10 years or so of search has finally come to an end

i have been searching for a good 3d engine for years, tried several opensource engine, even contributed source to them, tried a few commercial, but never was 100% satisfied.

with shiva/ston3d i finally found the 3d engine that has everything. it has a easy editor (unfortunately windows only), a lot of modern features and it is fun to use. it is not like developing games with all the opensource engines, where you have to hack 100 lines of c source just for opening your first window. this is more a 3d construction set, due to lua scripting not limited in any way.

the engine itself is available for a lot of systems, including mac and a yet running but not production stable (as of 2008/10) linux client - and the list is evolving

you'll never have been able to take your ideas to life in such a quick time. documentation is very detailed and support is the best i have ever seen.

it is still a 3d engine, so having not programmed at all before, you might have some trouble getting into it.

i dont understand people complaining about the support. i have a indie license, maybe support for ple users through the company is limited, which i would understand, but there is still the community. if you write something into the support forum, no matter how n00bish or how relying to a special project from you, you usually get (helpful) answers from the compnany within 24 hours, weekends including, if not someone from the community has answered it before

Very good engine

Shiva is a very interesting engine indeed, it appears to have most next gen features including true soft shadows, no cookies from what I can tell though, which is usually in more expensive engine at the moment like Unreal Engine and Unity. The editor is fantastic, it truelly is what you see is what you get, it displays per-pixel lighting, soft shadows, bloom, reflection, refraction, all in the editor, this makes game production very efficient.

It's relatively easy to use, there is certainly a learning curve in it, but this is usually present in all complex authory applications, normal scripting difficulties, but that is normal, it took me a while to figure out that you have to create AImodels seperate from assets to control them, then attach the AImodel to the Asset, so there are features within Skiva which differs from other authoring applications.

Support is a bit slow or none existant, probably due to it being biased to French.

Plus, it's free, and not much for the higher versions, which is truelly amazing for the quality of this engine.

However, your not going to like this at all, there is a price to pay for all you who want to make a modern game, even for no profit! In order to have any kind of decent online play you have to pay a WHOPPING 9,000 Euros for the Pro server which handles 64+ clients, which bends you over a barrel really because an online game which only supports up to 64 clients is about as useful as a chocolate teapot! And the server to handle up to 64 isn't cheap either!

So, if you want to make a single player game, or up to 8 players, fine it's amazing and the server is free, but for anything online, it'll cost you BIG $$$.

Best program for beginners & advanced users

Best program for beginners & advanced users

This engine is very powerful, fast, and yet, very easy to use.
Excellent combination of features.

If you don't have it, THEN GET IT NOW !!!

"We Create..."

We are a french multimedia studio. We use the StoneTrip Developpement Kit (Shiva) since few years. Our graphic designers and our developers appreciate the flexibility of this tool, as well as the applications portability that results from it.
These last months, many functionalities have been added, we do not exploit all of them yet, but in a general way, quality and optimization are there.
All the team of the Antek studio wish to StoneTrip Lab a long life, and recommends to all last generation digital contents creators, trying this software.

a new way to make games?

really great render engine, with all the next gen features.
really great user interface.
fantastic workflow !
good community and a perfect developer team reactivity,
engine available for pc, mac and some other handled device; all online, offline or screensaver,
an import from max, maya and xsi with collada,
indies price!!
and so much more...

i don't see any black point in this tool, i'm happy to use it and discover every day the philosophy of it, hope everyone does the same.

this engine and dev kit seems to be the real new way to make game.

First hour of use

i've tried shiva for one hour yet. I usually don't tell my opinion since my english is poor : handsome demos, wonderfull effects. it seems to be very complete and very powerful.

i suggest everyon to have a look to this software!

The best multiplateforme engine

Use with PCs (with or without GPU), MACs, PDAs (Windows Pocket PCs) and mobile (Windows Mobile).
This engine give the best of the 3D in every case.
In addition with ShiVa, it make real easy to create your own 3D real time application, such as game.
Try the Personnal Learning Edition (FREE!!) on www.stonetrip.com

king regards.