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A future.

Its very apparent that you are new to Blitz 3D. I have been around for awhile and it takes six months for Mark Sibly to update Blitz and when he does its with something small like for example Gamma support that was added in.

Waiting for Blitz Max or updates to Maplet, you might as well play with C++ while you are waiting. People are unhappy about the lack of support for maplet and what happens when BlitzMax comes out and then he has to support all the other versions...

This is what Mark Sibly wants to do to support Blitz. He has to have total control and does not like to have anyone else help him out. This is what he has to do through 2003.

Direct X 7 Version of Blitz 2D and updated support
Direct X 9 Version of Blitz 3D and updated support
OpenGL Version of BlitzMax and updated support
Maplet support and updated support
Support of adding and supporting Forum software
Support and updating the Website
Support of the Blitz product line including support messages
Mark's time spent with Girlfriend Claire
Personal time for Mark himself including vacations, holidays and just plain time off.

Now ask yourself, how is he going to do all this without the time. BlitzMax don't forget is multiplatform, it works with Macs, Linux, and Windows.

How can one man support all of this? Now if people are already upset with Maplet not being updated, can you imagine what its going to be like when he has so many directions to go in.

Also Mark Constantly changes his mind about everything, did you know Maplet was supposed to be a BSP compiler, but it was too hard for Mark to pull off, so he basically just decided that using basic solid shapes would be better to build 3D worlds. He could have given this to someone who not only had the time but the knowledge, but he did not do this.

DBPro isn't perfect and Blitz is more stable, but Blitz needs a lot of work to make it usefull for today's games and Singularity was a nice try from Joshua Klint (Halo), but it uses his own systems and external DLL files to work and it crashes on most computer systems and he just dropped the entire project recently. Blitz has a thriving community supporting what Mark should be doing, but thats what happens when you build a stable language, but one thats out of date when it comes to 3D.

"Maybe I'm missing something, but what exactly does DBPro have going for it, since it is so obviously superior to BB?"

- Shaders (v. powerful)
- Better IDE
- Can be faster than Blitz (hopefully with P4 it will always be. To give an example, I get 200FPS with a BSP map in DBP, 60FPS in Blitz - although until P4, Blitz handles lots of objects better).
- A future: DBS are always adding new features and not minor ones either. The team is composed of four people not one, and they have a person who deals just with marketing / support and so on (RickV) - so Leenmike don't have to worry about them

Singularity uses third party DLL's to make it do what it does and it crashes on just about every computer because of it. Singularity is now dead because of that problem. I assume you haven't been reading the Blitz boards. .

Hmm, doesn't crash my Evo, and my goodness, sometime in the last 27 days Halo decided to stop working on it?
http://www.blitzbasic.com/bbs/posts.php?topic=14731
Wow, I am sooo out of date.

But, I'm still waiting to see something similar done in even Dark Basic. Hmmmmm ?




Doom and Quake were from a long time ago. Try something like Doom III, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal II, or even Halo on Blitz 3D right at this moment. Good luck...

Hey, in case you hadn't noticed, I already did post a couple of links. However, I don't see anything but talk from you on DB.......
Why don't -you- show me something like Doom III, Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal II, or even Halo on DB Pro right at this moment? Good luck...



Blitz is more stable than Dark Basic Pro, no doubt about that, but its also OVER TWO YEARS OLDER than Dark Basic Pro.

And, people are still not producing much on DB Pro, although they seem to talk a lot of smack.
Whaoh, just found this: http://www.darkbasicpro.com/download_view.php?downloadid=2&p=0&catid=

Oh, was made by the DB Pro team.

And, I'm not exactly a total noob to BB, I was around a couple of years ago, and remember all the laughing you guys had about BB3D's upcoming release...

You are still laughing ( a bit 'forced' though), even though I don't see where any of DB Pro's 'advanced' features has gotten many people too far.

DB Pro may be more advanced in some areas, however its not much use if its not stable.
Now, if DB Pro's next patch comes out and fixes significant bugs, then I may be forced to buy DB Pro instead of BB3D.

Really, I would love to, as its cheaper. However I refuse to pay my $$ to essentially beta-test someone's software.
I don't do it at work, and certainly wouldn't do it for a hobby.

BB3D, DB Pro, Power Basic, Pure Basic, they are all tools.

"Its very apparent that you are new to Blitz 3D. I have been around for awhile and it takes six months for Mark Sibly to update Blitz and when he does its with something small like for example Gamma support that was added in."

Nope, I was around during Mark's Amiga Blitz days, and checked in a couple of years ago when I heard about BB 2D.
Unfortunately, I must disagree wtih you, Mark -is- the one I want responsible for BB3d+. He's got a pretty damn impressive track record. How many bugs/features are still MIA in Dark Basic?


As for support, I agree that is quite a plateful. Either way, considering DB's history on patches, I wouldn't point fingers at Mark.

My main point is everyone's pre-occupation with 'new' features. Until I see many people using even the ones currently available, in some fashion that is above amatuerish knock-offs, I think its a red herring.

I would agree with your points on Maplet to some extent, and that Mark has boxed himself into a corner with respect to BlitzMax, OS X, Linux, etc, etc. Some of the other stuff can be delegated to his Support people, web, questions, etc.

However, as a 1-man Programming genius, I'm sure he will figure something out. Maybe he'll stop dev on 2D, or something like that. That makes the most sense.

Then, he can concentrate on 3D and Max, perhaps limiting Max to Windows initially.

How many people are working on DB/Pro?
Are you happy with the quality of Dark Basic after 3+ years?

In the final analysis, which is better Dark Basic, or Blitz Basic 2D, in speed, and stability. I expect Mark will be able to muddle through this somehow, he's done it before

Either way, I think we've reached an impasse here.

You're still bashing the DBPro software without even trying it out? Do you buy shoes without trying them on? Untill you sit down and try DBPro (For at least a week, not like five min.) you have no room to flame this forum.

It was tagged because of the policy of the forum regarding other products.

If u had a subjective method to your approach it wouldnt have happened.

Your welcome to have it untagged by emaling rich if u like.

Your thoughts and views are just as important here as anyone else but not when the intention isnt pure.

@koehler

The reason that DBP has not really produced much yet is that during the DBC years after BB became available, a lot of more experienced programmers went to Blitz instead, because it was faster and more powerful. DBP was VERY buggy at its launch which may have lost it customers. However, if DBP fixes the bugs and introduces more flexibility then some of those users will come back and bring their talent with them.

It is a pitty to have lost Edzup, Binary Moon, HALO and so on - maybe they will return (Note: I am not 100% sure but I think all these people did start out in DB)

There are three people working on DBP (Guy, Lee, Mike). DarkBASIC Classic is a pretty good program now, take a look at Virtual Insanity or Star-Wraith 3 and you will see what CAN be done by people that have the time and the skill.

As for DBP's features, having seen the Halo screenies & demo, there is nothing there that DBP can't do I don't think.

If you are testing DBP, be aware that the demo is far more buggy than the real thing, especially as far as the compiler is concerned - hopefully Lee will update the demo.

Patch 4 has fixed an awful lot of 3D bugs and having seen the beta in action, it is over 10x faster than Patch 3.1 with lots of objects and matrixes on screen. DBP P3.1 used to slow down greatly with many objects on screen but with Patch 4 it seems much better. It is also quite a bit faster than blitz, with the same BSP map I get 60-100 FPS in Blitz, over 200 in DBP.

Please be patient and be sure to check out DBP once patches 4 and 5 have been released.

I agree that Blitz was FAR less buggy at launch and that it is totally unacceptable, but Lee decided not to fix 3D bugs in the old pipeline as he was coding the new one - hopefully the program should be much more stable.

I am producing a FPS game in DBPRo with graphics at least as impressive as UT2003, and running much smoother on older PCs. It needs a lot of work so I haven't released demo / screens yet but trust me the potential is there Plus I also wrote a work around to run it all cell shaded too, which looks really cool and is unlike anything I've seen so far

"I am producing a FPS game in DBPRo with graphics at least as impressive as UT2003"

Kangaroo, I think this might be taking things a bit far - load up UT2003 - turn ALL the options full up, set the screen to 1024x768x32 - I really don't think we could ever beat that, not because of DB, but because of the shear time and skill it would take to do the graphics. Of course, I think that it IS possible partly. There are a few effects such as partial reflectivity which DBP can't yet do.

I have UT2003 and can run it on my PC at full detail and whilst its very beautiful, I honestly think this level of detail is easily achievable with Dark Basic Pro and a decent modeller - I know that my demos can run in a screen res that high, with textures that detailed and lighting that nice (because UT2003 is mainly coridoor based its easy to reposition and recolour the 7 lights in programming. The only real problem is as you mention the partial reflections but a ghosted object reflecting over the top of an identical but normally textured object would have a similar effect. Most of the special effects can be drawn and put onto ghosted plains to create very similar graphics, if you are a skilled enough texture artist. Personally the problem I have is the animation of the 3d models but this is a skill I am improving. Especially with only 8 characters fighting at a time the processing power is relatively low and you can put a lot of polys into models and arenas, and a lot of detail and resolution in textures. I think the only restrictions to stop a user creating a FPS game as visually pleasing in DBP is a restraint on time and experience in modelling and texturing.

I am of course talking about the indoor 1 player levels. I have little experience of working with DBP for online games yet, and the outdoor levels are a lot more intense because more polys have to be drawn at once

You can't ghost reflection shaded objects though. At least, if you apply a GHOST OBJECT ON command to a reflection shaded object, it has no noticeable effect (ie. you can't see through it at all).

"visually pleasing in DBP is a restraint on time and experience in modelling and texturing."

"outdoor levels are a lot more intense because more polys have to be drawn at once "

... but they can usually be less detailed than indoor levels.

UT2003 often works not by new technologies, but by using the existing ones very well. For example, UT can do transparent planes with absolutely no edges or visible border at all, so they can be used to make convincing grass and so on. The detail textures feature is impressive as well.



Definately - The amount of work that goes into pro games is amazing.

Kangaroo2 and Darth Shader,


Thanks, hopefully the DBP demo will be updated to reflect this. If it comes through, then DBP might indeed be more powerful than BB. We should know soon I'm guessing.

Cool, thanks Koehler and Sahder

Umm to be honest I haven't tried ghosting reflection shaded objects, I just presumed it would work

"... but they can usually be less detailed than indoor levels." - Usually yes, so it wouldn't be a problem. But the level of detail in the few outdoor levels in UT2003 was quite impressive, especially with the water and foliage. I have a feeling if I tried to exactly re-create them in DBP I would come up with some pop-up or fogging problems However, personally on a gameplay level I much prefer the confinment of the coridoor levels in a game like this anyway.

Sorry if I sounded mad Shader, I wasn't. I just meant that if you put enough effort in, I can see no technical reason why a game similar in asthetics to UT2003 could not be produced. The demos I have worked on myself certainly do - if you have the imagination to add decent models and textures to them And I'm certainly working on it

Well it crashes my work machines (two of them and all three of my home machines. Here is proof of Singularity Crashes.

http://www.blitzbasic.com/bbs/posts.php?topic=16180

I thought that since you know so much about the Blitz community that you must have known by now that Singularity is dead. Here are two links for you...

http://www.blitzbasic.com/bbs/posts.php?topic=16463
http://www.blitzbasic.com/bbs/posts.php?topic=16475



Well the entire 3D engine is being reworked and improved. Instead of having loaders for each model format, there is going to be only one model format and there will be converters into this model format. It makes things cleaner and faster and you can actually do everything on the models. Not like Blitz in which you can't do types of collision detection on MD2 models.

Blitz 3D has been out for a long time now and its taken a year and a half to get something like singularity which uses external DLL's and locks up on most computers.

You have to use your head dude. Its not all as simple as you want it to be. Its easier to create games now than ever before, but you still have to come up with design, art and the ability to follow through with everything, this isn't a program that has a game creation button in which Doom 3 is created in a few seconds. Great things take time and DBPro has been out only just a few months now. Its getting better all the time and requires documentation so that people can learn this new language and thats something thats coming slowly.



DB Pro's new 3D engine is awesome and its faster and better than ever before, its going to take until patch 5 to get everything back to normal and it takes time to do something of that calibur as far as artwork and design, but the DBPro engine can handle that, its just going to take a lot of creative design and artwork as well as great documentation and thats not here yet. Blitz can't create like that above even with good artwork and creativity and documentation, not nativly anyway. Singularity is no Doom III or no Unreal Tournament 2003 or no Unreal 2. Singularity looks okay from the screenshots, but its not something that blows my mind in the graphics department and it uses external DLL's which is probably why it locks up on every computer I try it on.



Well its only a few months old, its new and doesn't have clear documentation with very few examples and the 3D engine is being reworked and its still a little buggy, but things are being fixed, documentation is getting better and things are moving forward. Its better than Blitz, where bugs are not fixed at all, features are not added until people start screaming and support for other things like maplet are non existant... Here are some links from your buddies to help you out...

http://www.blitzbasic.com/bbs/posts.php?topic=16458
Maplet not getting support and users getting angry

Nice little quote too...
"a more important question... is mark dead or alive?"

Talks about limitations in Maplet and its a dead end and not being updated....
http://www.blitzbasic.com/bbs/posts.php?topic=16375

Nobody at Blitz even bothering to answer this thread about Maplet. Nice support....
http://www.blitzbasic.com/bbs/posts.php?topic=15864

People wondering whats going on with Blitzmax or Blitz or desperate for any news...

http://www.blitzbasic.com/bbs/posts.php?topic=16648

Nice quote on the Blitz boards...

"Did ever Mark answer to any feature request?"
or this one....
"It's me or blitz is going down down down with support, hype, news etc?"

You can find these two quotes on this link....
http://www.blitzbasic.com/bbs/posts.php?topic=16560

I could go on, but I hope you get the point by now...



Well, I wasn't laughing I was one of those people that hated the old Dark Basic and waited for Blitz 3D, after a year I saw that it was good, but with support dropping off and the lack of powerfull features and a bunch of people not wanting to go beyond 2D I left.



DB Pro is a work in progress and code is being re-worked at the moment and bugs are being fixed and speed being upgraded and abilities being added in. There are three main programmers to DBPro, compared to one programmer for Blitz and he is doing everything from maintaining forums and websites to coding a three different languages and a 3D map program. There are 5 total people working at DBS that are working on forums, websites, DBPro, etc.... Things are getting done, but things are moving and in a positive direction.

Did you know that Mark Sibly took out Direct Input in Blitz because he said it wouldn't work with some systems, now why hasn't professional developers come across this after several years of developing in C++ with Direct X 7+???????

Now even he said that Direct X is very complicated and he is not a pro in using it. Thats not verbatim of course, but he said something like that on BlitzBasic.com of course there is no search function so I am not about to go find it, but its all true.

Blitz DLL support is pure crap.... Its about as expandable as a handiwipe.



Wait a minute here, you are telling me all this crap without even owning Blitz 3D? What kind of idiot are you???????



Well don't use computers at all. See I have a job and I have reported bugs to Microsoft to fix issues. I would rather get bugs fixed instead of sitting on my ass and trying to figure a work-around for the bugs. Its called life deal with it. All software has bugs and its better if you tried to help someone else as well as yourself.

I have called microsoft's helplines about bugs and got them fixed and now I use their program for multple clients and my company is pulling in more money because of clients like the NHL.

@Blitz2DBPro
You made a lot of valid points there but I think the best answer is for Koheler as he said, to wait and see how DBP progresses.

@Kangeroo2

"Sorry if I sounded mad Shader, I wasn't. I just meant that if you put enough effort in, I can see no technical reason why a game similar in asthetics to UT2003 could not be produced. "

I agree with your, you didn't sound mad, I just thought it was a little over ambitious, that's all. I think that one could indeed produce a tech demo with UT2003 or near quality graphics using DBP. If you have the time and patience then yes, anything is possible.