15 replies to this topic

[roman]

Hi All,

Anyone know of a good C# 3d engine? That is capable of doing the basic things like rendering, network support. I tried the 3d engine database but couldn't find any good ones. Most are C++ which i do not wan't anymore. I would like to build my C# skills. (Don't mind if engine cost money)

Thanks!

[Reedbeta]

One that has been mentioned around here from time to time is Visual3D.NET. A quick google search also turned up Jad Engine and Axiom.

[roman]

thanks, visual3d.net looks promising.

[geon]

Don't forget Unity. I've just started working with it last week. Most of the things work the way I expect, except for the scenegraph, which is built into the transform object.

Oh, and you can script it in JavaSript or Boo (Python) as well as C#.

http://www.unity3d.com

[alphadog]

Also consider NeoAxis. Axiom is more of a C# port of OGRE, thus a 3D rendering engine, not a bigger game engine..

[roman]

Unity looks like a good engine just it seems to be for mac only, don't have a mac :(

[SamuraiCrow]

There is a Windows version of Unity in the works. I don't know when it will be done though.

[marek-knows.com]

What about Microsoft's XNA? It is all C#

creators.xna.com

[bamfina]

If you decide to go the XNA route, consider using Torque X on top to fill in any physics, networking, or other needs XNA might not provide out of box:

http://www.garagegam...ucts/torquex-2d

If you want more information on Torque X, ask our community!

http://www.garagegam...unity/forums/36

Happy game development!

Deborah Marshall
Torque Product Group Manager
GarageGames

[tanis3d]

I have seen TorqueX but not tried it. It seems to be mostly geared for 2.5D games, and seems to not be getting much developer attention these days. Gararge Games seems focused on other things now.

I have tried both Unity and Visual3D.NET. Unity has matured more, being now on version 2.6 and supports a lot of platforms. For a long time, I thought I had found the game engine for me, since it alllows C#. But the big thing that disappoints me is that Unity forces you to run on Mono, which stinks!!! MONO is FAR behind Microsoft .NET with regard to elegance and convenience, and seems to be getting further behind each year. Still with Mono, I cannot even set a breakpoint, or do any form of modern debugging! Say hello to "Debug.Log()" (equivalent to "printf()").

Microsoft .NET, on the other hand, offers instant productivity gains from full integration into Visual Studio, with breakpoints, inspection, visualizers, and Edit-and-Continue! Visual3D provides me the ability to program against it's full API using .NET and all of my favorite development tools. This is of critical importance to me.

I'm laying my bets on Visual3D. If they fail, then I'll be back on the hunt for the next best option. Right now, I don't see any on the horizon, ever since Blade3D went belly-up.

[alphadog]

tanis3d said:

Gararge Games seems focused on other things now.

Not quite sure why you overlook their new 3D engine, which is, for better or worse, one of the major players in the indie/hobby 3D engine market.

tanis3d said:

MONO is FAR behind Microsoft .NET with regard to elegance and convenience, and seems to be getting further behind each year.

Far behind? They have pretty much full C# 4.0 compliance now. Anything not implemented from the BCL or the language is usually consciously so, because it is a Windows-only thing. (Ex: COM interop)

tanis3d said:

Still with Mono, I cannot even set a breakpoint, or do any form of modern debugging! Say hello to "Debug.Log()" (equivalent to "printf()").

What? Simply not true. Have you tried MonoDevelop. It has breakpoints, immediate windows, tracepoints, etc...

tanis3d said:

Microsoft .NET, on the other hand, offers instant productivity gains from full integration into Visual Studio, with breakpoints, inspection, visualizers, and Edit-and-Continue!

You must have drank heaping doses of the MS kool-aid.

Don't get me wrong, Visual Studio is a pretty great IDE, but good IDEs exist for other languages/platforms too, and "productivity gains" is purely marketingspeak. The use of VS does not translate into measurable gains that cannot be had in other languages/environments. For example, Qt is also an excellent "big" library. Eclipse is a great, similarly bloated IDE.

tanis3d said:

I'm laying my bets on Visual3D. If they fail, then I'll be back on the hunt for the next best option. Right now, I don't see any on the horizon, ever since Blade3D went belly-up.

Visual3D has a big history of over-promising and under-delivering. Be careful. Otherwise, there is no big difference, from a "betting" POV, from other similar engines in that space. They all have small differences in pros and cons within that group.

[tanis3d]

Yes, Torque3D is a decent alternative, but isn't .NET. I'm fixated on .NET because I'm a programmer. Visual3D does allow me to program in .NET full-up without restrictions, enjoying what I'm used to having with all of my other programming jobs, which includes Visual Studio's incredible Edit-and-Continue feature. And yes it does really give me vast productivity gains, with the ability to find/fix multiple bugs during a single execution of my application.

MONO doesn't seem to even allow me to use C# 3.0 syntax, and doesn't have NDCS serialization at all, and the DCS serialization is broken. And when I run with it in Visual Studio, I am unable to set break points.

MONO Develop may be okay, but it seems that I am supposed to compile it from source code, rather than just "download it like a real product". The Tools for Visual Studio on the Mono site, still don't allow breakpoints, and have almost no documentation. I'm not "getting down" on the MONO team, since it's open-source (and that is a no-no for open source, right?). But I prefer a platform where I have all of the standard best-in-class conveniences of the Visual Studio IDE, which is unparalleled.

Yes, I'm personally sold on Microsoft technologies, and maybe I'll be crucified for that. But it's my personal choice that I don't want to depart from this during my game development, and right now, to satisfy my need, Visual3D is the only game engine I can find that allows me to do use pure .NET with Visual Studio. Do you know of any others?

I've been through the pains of seeing Visual3D having late releases, and cutting content from the roadmap. Overall support seems good there, and documentation has now been released, and the feature set that they already have is amazing. For me, Visual3D.NET is already very usable, because I can see the entire API via intellisense, and work with it very nicely. And I'm very happy because I'm working in .NET/C#, which is crucial to me.

Have you seen the latest Visual3D Beta 6.4? The terrain toolset is pretty amazing for me, making big detailed terrains quickly. The video tutorials were helpful. The difference between Beta 5 and 6 is pretty astounding from my perspective. I have strong hope for this engine.

If .NET interests you, then Visual3D is worth checking out again, IMO.

If you like .NET and can part ways with Visual Studio and other Microsoft conveniences, then Unity offers a great solution too, although the graphics seem a lot worse, and the terrain editing toolset, for me, is not as easy to use. But the community here is pretty strong, which is a bonus for getting help and sample code to start you off. And their documentation is complete, with a good forum for questions and answers. But still, I was surprised at the bugs I'm encountering in their toolset. For being verison 2.6, I would have expected more polish (things like drag/drop from their tree views often grabs the wrong node). Overall, I consider Unity to be 2nd place for my needs. They would be a better pick for me, if they ran on .NET instead of Mono.

I also largely prefer the Visual3D tool set to Unity's, with it's advanced material, model, and particle editors, and more advanced terrain editing. The foundation of the Visual3D tool set seems more elegant and with fewer bugs. Once they complete the ability for me to deploy my own worlds, I will be a very happy camper.

Torque3D's tool set is better than Unity's as well, but I do not even want to consider the pains of doing Torque Script again. That experience sent me running and screaming. But for level designers and simple game layouts, it is pretty easy there to get something up and running, especially if you want to make another first person shooter.

A lot comes down to personal backgrounds and preferences. For me, I'm an addicted .NET/Visual Studio developer, and that largely biases me towards a game engine that allows me to continue using this same familiar environment.

[alphadog]

tanis3d said:

I'm fixated on .NET because I'm a programmer.

I happen to currently be enjoying Python and Erlang. Given that I am not currently fixated on .NET (was, and do like the now giant library) does that make me "not a programmer"?

tanis3d said:

And yes it does really give me vast productivity gains, with the ability to find/fix multiple bugs during a single execution of my application.

Bah. You get "productivity gains" from being able to stop code executions, tinker with it and then let it continue?

I get "productivity gains" from having someone actually think their code through a little, use TDD/unit tests and use good pre- and postconditions in my code. In fact, EandC is "fully-integrated" in something like Erlang in way that goes beyond that of Visual Basic, allowing "hot-swapping" of code during execution.

Anyways, EandC is great for "typo-fixing" or small "oopses", but it isn't helpful for debugging complex code that is frequently encountered in modern games. You know, those real time saps, like race conditions in multi-threaded code.

tanis3d said:

MONO doesn't seem to even allow me to use C# 3.0 syntax

Uhm, what? I'm not sure I follow. Could you give an example?

tanis3d said:

and doesn't have NDCS serialization at all, and the DCS serialization is broken.

NDCS is potentially covered by MS patents. Anyways, why use NDCS? It binds the client to being .NET only and WCF-dependent. And, that serializer is inefficient, esp. for game development as it adds a ton of metadata to the networking.

As for DCS, how is it broken?

tanis3d said:

MONO Develop may be okay, but it seems that I am supposed to compile it from source code, rather than just "download it like a real product".

Huh?

tanis3d said:

The Tools for Visual Studio on the Mono site, still don't allow breakpoints, and have almost no documentation.

I have not used Mono VS Tools.

tanis3d said:

Yes, I'm personally sold on Microsoft technologies, and maybe I'll be crucified for that.

I don't think you'll be "crucified" for that here. Most people develop games with Microsoft technologies, given the prevalence of gamers with Windows systems, and the revenue that exist there.

What you may be "crucified" for, is the little jabs aimed at anything not-.NET or that are FOSS. But, I am not surprised nor do I pay much attention to it. Lots of MS fans fall into the corporate line. I stick to the facts. :sneaky:

tanis3d said:

Do you know of any others?

NeoAxis?

tanis3d said:

For me, I'm an addicted .NET/Visual Studio developer, and that largely biases me towards a game engine that allows me to continue using this same familiar environment.

Glad you've found a solution that suits you. :yes:

I would highly recommend you keep an open mind, though. Personally, I doubt that Windows will remain the premier gaming platform it was. Without more versatility, you'll have a hard time in the coming years.

But, that's just IMHO...

[tanis3d]

Thanks for the insight in your responses.

I think I've said enough here now. I am not as concerned with being a mainstream game developer as I am at "having fun with it", and .NET is my key to fun. And while I'm at it, with .NET, I'm honing my skills for one of the top application development languages in the world, so my learning becomes transportable to the non-gaming industry very nicely, and vice versa.

I see the MonoDevelop msi now, thanks. I spent a number of minutes looking for it on their site, but without luck, and I am not sure why. All I could find was the source code zip and instructions for building it!

[onyxthedog]

tanis3d said:

I'm fixated on .NET because I'm a programmer.

How does being a programmer have anything to do with being fixated on .NET. That would be like being a pilot and being fixated only on Boeing 747s.

Finding the best tool for the job is the better idea, which in this case very well may be .NET. Just alternatives are always an option.

tanis3d said:

MONO doesn't seem to even allow me to use C# 3.0 syntax...

It DOES some (most?) 3.0 syntax, it just isn't complete.

tanis3d said:

MONO Develop may be okay, but it seems that I am supposed to compile it from source code, rather than just "download it like a real product". The Tools for Visual Studio on the Mono site, still don't allow breakpoints, and have almost no documentation. I'm not "getting down" on the MONO team, since it's open-source (and that is a no-no for open source, right?). But I prefer a platform where I have all of the standard best-in-class conveniences of the Visual Studio IDE, which is unparalleled.

You are a programmer who is afraid to compile some code? How does having to compile reflect it being a viable product. Just so you know, LOTS of companies pay huge amounts of money to get some of a products source code.

It's not a no no to have documentation, but it is done in most people's spare time. Would rather have something that works or a lot of documentation for a really buggy/broken product.

If Microsoft did anything, it is make people lazy and unexpectant. I personally think that Windows gets in the way in a lot of ways. For example, I was playing a game of chess on my little cousin's computer when it shutdown out of the blue for updates. Didn't warn me or anything. Vista is terrible about that kind of thing, but even XP was fairly bad. (It makes you think that you have an option, but when it wants to shutdown for updates, it asks you...but if you choose later, it puts a five minute timer on the screen that you can't get off.)

tanis3d said:

Yes, I'm personally sold on Microsoft technologies, and maybe I'll be crucified for that. But it's my personal choice that I don't want to depart from this during my game development, and right now, to satisfy my need...

That's your choice.

tanis3d said:

And I'm very happy because I'm working in .NET/C#, which is crucial to me.

Why? Just wondering.

tanis3d said:

If you like .NET and can part ways with Visual Studio and other Microsoft conveniences, then Unity offers a great solution too, although the graphics seem a lot worse, and the terrain editing toolset, for me, is not as easy to use. But the community here is pretty strong, which is a bonus for getting help and sample code to start you off. And their documentation is complete, with a good forum for questions and answers. But still, I was surprised at the bugs I'm encountering in their toolset. For being verison 2.6, I would have expected more polish (things like drag/drop from their tree views often grabs the wrong node). Overall, I consider Unity to be 2nd place for my needs. They would be a better pick for me, if they ran on .NET instead of Mono.

Thats comes back to picking the best tool for the job. Not saying that it is, I don't personally know, I haven't looked at it.

tanis3d said:

A lot comes down to personal backgrounds and preferences. For me, I'm an addicted .NET/Visual Studio developer, and that largely biases me towards a game engine that allows me to continue using this same familiar environment.

Don't let a bias get in the way of picking the best tool for the job, although we all have one.

On a final note, it is your project, your decisions. The above was just my take on the matter. Personally an IDE isn't that big a deal for me, I'm more of a vi gcc kind of guy.

[tanis3d]

I used to be a vi/unix guy, but have transitioned to .NET for the last 6 years. The reason I am addicted now is that for nearly ALL things now, .NET *is* the best tool for me (or damn good enough that it does not make sense to introdruce more technologies for little purpose). C#/.NET runs essentially as fast as C++ with all of the benefits of Java plus many more. If you want to "see the .NET code" you can use Reflector to disassemble it and see it all. And it is all sweetly integrated into Visual Studio for the grand benefits of "Edit-and-Continue", which feels like the air I breath now.

.NET is the first technology that I have encountered which seems to be the "silver bullet" for many domains of programming needs -- desktop applications as well as web applications (ASP.NET or just .NET running in a browser, similar to SilverLight).

For me, .NET has been my silver-bullet for the past 6 years. Before that, I, like most others, used a variety of technologies, such as C++, Perl, BourneShell, KornShell, .BAT, hand-edited HTML, JavaScript, DHTML, SQL, Java, etc.... but now, for ALL of these needs, I can use .NET to do it better.

And now, even for Game Programming, I'm planning to use .NET again, which is enabled by Visual3D. Their API seems relatively stable and their engine runs fantastic. I've been happy with it so far.

I think NeoAxis is just a wrapper for OGRE right? It's still in C++, with some wrappers. Has anyone had any luck with NeoAxis? It looked decent, but the team supporting it seems small (one guy?). Has anything much changed here over the past year (that was last time I checked it out).