Reality Factory

I have tried lots of game making systems in the past 6 months and I mean the ones for non programers
Probably the easiest for me was the games factory but that still took some time to learn
Then I tried 3D rad.....I had no idea at the time and scraped it
Then Dark Basic( although it might be easy for programers...it clamed you needed no programing know how) I scraped that also
Then I got Gamemaker...now this is cool got some good results with this but nothing really 3D allthough its capable of doing this .....you need to be able to program.....scraped this also
3D Game maker lite.....great idea ....I guess I needed the better version and I had no control over level editor etc
Finaly the last 2 I tried.....3D gamestudio And R/F Factory

I have a 5 room playable game in R/F with no programing at all and it turned out beter than what I can make in any other game maker

Dont get me wrong Im starting to like 3D gamestudio...still can get my model doing any thing though ( have to add scripts) hence not really a game creator for non programers...
And no I am not a salesman for R/F......how can you sell something that is free

Out of my experiance with all the sales hype R/F is up there with the best for non programing game makers

and it takes no more time to learn either..although they have some confusing tutorials

Does any one know of any better ones?

to my knowledge, rf is THE best non-programmer 3d game engine in the world (or at the very least the best open source one). the easiest? no. look at this: http://www.the3dgamemaker.com however, i believe i would trade ease of use for flexibility to a certain extend, and i think rf struck a near-perfect balance between the two.

just my two cents.

Yeah no doubt for ease of use RF is top notch since you only need to write scripts. Which span from simple to control a special switch or AI to complex to have auto targetting, etc.

I am a non-programmer but I have learned in order to create any type of 3D game you are going to have to learn some type of programming. Just programming 1 AI for a bad guy is a whole lot easier than trying to program an entire engine.


For it's faults the one thing RF cannot be faulted for is ease of use. Which is why I am constantly suprised that I see so few projects in the works, and no team work present whatsoever.

That or everybody is out there trying to make the next MMORPG. lol.
I however have moved on to a less easy to use but more up to date engine. However I still like to concept and play around with RF. Also I got familier enough with certain aspects of RF I feel on occasion I can offer help to others in these forums.

RF taught me a great deal. I think if nothing else it's a great teaching tool.

Andy I have the 3D gamemaker

Its pretty cool but you dont have as much freedom as R/F regarding level design

Once I learned RfEditPro (Well still learning) I find this easier to use than the game studio one ( this is probably because I learnt the RfEDitPro first and dont like to learn how to walk again and no offence to the game studio editor)

as for scripts I have not yet used one in my game and I have my babe.act jumping like a trooper in 5 huge rooms of what looks like impossible jumping distances just by adjusting gravity etc in the predefined settings and using trial and error as to where to place the platforms she has to jump to (This is a platform game btw not a fps)

I have found lots of scripts on the internet I hope to copy and paste and use in my game but still havnt learnt how to add/use scripts yet for my paticiliar actor file or the game its self
So I am guessing by using others scripts when they allow it ...still makes this an awsome game making program for non programers you can do this with gamemaker also but it is not free

the best programe is 3D RPG Builder!

Why?

Most of the limitations with RF come from a sheer lack of tutorials and detailed examples of how to create various types of gameplay.

As has been demonstrated by federico, dan valeo and some of the other advanced users of RF, you CAN create pretty much any kind of game in RF without needing to touch the source code - this in itself is the biggest 'selling' feature for RF over the other engines.

The other big reason that RF beats the other engines on the market is simply because RF IS free, it IS open source - if you want to get under the hood and tweak things, have specific bugs you need fixing, you can do so.

This is not the case for ANY of the other engines that have been mentioned in this thread (in particular).

If game studio goes out of business (Pie in the Sky, anyone?) then the entire community and thousands of developers are left in the lurch without any hope of new releases or bug fixes or enhancements.

With RF, the community picks up the ball and continues to move forward, irregardless of what a specific 'company' or individual decides to do.

This is something that should not be underestimated.

Originally, Ed Averill was sponsoring & hosting the project (as well as being the creator of the RF concept itself) and the project grew to a small, but stable feature set. Ed decided to move on and passed the reigns over to Ralph Deane, who had come on board in the mean time, adding features, and enhancing the engine significantly.

Ralph has since moved on as well, and yet the engine continues to grow and have new features added.

QoD and Wendell (if he's still around) have done some amazing things in the recent years, and Nout has since added a true physics system to RF (as well as a ton of cool scripting features) and the engine shows no sign of slowing down.

All in all, what really needs to happen within the community is a communal set of tutorials, examples, and small demonstration levels to show off for new users how to create & modify the engine for specific game features.

I'm using RF for level design at Pacific Game Design simply because it's a perfect 'introduction' to creating games for people without any prior 3d knowledge - they get so much accomplished that would not be feasible with any other engine.

I'll post some screens of a level I've been creating as a demo for the students - i'm still surprised how good I can get levels looking in a short period of time.