New to BlitzBasic.com need some help
Community Forums/General Help/New to BlitzBasic.com need some help
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| Hello, so i was developing a game in multimedia fusion and an opengl extension and was creating a 3d engine. Only problem was the didn't have collision detection at all. So i googled around for a powerfull 3D engine that can be used by an easy programming language, nothing to complex yet like C++. And i found this i google some videos to see what this software could do and it was pretty impressive. Now i have some questions and i hope you people can answer then. Question 1 What software should i use? BlitzMax or Blitz3D (left the others out because i thought they aren't that powerfull). I focus to create games for windows so OpenGl isn't really needed i also saw that OpenGL for BlitzMax used some low level stuff and it doesn't include a collision engine. Question 2 Should i buy the Blitz3D programming manual? I saw that the Manual was added on august 30 2006. That is a long time ago when was the last update for Blitz3D. Is the manual missing some new features? Question 3 What OpenGl version does BlitzMax use? And what DirectX version does Blitz3D use? I saw topic on the internet that Blitz3D used DirectX 7, but that topic was 7 years old. Question 4 Difference between Blitz3D demo and bought version. So what is the difference apart from acces to some places on this website and the 5 seconds timer when starting up the software? Are some features gone? Are you allowed to sell your games commercially with the demo version? Question 5 Is multiplayer possible? Simple question can you create a multiplayer game? Question 6 How realistic is Blitz3D? Is it possible to create something like this? Screenshot:  Things like realtime shadows high poly models, god rays. Can the software handle this? Question 7 How hard is it to learn BlitzMax and/or Blitz3D? How long will this take? For now thats all, thank you very much for reading this and i hope you could anwer some questions. (Note: This is written on my mobile, and my first language isn't english.) ~fishrod |
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| Question 1 What software should i use? BlitzMax or Blitz3D (left the others out because i thought they aren't that powerfull). I focus to create games for windows so OpenGl isn't really needed i also saw that OpenGL for BlitzMax used some low level stuff and it doesn't include a collision engine. Depends entirely on what you're hoping to acocmplish. Out of the box with no add-ons, B3D wis targeted at 3D, while blitzmax is 2D-in-3D -- No built-in 3D engine. Question 2 Should i buy the Blitz3D programming manual? I saw that the Manual was added on august 30 2006. That is a long time ago when was the last update for Blitz3D. Is the manual missing some new features? No idea, although B3D hasn't really received any major updates in years, so it the manual may not be too far out of date. Question 3 What OpenGl version does BlitzMax use? And what DirectX version does Blitz3D use? I saw topic on the internet that Blitz3D used DirectX 7, but that topic was 7 years old. Stock B3D is still DirectX7 -- although there's some community projects ("Hardwired") that's currently being developed that will add DX9 and DX11 support, at least to some extend. Stock Blitzmax can use either DirectX 7, DirectX 9, and OpenGl -- not sure about the version, but IIRC it's OpenGL 2 or something. However, there are community updates available for download that will replace the older OpenGL with OpenGl 3 or 4. Question 4 Difference between Blitz3D demo and bought version. So what is the difference apart from acces to some places on this website and the 5 seconds timer when starting up the software? Are some features gone? Are you allowed to sell your games commercially with the demo version? IIRC the full version has a number of bugfixes for modern versions of windows, where executables created by the demo might be acting up a bit. No idea about the rest, but I doubt that BRL would want people to sell games made with the demo version. Question 5 Is multiplayer possible? Simple question can you create a multiplayer game? Sure. Question 6 How realistic is Blitz3D? Is it possible to create something like this? Screenshot: Stock B3D is based on DirectX7, which means no shaders and such -- probably unliklely to create a game with those visuals. But with any of the 3rd party rendering engines or newer DX versions, it could be possible I guess. Question 7 How hard is it to learn BlitzMax and/or Blitz3D? How long will this take? Impossible to say, since it greatly depend son your background, knowledge, ability, and dedication. Some people might be up and running in days, while it will take others years. Personally I can't wrap my brain around 3D programming, so I never got very far with any of that. Love the 2D-in-3D that Bltizmax provides though, and got the gist of creating 2D stuff in it pretty quickly. |
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| On questions 2-6: 2: The manual isn't really necessary. It doesn't contain anything you won't find in the bundled help files or on this website. It's mainly just for people who really like to have a physical paper book in their hands. 3: BlitzMax is rather flexible and isn't tied to one OpenGL version, although using others requires some wizardry. The miniB3D 3D engine is OpenGL 1.5, I think. Blitz3D still uses DirectX 7. This may potentially be an issue on modern Windows (I don't know - it works for me, but most people here reckon it's not tenable on Windows 8) You will see references to one or more "replacement engines" on these forums ("hardwired" is the current popular one), but those are third-party plugins and not really part of Blitz3D itself. How well they work and how available they are varies immensely. 4: You can sell programs made with the full version. They contain no DRM and have no limitations. There are a few features that have been added since the demo. The most important ones are cubemaps (needed for things like reflective water) and the native .B3D format for meshes, which is basically the only decent mesh format for the engine (.3DS and .MD2 are a bit useless in reality). 5: Yup. There are many libraries and examples in the code archives, this is no problem. 6: ....eeeehhhh. Blitz3D can... just about struggle its way to display images of that quality, I guess. But you need to understand that the important thing in that scene is not the engine - it's the quality of the 3D models and textures and all the other art assets that were crafted for the engine. You could whack those beautiful Rockstar art assets into basically any engine and it'd look fantastic, but that's because they spent a hundred million dollars on 'em. Yes, given GTA quality models, Blitz3D could make a game that looks nearly as good as GTA... but Blitz3D isn't the bottleneck in this problem; getting art that looks that good is. Blitz3D has access to a small range of "prefab" tools (fog, lighting, etc.), and with the right libraries and plugins you can extend this with a few more conventional prefabs like DoF and godrays and so on. What you can't do in Blitz3D is wacky, completely original graphical effects, because it has no access to the programmable ("shader") pipeline - you're stuck with whatever pre-baked effects DirectX 7 offers. You can do reflections and shadows (at some performance cost), but you can't create the next Okami, building worlds out of the negative space created by swirling ink clouds or whatever. Question 7 isn't a question anyone can easily answer for you. Some people pick this stuff up in days. Some people never learn. You'll have to give the demo a spin and see what happens. You can also use BlitzPlus to get a feel for the language, which is completely free even for commercial use now. I don't want to discourage you (and I don't want to rob BRL of a sale)... but TBH I think Blitz3D's day is done. You should really consider a more modern engine. There are several other easy languages out there (Lua, Python, etc.) with much newer and more powerful engines attached to them. For a similar price to Blitz3D, you could get the Lua version of Leadwerks and get the massive power of OpenGL 4, Steam integration, Mac and Linux support, etc., as well as a language that's in a lot of ways a modernised BASIC (and much faster). |
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| I'm not going to answer the questions because everybody else has already done it. The biggest point is, you are not going to make Grand Theft Auto. Not now, not ever. And that isn't Blitz3D's fault. The GTA series is developed over a period of several years by hundreds of highly skilled people - what chance do you have, by yourself, with Blitz3D (or anything else, really)? I don't know where you're at with your programming knowledge, so all I can say is, shoot lower. |
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| Disagree on some accounts with last 2 commentators. :-D Wanna be successful? Aim for the highest. Perhaps you'll fail, perhaps you'll prevail.. It's amazing what some people can build in their garages with total dedication and persistence. Of course you will also need skill, brilliance and.. luck(+ a very faint social life ;-). If you want to see what's possible with addon's just take a peek at screenshots/run examples from FastExtend(Blitz3D only), or BlitzIrrlicht)(Blitz3D & BlitzPlus). Hardwired(probably all Blitz versions) is most likely going to top all these as is adding things like DX9, DX11, shaders and much more goodies(the list of commands is huge already). While most Blit3D-ers are probably agreeing that if the author will succeed(looks like it) this is going to be THE long awaited incarnation of Blitz3D 2.0. But even though already useable, pretty advanced and progressing fast it's also still pretty heavily in development, so you'll have to hold out a bit. |
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| It's amazing what some people can build in their garages with total dedication and persistence. But you still aren't going to build the Titanic, or the International Space Station.You need to know where pushing your own limits crosses the line into pure fantasy. |
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| I am building an ark in my backyard, a spaceship in the basement and a robot in the attic. Only need just a few lifetimes more to finish em all. Or.. a whole lot of money. ;-) |
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| Only a fool would build a spaceship in the basement, if they had workspace in the attic. |
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| Making own GTA on your own isnt easy task and it take lots of work. |
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| Wanna be successful? Aim for the highest. Perhaps you'll fail, perhaps you'll prevail.. I rather say : get realistic, evaluate your strengths, your weaknesses, learn things about the subject to improve your skills, make templates, procedures/functions, systems, which can be used in several games, and step by step, bit by bit, it will be easier and faster to make a more complex game. To answer the OP>>I think that it is possible to have a similar render with Blitz3d, reflections can be done with precalculated cubemaps, shadows with fastext, but you will need to have the meshes, textures, animations, sounds, which can take a lot of work to produce. And the code to manage all these entities must be complex to write and to manage ! |
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