"As of 2.0, dim3 has become the easiest and most rapid development environment for producing high-end 3D games on Mac OS X" ? Unless the Map Editor got an overhaul I'm unaware of, this distinction still belongs to Unity.

The map editor not only got an overhaul, but so did the skeletal animation editor. The map editor is incredibly rapid now, including:

* height map importers (make complete outdoor maps in seconds)
* auto-generators (automatically creates a new map for you to tweak)
* primitives -- you can use built-in primitives or create your own, they can be as simple as boxes or as complex as entire buildings. You can build entire maps in no time using primitives.
* many quick mirroring and duplicating functions that allow you to create complex maps fast
* hundres of other additions and rapid-development functions

We've got a lot of new users who can get up and running in a number of days from scratch to prototype -- and the improvements continue at a fast pace with every version.

Everything has a learning curve, but it's open-source and free so there's no reason not to give it a try!

Come on. Don't be silly Brian. Unity is just in a completely different league.

It's nice you are trying, but advertising you can create high end games with Dim 3 is just plain wrong and misleading. Before you use such strong words, you should first get a picture of what the high end actually is these days. Then you will realize, you still have a very very long path to walk before you get there.

High end? I think that makes people think highly detailed graphics. When I think of a high end game, I think of one that a) works and works well, b) plays amazingly well, c) has incredible replay value, and d) preferably has a solid multi-player aspect. It doesn't need to look like a million bucks. It needs to play like a million bucks. I may be one of a few (dozen? hundred?) that feel this way, but if you can achieve that with dim3 and have it look pretty good too, then who cares about Unity? Dim3 is free. I'm going to give it a try, though my general lack of discipline and programming skill might make for a frustrating experience.

Now, John does still have a point. Perhaps changing the version number scheme for dim3 is in order. Make the increments have less impressive numbers so that when it hits 3.0, it's a MAJOR milestone in development. Just a thought.

There is no indication that you can create games that play well with dim 3.

On the other hand there are plenty of fun games made with Unity available. There are plenty of demos available showing that you can also create top notch graphics with Unity and it's pretty obvious when you start using it too. Same is simply not true for dim 3. Everything you make with it looks 6 years old and just feels a bit wrong game play wise.

Maybe you are happy with making crap games, i am not.

My point really is, i tried dim 3 a couple of months ago. And really, it's a pain in the ass to use because of all the bugs and not usable for a real game production. It's understandable since Brian doesn't have any experience with game production. It's good he is trying, but really I don't want to waste my time with it.

Well in any case, my experience with Unity has been great so far. I can create my game extremely fast, i can pull in extremely high quality graphics easily. The iteration time of tweaking behaviours is extremely fast. And it's easy to pick up.
On top of that the unity forum is insanely helpful and the Unity guys are even helping me find a publisher for my game.

Why does everything with Unity users need to be a war? Try dim3, use it, or don't. It's a great product, it's incredibly easy to use, and my posts has NOTHING to do with Unity whatsoever. I go out of my way to not get in this war, but it always happens.

This knee-jerk defense of a single product is rather unbecoming of game developers; I can only assume one might feel that way because they need to defend their decisions. My product is free, easy to use, and that's my opinion and the opinion of many others. You might disagree, but this has nothing to do with Unity.

Oh, and to John Wallice: Go download Awnee and Awnee racing, both games that have done very well on Apple's download service. Many more games are coming -- and I do have experience with game production, I created both Scruffy and Scruffy II, and Tanks of Terror.

Please Unity users, I have nothing against you or your products, but stop making it a war for no reason whatsoever.

And before you comment that games look "6 years ago", check out the gallery.

http://www.klinksoftware.com/gallery/index.html

How good a game looks is 95% artwork, 5% engine.

Again, stop the needless war.

jon wallice:
does this look 6 years old:
http://www.coldfusiongames.com/screenshots
or this
http://www.coldfusiongames.com/oldscreens01.html
?!?!

(those pics are alexander smith's not mine)

i doubt anyone could do that good if they were six :P, so etless you made somthing better when you were 6 you shouldn't be talking!
its not like brian has anything wrong with unity!
awnee's at http://www.awnee.com and so is awneeXracing


okay, EVERYONE HERE THIS: we all know and agree that the dim3 demo SUCKS, and it is far away from fun, but the dim3 demo is not made to look or play good, its made to demonstrate scripting!





this is pointless, do we have to start this big argument! your acting as if brian wrote "hi, this is dim3 which rules over Unity" in the first post!

Like it or not Brian, the screenshots in the Gallery do look like 6 years ago.
There is a lot an engine can do to make games look better, and dim 3 doesn't offer the tools to do that.

I am not sure why you get so angry. I have done nothing to offend you, and i am certainly not starting a war i am just pointing out that dim 3 is not really usable for high quality game productions.

oops, the first link i posted doesn't work, it should be http://www.coldfusiongames.com/screenshots.html

I am currently working on a full scale project using Dim3, I have so far found Dim3 a powerful, easy to use, and overall a great game engine that has been the only solution to 3D game creation on Macs without having to have knowledge of C or C+ coding. I really enjoy Dim3, and the ability to create games quickly and efficiently.

You can check out my latest project at my website:

Marathon: INFESTED
http://www.coldfusiongames.com/

Please don't bad mouth Dim3 or the developers who use it. If you don't like it, don't use it. Dim3 is rapidly evolving every day, and it looks good already. But even if it doesn't look as good as some of you say it should, that doesn't mean it isn't a stellar engine. I love Dim3, and myself as well as many other people. Please don't turn this into a flame war.

Alexander-

Heck not only that, but Dim3 is free wherese Unity is not. Not a critisism, Unity looks stunning, and I'm sure you guys love using it, just don't rain on Dim3.

jon wallice worte: I have done nothing to offend you, and i am certainly not starting a war i am just pointing out that dim 3 is not really usable for high quality game productions.

ha ha ha, like thats not offending
you just like really badly contradicted yourself :P



truthfully, if you said exactly what is wrong with dim3, you could be helpful, and it wouldn't be offensive, but just saying that it doesn't make good quality games isn't doing anyone any good.

just wait 'till someone finishes they're game :).

and HOW THE HECK do you not call awnee good quality???

Let me second what ccccc said; I'm not angry (I said nothing angry), I just think somebody who can't offer real critical and useful suggestions and instead says things like "making crap games" and "has bugs", they should send me an email telling me exactly what these bugs are and what problems they encountered. I spend most of my time working for my users and making dim3 better every day.

Help me make it better instead of turning this into a Unity is better war; all engines have pros and cons and again I have nothing against Unity, it's fine, but then so is mine. It might not be for you, and vice versa.

idevgames.com is a game development COMMUNITY. Let's make sure that's what it is. Communities help each other out; they offer help, they find bugs, they offer suggestions, and they are supportive. Our community is small enough as is, there is no need to turn this into a war.

I agree with Alex, ccccc, and Brian. This is a little late post, but you know what? That doesn't matter, so just lay off the unconstructive critisizm.

I think your post does relate to Unity because you use the word "easiest." That implies "better than all the competition" which Unity certainly falls into. Thus you get this reaction.

Using the word "easiest" is something I do lightly but I believe it to be true; but in the same manner is any PR by Torque/Unity, both of which claim they are the best, a slam on dim3? Has anybody ever announced a product by saying it's "second best?" Have dim3 users ever called any of these products "crap"?

As I said before, all products have pros and cons; we just need to be supportive of each other as developers. I think, as mac users, we would have had enough of favorite platform flame-wars.

Jon, what makes you think Dim3 ISN'T the easiest 3D game development tool to use for Mac? All you need is some modeling, texturing, and scripting skills, and that's it. The more you work at it the better. I was already working with games before I found Dim3, and I had a good amount of modeling and texturing skills, as well as animation. But I had zero scripting or coding skills. So when I started using Dim3, I was thrilled with the results. Not only was Dim3 free, and Mac/Windows compatible, it also provided me with the exact set of tools I needed for my game. Maybe Dim3 doesn't suit your needs, and maybe Unity is much better for what you're doing, since this appears to be the case, LAY OFF. We love Dim3, and will support Brian as much as we can. If you have some suggestions on how to make Dim3 even better, post them.

Oh, and another thing, you say "easiest" implys being "better then all the other competition" well, I have to say that the measure of an engine is a whole heck of a lot more than just being easy to use. Do you think that the UE3 (Unreal Engine 3) engine is easy to use? Maybe for ace programmers and nextgen artist, but for the average low budget beginner game developer, Dim3 is the perfect choice.

Conclusion.

Dim3 is good, and has its ups and downs. Unity is good. it has its ups and downs.

Saying one or the other is better or worse is like arguing between one distro of linux or another. It's totally pointless. It's all personal. Jon, I wish you luck with Unity. Its a great engine. Obviousely, you have some faith in yourself if you paid that much for it. Alex, your doing great on your game, and you continue to post promising screens on the forum. I wish you luck, too. You both are happy with the engines you use. Maybe Jon will look into dim3 and will like it someday. Maybe Alex will look into Unity and decide he likes it too. In MY OWN OPINION, I fin Unity and dim3 pretty much equal. Jon obviousely thinks Unity is better. He's free to think that. Alex obviousely likes dim3 better. He's free to think that.


Haha, that anti-spam code is: problem95. :-P

>>Jon, what makes you think Dim3 ISN'T the easiest 3D game development tool to use for Mac? All you need is some modeling, texturing, and scripting skills, and that's it.<<

Unity is instantly familiar to anyone whose used a 3d modeling program. When dim3's editor launches, I get the disturbing sense I've booted a System 7 app somehow.

I think we all commend Brian for all the hard work he's put in(especially considering its free.) Its quite a gift to the community and I'm sure it will shine in time, but its not in the same class as Unity with regards to ease of use.

dim3 is designed to be easy for everybody, especially people that start with NO experience at all (with any type of game producing.) This was one of the main points with the engine. Editor has also come a very long way, and there's a reason that things like Doom or UT have their own map editors -- they have specialized map formats that are designed for speed and scability -- it's the same way I went.

Again, every engine has it's pros and cons, and Editor has certainly come a long way from 1.0 and will continue to get better.

If there are really things about editor that turn you off, please shoot me an email and list them out, I'd be happy to add them to my list and see what I can do.

This is really what I ask of anybody that has a problem with dim3; please tell me what it is (specifically), in an email or on the board. I love to hear these things; it's what makes dim3 better. 2.0 is only as good as it is because of the users.

brian: If one expresses superiority that expression will inevitably be challenged. Obviously if competition express superiority they open themselves up the same way. Just don't act so surprised when you open yourself to it.

rest of y'all: I don't care what software or hardware or use.

whoops:

rest of y'all: I don't care what software or hardware you use.

As I said, I have absolutely NO problem with being challenged, I WANT to be challenged! I'm asking for challenge. I just expect it to be "add this or change this" not "it's crap." And, as I said before, when other engines claim the same thing, nobody on the dim3 side calls them "crap". They except it as an opinion and move on.

Do you see the difference :)

If challenge helps the product grow, that's exactly what I want.