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Instead of posting a review in the requisite designated area, I am going to give my impression and ask some questions. I don't feel I have used this software package enough to review it.

The good: This is a very (and I mean VERY) easy interface - almost too easy - if there's such a thing. On my laptop (athalon 64 2.6 ghz with 512MB DDR memory, this thing runs like a champ. I get none of the slowdown I have been hearing about. I have chosen to render at middle of the road quality levels (256x256) and this laptop have a Nvidia GeForce 4 mobility chip) - I assume my ATI 9700 Radeon 256MB DDR would rock - will have to see.

I do have problems finding the main global script, say I want to lower the ambient lighting to nothing so I can place light entities (markers) to create a mood. I also would love to find a fog setting so I can make the mood even more, well, moody.

I noticed the guns - all really nicely made - KUDOS go to the artists that created the game art - all very VERY top notch - almost too top notch for us amateurs. Anyway - I noticed the guns can produce smoke when firing - does this mean I have particles at my disposal? Does this mean I can make steam vents and the such?

I had a corridor and room level created in all of 5 minutes and was running around wasting zombies in no time - so at the bare minimum - this puppy works - and, in fact, the zombies chased me all over the place - it was downright fun (and scary).

One addition I highly suggest is a built in text editor button (and editor) to edit scripts - makes requiring the use of notepad a little less annoying. That should be quite easy to implement and you could force the path to load and save to the scriptbank to make all things organized.

I like the VISUAL STUDIO feel to this whole thing - as that is what I program in - it was nice to edit the entity property and the wonderful properties dialog popped up on the right side (so used to the default left side of visual studio) - very nice touches.

I did try to import my own .x file - a small terrain I created and textured - it did import as an entity, but I guess an entity is made for picking up, because when I ran over the terrain (scaled wayyyy the heck down) - the game said I now owned it (called ARENA - so now I had an arena in my pocket)! Trying to add it as a segment has not worked at all for me (well, it did, but no texture was present) - I will keep trying. The re-inclusion of the segment and entity editors would be an important addition for anyone wishing to add their own .x files and .tga textures.

One thing I adivse everyone to do - and which I did - was read the manual first before asking questions. Now I know much of what this fine software can do - even if I cannot physically find it yet - at least I know what's possible.

It seems if you can script, most things you can think of are possible. I will have to learn the scripting language 1st - and I do by trying.

It did not seem difficult to include my own entity - the directions were not hard and as long as the .x file is textured and scaled properly - it shows up fine in the main editor - it is segments that seem harder to include from your own making.

Another question: if one was to make a terrain object so that one could fool the public into thinking your level was outdoors when in actuality it is an indoor level - would one import that terrain as an entity or as a segment?

This is a great piece of software that does EXACTLY what it advertises to do - I can actually make awesome looking games ON MY LAPTOP and have a blast playing them as well!!!

Good job guys - I look forward to the full version and more!

Mike Felker

Grrr - my whole post got deleted

It's not a true particle system, just a clever use of animated textures (decals). If you have a look there are some steam anims included for you to place in your games.



Entity - you don't need it to be a segment unless you need to actually paint and have it all join together in the editor itself.



You must have used an entity script from an object that you can pick-up Set it to "static" for a start, or just copy one of the existing scripts for an in-animate, inmovable object like a termain or pipe.

Thanks Richard. I have now found the GLOBAL script and can change my ambient lighting to my heart's content. I will be messing around with fog values next.

I tried dynamic lights for flickering - they work but I found either a bug, a problem or just something annoying. When I make 3 dynamic lights (for 3 doorways) - it really slows down the fps - the frames per second get quite sluggish indeed (around 11-20) and then speed up nicely when away from the dynamic lights or around just static lights. I wanted to get the effect of a bright flickering light from underneath a dark outside doorway - really spooky like something bad just happened in there. Well, I did not get what I was hoping for. I got a bright flickering light with a totally 100% lit door on the inside and out - and the door attachment to the wall (it's a prefab - I believe the small laboratory) seems to have some NORMAL problems (as in POLYGON NORMALS) - I get a weird flickering of the polygons themselves due to the light I am guessing.

Next problem: I made a multi-level room with real nice walkways and the such - I put a CRAPLOAD of bad guys across the many floors of this level - BIG MISTAKE. My FPS went to 1 - even the opening transition in the test mode took a minute or so to complete. Before the baddies were added, I was getting above 30 fps everywhere except around the dynamic lights.

Okay, so I toned down the baddies to around 5 total (from somewhere in the 50's) and took away the dynamic lights and made them static.

This did work - but now my workspace (the editor) was so sluggish, I could not work. I had to reboot my entire machine to edit again - the entire windows xp interface was suffering (possible memory leak here?) Could it be that something isn't dimensioned correctly or not unloading properly. I'll tell you, I like to create - - test, create - - test, etc. If I cannot do this because of massive slowdowns - well that could be a problem for me.

This machine is pretty darn powerful - even for a laptop - it's a HIGH END Compaq (now owned by HP) and pretty new. The Athalon 64 chip is pretty darn fast and I can play Morrowind without blinking an eye - so I should be able to use this software (I also program in Torque, Blitz 3D and Dark Basic Pro on this thing)

One last thing. Now that I have had a bigger chance to use this program - I LOVE IT EVEN MORE. The possibilities are truly endless and once these little bugs and problems are squashed - you guys are gonna be MEGA RICH.

Mike Felker