ESTk to be released with Elysian Shadows

[cube_b3]

Falco Girgis announces that Elysian Shadows Tool Kit (with ESGamma lighting engine) will be given away for free to all who order Elysian Shadows on Kickstarter. ESTk is basically a next generation 2D/3D hybrid game engine which can be used to make add on content for ES or even your own game.

Elysian Shadows has raised over a 100,000$ and still has 11 days to go before the Kickstarter ends the projected goal for the game is 150,000$ so they still have a long road ahead.

[cube_b3]

Correct me if I am wrong but this would be the 3rd major engine available for Dreamcast after BOR and 3DGE?

[mankrip]

It's definitely much more advanced than BOR.

It will be interesting to see what people will use this for.

[shametblame]

They even say it can be used without any programming skills.
Is 3DGE that easy to use?

[cube_b3]

I would like to know the answer to that question as well.

Let's reshape it though:

Are any of these dev tools as easy as Little Big Planet?

[Specially Cork]

Currency symbols go at the beginning of numbers.

[Indiket]

Currency symbols go at the beginning of numbers.

Not in Europe, my friend

[Specially Cork]

Currency symbols go at the beginning of numbers.

Not in Europe, my friend

The UK and Ireland are in Europe.

[Corbin]

3DGE is very easy to use with a HUGE number of tools, support, and documentation on the engine in general. I also provide 24/7 support (see SLaVE). Various level editors, WAD unpackers - the works. 3DGE was designed with moddability in mind and we also released the first version of the DC version, specifically, since last year. We also release revisions that work on all major PC platforms every few months.

When Hypertension releases the newest version of 3DGE will also drop which includes so many updates that it'll make your brain fry. I'm still working on the Wiki site which should go live any week now that completely brings and updates the existing documentation in one easy fashion.

[GyroVorbis]

In my mind, BOR is less of a "general engine" and more of a "Beat-Em-Up-specific" development kit. It's more along the lines of being "moddable" rather than being fully extensible.

I honestly don't know anything about 3DGE, but we are all following Hypertension, and it's obviously extremely impressive and technically capable... I feel as though ESTk and 3DGE are probably filling two different niches rather than being competing technologies. They're designed with different goals in mind, I believe.

They even say it can be used without any programming skills.

Yes, depending on what you want to achieve. The map and scenario editors are all GUI-based, and you can easily create worlds, NPCs, enemies, and dialog using the Elysian Shadows engine as-is. Think of this more along the lines of how BOR or Little Big Planet works. You aren't fundamentally altering gameplay like this, you're just creating content. In that respect, to create content for Elysian Shadows, no programming experience is required. It's GUI-based.

I would like to know the answer to that question as well.

Let's reshape it though:

Are any of these dev tools as easy as Little Big Planet?

Little Big Planet's devtools are not a full-fledged engine. I can't take the physics engine from LBF and create an overhead 2D RPG. I can only use the existing game code and generate content to work with it. In that respect, yes, ESTk should be just as easy to use.

For those of you who want to go further, the entire heart of the engine is exposed through our Lua API, which gives you full power to create your own custom games and game logic there. It works exactly as it does in Unity, as that's what inspired ESTk's design, architecturally. You have the engine managing game objects, states, checking collision, offering physics, rendering, etc, then you can create custom game-logic through attachable "Lua Behaviors." This is exactly how we're developing ES itself, so you can literally do anything we're doing with the engine and more in your own custom games.

[Corbin]

I honestly don't know anything about 3DGE, but we are all following Hypertension, and it's obviously extremely impressive and technically capable... I feel as though ESTk and 3DGE are probably filling two different niches rather than being competing technologies. They're designed with different goals in mind, I believe.

This. They are both impressive but they are completely different technologies and, as Falco put it, oriented towards specific goals that are pretty far from each other.

3DGE basically has 3 languages - DDF, which is a game code interpreter, RTS, which is a scripting engine that directly ties into DDF, and COAL, which is LUA that drives the heads-up display that can interact with anything in the game world you choose. Those 3 are the core, and along with those, you have access to engine-specific features such as true 3D floors, Quake 2/DOOM 3 model support, and the whole plethora of DOOM-based editing utilities. It is capable of loading the original DOOM/HERETIC, modding those games, or making a completely stand-alone game like Hypertension, which completely changes everything down to linetypes and THING types (read: the game world). The engine itself is coded in C++ so if you are knowledgeable enough you can even modify the core.

Hypertension and SLaVE are two examples of what you can do, but people have been able to recreate games like Donkey Kong Country and Mortal Kombat in the engine, so anything is possible. 3DGE isn't as compatible with the original DOOM (and other things like DeHacked/BOOM/BEX) so nobody takes it seriously as a source port for that game (though it is a very powerful, OpenGL-based alternative), but as a stand-alone modding tool it is very highly regarded in that community.

So, it's definitely my hope to extend this to the community. I think once my Wiki is complete it will offer much more for the end-user. Documentation is plentiful but not exactly up to date.

[cube_b3]

Once you boys are done with your respective games maybe you can make games for each others engine.

[shametblame]

I am definitely going to play with ESTk on its release. I hope there will be sufficient documentation so I can understand how to instal and use the tools.

The same goes for 3DGE. I might as well wait for the final release so I have all the features available ^^ I hope there will be a lot of documentation as well because I am not so much of a programmer.

[mankrip]

Hypertension and SLaVE are two examples of what you can do, but people have been able to recreate games like Donkey Kong Country and Mortal Kombat in the engine, so anything is possible. 3DGE isn't as compatible with the original DOOM [...], but as a stand-alone modding tool it is very highly regarded in that community.

Can you post some links to those? I'd like to play with them.

[cube_b3]

Check their interview on our wiki we got links there.

It is uploaded on SourceForge or some website head on over to their Facebook for better links.

[mankrip]

I had found the Sourceforge website already, but I've downloaded the 1.36 final version and there's no DC binaries.

[cube_b3]

Contact Isotope on their Facebook page for fastest results.

[Corbin]

Dig into the 3dge Source folder and then into the DREAM3DGE folder:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/edge2/f ... DreamEDGE/

[mankrip]

Thanks, I've downloaded it. I'll try it at home.