8 replies to this topic

[catruzz]

Hi everyone!
I'm a junior developer / web designer / 3d character designer. I'm going to develop a 3d application that allows the interaction between the user and an avatar via some inputs given by external applications (using any kind of protocol, e.g. socket).
The engine i'm looking for essentially does nothing more than animate a hi-def realistic character in real-time (i need neither to design any HUD nor to develop mouse or keyboard input); i nedd it's (very) good in rendering, it's able to communicate with external applications, eventually cross-platform and able to deploy in web formats (not necessary but it could be a good optional), it doesn't need a lot of programming abilities and costs under 2000$ (if it's free, better! )..
So, would you suggest me some engine that fits my needs?
In my little research i've choosen two possble "nominees" that are Unity3D and CryEngine, the first because lets me develop in javascript, which I already know as a web developer (even if only DOM side), the second because has a great feature for animating a character, especially his expressions (unfortunately I don't know C/C++ ).
I have 3 moths to develop the application, so I think more or less one month and a half for 3d engine learning/integration.
Thanks for your help and sorry for my english!

Bye

[alphadog]

I think if you re-read your post, you'll see you should go with Unity. With only a month and a half to get up to speed, and three months to produce something, you simply must leveragte your existing skills and a product with a large availability of materials. That's essentially Unity right now.

[catruzz]

Thanks alphadog.
In those 3 months I'll only be involved in input handling (a month and a half) and the correspondence between this input and the character animations (the other month and a half); the character's modelling, animations (and so on) are not part of my job.
Anyway I think you are right: learning to use a more complex engine (than Unity) and a new programming language probably it's hard in less than a couple of months.
Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind..

Bye

[fireside]

3 months is short to learn an engine and make a decent application. It would be all right to make a simple application in that time using a lot of existing scripts. Unity has a lot of commercial add-ons which may help.

[catruzz]

ok, I got it; I have no other ways than use Unity..
thank you fireside

[prog_154rus]

Try Blender

[catruzz]

Hi prog..
what are the benefits in using the blender engine (a part from it's free and the help available on-line is virtually unlimited)?
Isn't it quite hard to learn?
thanks in advance for your reply

[prog_154rus]

It is powerfull, open 3d editor with integrated game engine. Scripting with python is not so hard. IMHO, it is best choice for indie developer.
P.S. I'm sorry, if my english is so bad. I'm russian

[catruzz]

Don't worry, I'm Italian and my english is not perfect too..
I'm not familiar with blender and I never planned to learn it, nor its language script phyton, I think I'll take a look at some tutorials on-line and take a sense of how difficult it is.
thanks again!