5 replies to this topic

[thyscorpion]

hi, i am an animation guru in 3DSMAX/FLASH.

Is there any Game Engine IDE/Studio which i can use without depending too much on coding and more on a drag and drop GUI?
Being more into animation i am basically a noob as far as coding in concerned. though i am very proficient in Action Scripting 2 which is used in Flash.

Is there any gaming studio out there which would help me building simple 3d games without worrying too much about the coding?

[kulik]

I have heard Game maker could be what you are looking for, I haven't checked it myself though, I enjoy C++ coding ;)

[Joachim Ante]

Unity is what you are looking for.

http://www.unity3d.com/unity

* has an amazing editor for prototyping. You can do a lot of stuff without writing a single line of code.
* Supports JavaScript so it's very similar to action script
* and a very easy to use import pipeline

[fireside]

You won't write much of a game without coding. I think 3D Game Studio has some kind of logic brick set up, something like the Blender Game Engine. If you're looking for your best chance of actually writing a game, see how many games were written with that engine. 3D Game Studio probably has the most. Unity wants a lot of money if you develop on Windows, but it does look pretty interesting. I think you could almost buy a cheap Mac for the price difference. Shiva sounds pretty interesting too.

Hmm, maybe they've changed that with Unity. It just says 199 for the indie license but you don't get dynamic shadows with it. I suppose almost everyone is going to need shadows so they suck you into the higher price that way. No, take it back, it says you have to get the pro to even deploy on Windows. I think it's a Mac thing.

Really though, there are so many people that try this and spend a lot of money and don't do anything, so think it over carefully. 3d game studio is very inexpensive and if you get something worth selling or whatever, you can upgrade to the pro version and you're not out a lot of money and it still does shaders and everything the other engines do. It says you can do a click together game with it. You'll need the 100 dollar version to get the world editor. Don't listen to the stuff about xyz engine is better and only costs 600 dollars. It doesn't do more, it just costs more.

[carlj]

The best engine for your needs is DX Studio. It uses javascript so should be real easy if your familiar with Action Script. http://www.dxstudio.com/ Try it out an you will be amazed out how fast you can get a game up and running with hardly any code.

[onyxthedog]

kulik said:

I have heard Game maker could be what you are looking for, I haven't checked it myself though, I enjoy C++ coding ;)

I have it. ( I got it for my birthday last year.) It is free, but if you want them to look at all professional get the Pro edition. While you were at it invest in the Game Maker Apprentice, otherwise you might have a hard time understanding everything.

P.S. It comes with a very simple language of it's own, with the syntax similar to C/C++ and Java.