow look at the formats DarkBasic calls friends. BlitzMax needs these in order to compete. Now if only DarkBasic had a Mac version :( Sounds like it's 'competing' just fine, considering the 'competition' doesn't have a Mac version? |
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| I've not purchased BlitzMax yet but I've played with the demo and really like the language. It's posts like this that keep putting me off. Even when the 3d module makes an appearance there has been so much negativity surrounding this product that I'm wondering if I will bother purchasing it at all. I'm already heading down the c# route as its a language I know very well but am still prepared to "have a look" when the 3d module makes an appearance. Should I bother ? Cross-platform for me is not important. I already have all the OOP features I need with c# and the choice of lots of supported 3d engines, Managed DirectX and a superb GUI to boot. Apart from c#'s dependance on the .net framework which nowadays is part of the OS and x/platform what advantages are there to using BMax (for windows) especially when the express version of c# is totally free ? |
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| haha ... look at DB ... what a great comparision ... Bug Basic Pro mentioning on programming boards ... thought only "shooter kiddies" still accept it as a real language as its struct stuff is not even by reference but by value, which means no possibility to create data structures with it? (so even weaker than Blitz2D ^^) |
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| > what advantages are there to using BMax 1: With C# you will either have to also get a third party 3D library or code one from XNA or Directx, etc. 2: Using blitz3d as an example - Mark's stuff just plain works, and if it doesn't work he gets it fixed quickly. 3: Using blitz3d as an example again. The command set for the 3D portion was THE easiest to use of the ones that I tested. 4: Ignore we chuckleheads arguing on the forums, wait for the 3D and give it a try, or try out minib3d which looks pretty far along toward getting the old B3D command set into max. |
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| 2: If this would be the case, B3D would be DX9 as there are problems due to the fact that DX7 is supported worse and worse (same for Max2D). But you are right, bugs he "implemented" himself are normally fixed quite fast :-) |
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| Apart from c#'s dependance on the .net framework which nowadays is part of the OS and x/platform what advantages are there to using BMax (for windows) especially when the express version of c# is totally free ? Precisely what I said when I was comparing TV3D in BMax with TV3D in C#. Then I ported a fairly compact BlitzMax "class" for a graphical effect I'd written to C#, spent about a week trying to debug it and figure out why it wasn't working, and went back to BMax. Which is not to say that C# doesn't have a good debugger, I'm sure it's debugger is better than BlitzMax's by some distance. But sometimes, the devil you know.. |
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| the debugger works fine for me... but that's me. Exactly what other features are people looking for the debugger to do? |
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| Highlighting the line the error occurred on every time instead of just some of the time would be nice ;) |
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| Apart from c#'s dependance on the .net framework which nowadays is part of the OS and x/platform what advantages are there to using BMax (for windows) especially when the express version of c# is totally free ? 1. The express version of Visual Studio 2005 is not free. Read the EULA again.2. The .Net framework is not cross platform. 3. BlitzMAX is more productive. It takes shorter time to develop in. By the time you get finished setting up your project in VS, I'll be halfways done with whatever it was I was working on. |
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| Hi, If you're not happy with Max, refunds are available upon request from shareit. Also, if you make a decision to buy Max based on what you think may, or is rumoured to, be added in future, you are, quite frankly, a bit of an idiot. But I know this applies to many users so I wouldn't actually go as far as to say that in public. I think the pros and cons of Max vs DBPro vs .Net etc are pretty easy to determine - all have freely available demos - and discussing this into the ground is pointless at worse and better discussed on a less product-centric forum at best. |
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