RumbleSushi 3D game demos

[rumblesushi]

Thanks Pazil

I'm actually using the graphics class to draw the polygons, bitmapFill.

Good to see you get a somewhat acceptable framerate on such an old machine too.

Tom - the reason for choosing to develop my own engine rather than using Away 3D or Papervision is quite simple. Partly for the challenge, but mainly because they are too slow to make proper 3D games. With any fairly complex scene with a lot of models, there's no way you're going to get 60fps out of Away3D or PV3D.

Obviously they are far more feature rich than my engine, but most of the features are more geared towards website stuff rather than games.

My engine has been built for speed, rather than usability or versatility, and the features are far more game focused - I'm focusing on LODing, mip mapping, enemy movement, collision detection etc.

Also, what better way of getting a thorough understanding of 3D mechanics than building your own engine? Building my engine and knowing how it works inside out, automatically puts me at a big advantage when developing 3D work, as I know exactly how everything is working, and can easily modify/customise things as I see fit.

The difference in speed alone is worth it, the other Flash 3D engines aren't fast enough to render a proper 3D scene with a lot of objects, movement, collision detection etc at an acceptable framerate.

As for your second question - penetration. From a business standpoint, 3D games in Flash make more sense, and there is a gap in the market for them. Despite technology like Unity being out there, people are going to be excited about playing an N64 or DS level game in Flash.

And I guess what it boils down to is 99% of users have Flash 9, and even Flash 10 is up to around 90% now.

Do you know the stats for Unity?

And I guess, being that these are browser based games we're talking about, I'm going to create some fast, fun, arcade style games. With a big pick up and play appeal, and score attack appeal etc.

I'm not aiming to make games that compete with console games. And in regards to the huge horsepower difference between my 3D engine and Unity (as Unity uses the GPU obviously, the difference in poly pushing power is enormous) - the DS Vs the PSP perfectly illustrates that horsepower only counts for so much.

The DS is more accessible, has a lot of fun games, makes the most of it's low polygon budget, and has very playable games at high framerates (most DS games run at 60fps, even Mario Kart DS).

So for the kind of fast, stylistic arcade style games I'll be making, I don't even really need the polygon budget of Unity.

With such a small Polygon budget too, it'll force me to be far more creative in regards to art style etc, coming up with interesting designs and textures that suit such a low polygon environment.

Don't get me wrong though, I find Unity 3D hugely impressive. Although I've known about it for ages, I only had a proper look recently, and I was blown away. I had a look at the Tropical Paradise demo.

I was expecting Shockwave level 3D visuals (which are impressive in their own right, as it is also hardware accelerated) - but the Unity visuals were more approaching PS2 level graphics. Very impressive.

Apart from the low penetration, one of the things that puts me off is, am I right in thinking it uses a scripting language, with no use of classes etc? I heard someone mention it.

Regardless, I shall give Unity a go once this project is properly up and running

Cheers,
RumbleSushi