I think DarkGameStudio would be your best option. NeoAxis has a good features, but :
-There's only 1 developer and from what I hear, the documentation is in poor english...
-Coding in C# is required
-the price is higher
-Case-Sensitive
Now with DarkGameStudio, you can start off with DarkBasic Professional - which is a fairly easy program. It isn't even case sensitive!
Print "Hello World"
and
pRiNt "Hello World" both mean the same thing.
Loading 3D objects is pretty easy too.
For Example
Sync On
Sync Rate 60
Load Object "cube.x", 1
Do
Control Camera Using Arrowkeys 0,3,2
Sync
Loop
end
Would load a DirectX file called 'cube' and control the camera using the arrowkeys. But you can figure that out by the code itself.
Also, if you bought the Dark Game Studio bonanza, you'd get Dark AI, Dark Physics, Dark Lights, and eXtends.
That's not all. We have a large collection of TPC (third party command plugins) that help you even more.
With Neo-Axis, it would take quite a while to code all the physics and AI and lightmapping.. but if you use the plugins provided with Dark Game Studio, it becomes a piece of cake. And everyonce in a while a new plugin from TGC will be availible.
And lastly, when you feel like you want to take the jump to C++, DarkGDK is included with Dark Game Studio. It's pretty much a C++ version of Dark Basic Pro. About 95% of the commands are ported, but modified slightly. (But keep in mind, C++ is case sensitive, meaning DarkGDK is too. You may have to look up a few things in the documentation, but it's no trouble at all.)
For example:
Load Object "cube.x", 1
Would Become
dbLoadObject ("cube.x",1);
It's still pretty straight forward. And best of all, the Dark AI, Dark Physics, and Dark Lights ALL work with DarkGDK! (eXtends doesn't, however.)
And if you're ever stuck, we have a massive userbase to help!
