Reality Factory

Some question's about this interesting 3D game making tool, can this program do full games or only demo's/prototype's?

I've read that the program uses Direct X7 which is rather obsolete in today's gaming era but even then I still saw some impressive game's being made with RF but never saw a complete game made by it as of yet but I saw a game called Zero Celsius that the graphic's impressed me, it looks a whole lot like MGS1 on the PSX/PC and it's second screenshot especially look's like a level in MGS1 but I think RF is not made for full fledged games from what I read about it, what about RF2? is it still being worked on? what's it progress? how poweful is it compared to RF1? I never got a chance to try RF2 and I haven't seen much on it so I don't know it's power, what is it's minimal requirement's or what Direct X version will it use or it could use OpenGL as OpenGL is open for more then just Window's, Correct me if I'm wrong but OpenGL support's Max and Linux as well so I think it could be a better option but I use Window's myself and never tried Max or Linux anyway.

I tried playing a game that come's with RF and the object's were flickering as well as sometime's it lags for no apparent reason, my computer should be able to handle this engine just fine as I have a modern system that supports todays games like Crysis, Bionic Commando and so on, does this happen to every computer and how to solve the problem with the lagging or flickering? is that the reason RF is discouraged to make full games?

LavaWave wrote:Some question's about this interesting 3D game making tool, can this program do full games or only demo's/prototype's?

I've read that the program uses Direct X7 which is rather obsolete in today's gaming era but even then I still saw some impressive game's being made with RF but never saw a complete game made by it as of yet but I saw a game called Zero Celsius that the graphic's impressed me, it looks a whole lot like MGS1 on the PSX/PC and it's second screenshot especially look's like a level in MGS1 but I think RF is not made for full fledged games from what I read about it, what about RF2? is it still being worked on? what's it progress? how poweful is it compared to RF1? I never got a chance to try RF2 and I haven't seen much on it so I don't know it's power, what is it's minimal requirement's or what Direct X version will it use or it could use OpenGL as OpenGL is open for more then just Window's, Correct me if I'm wrong but OpenGL support's Max and Linux as well so I think it could be a better option but I use Window's myself and never tried Max or Linux anyway.

I tried playing a game that come's with RF and the object's were flickering as well as sometime's it lags for no apparent reason, my computer should be able to handle this engine just fine as I have a modern system that supports todays games like Crysis, Bionic Commando and so on, does this happen to every computer and how to solve the problem with the lagging or flickering? is that the reason RF is discouraged to make full games?

I'm guessing that RF was at one point a pretty solid choice for making a complete game. However, the Genesis3D engine is 12 years old and obviously hasn't aged well. That's what RF2 is for. RF2, when released, will run on Ogre3D, which is current and has a large support base.

The reason that RF doesn't work very well on your computer is that it was originally made to run on a much simpler system (say, a 300mhz cpu with 32mb of RAM and an 8mb video card). When you try to run it on a current system, there's going to be problems. There's a common misperception that if you pop in a game from 10 years ago and run it on your brand-spanking-new gaming computer, it will run at crazy framerates. That's not always the case.

Ah so RF2 will use Ogre3D as it's main engine but there's still something worrying me about RF2, will it be freeware? open-source? and what about making commercial game's with it RF2? what will it's license be?

Any known release date for RF2 or is it "when it's done"? how far into progress is it? will it be easy as RF1 to use? I start to think it's worth waiting for RF2 instead of using RF1, not that there aren't any well done game's already with RF1 tough.

RF2 should be released in May, but it will be in an alpha state. Most features will not be available, and it won't be as easy as RF. RF2 will be freeware and open source.

Interesting, how would it not be as easy to use as RF1 for? is it because it will use the C++ language and will no longer be for non-programmers?

RF2 will not require programming in C++. It uses Squirrel for scripting. RF2 will be free just like RF1 is. It will be released under the ZLib license. You may make commercial games using RF2 without royalties.

Alpha release will happen on May 10, 2010 as planned. You will be able to do some stuff with it such as:

-- Make a world and populate it using Squirrel or some other Ogre scene editor
-- Move around with an avatar
-- Crude firing of a weapon
-- Some basic environmental effects
-- 3D sound positioning
-- Music playback
-- Post screen shader effects
-- Simple GUI implementation using CEGUI

The plan is to do a minor point release every 2 months (e.g 0.1, 0.2, 0.3) and a major point release every year (e.g 1.0, 2.0). I will be posting a development schedule on the [http://www.sf.net/projects/realityfactory2]SourceForge[/url] site in the Tracker so that I can keep track of progress and keep the community informed.

All file formats will be compatible with their previous versions so no worries about starting development now. If the formats should change, there will be tools to convert them.

There is a pre-alpha available for RF2 right now. The NUT files are the scripts.

Cool Will the full final version of RF2 be used to make full game's or it will mainly be used for prototyping game's like RF1?

Coming from a non-programmer, Squirrel will be easy to learn and get used to right? I don't have any programming background but I guess could try a small scripting still hopefully without much problem's.

Yes. RF2 will be capable of making full games of any genre when 1.0 is released. The goal is to allow scripting for advanced users and have a GUI based scripting tool for novice users. This will allow you to graphically script events, triggers and some AI without typing a lick of code. When you become more advanced, you could ditch the graphical scripting and get into low level Squirrel scripting for more control.

Uhm, you could still make a complete game with RF, it's just that the graphical effects won't bear up against todays standards (on the other hand, games are not just about graphics ) .

Interesting, glad to hear.

And no, game's are about having fun not just for graphic's but I still would prefer PS2 quality game's over an N64 game, the graphic's were good but so were the gameplay of many PS2 game's.