What he said. I will never understand all this whining.
You're clearly new here, so what do you know of these existing Blitz users?
Blitz3D is not dead, however it's development is on hiatus it seems - until BlitzMax is finished at least - and when somebody does turn their attention back to B3D it will probably mostly be bug fixes (and the few remaining things that DX7 supports that B3D doesn't) - however, as it stands, right now, the language is at it's peak of 'featureset vs stability', so it really never has been a better time to churn something out with it. Pixel shaders does not a game make - besides, think of your target audience. Do you have the manpower and resources available to you to take on the big AAA titles? Even if you managed to get a AAA class title finished how would you get it sold? It's nigh on impossible getting a major publishing house to recognise you and without heavy promotional funding you're never going to get the attention of the mass 'gamer lamer' market. Having said all that, I must stress it's not impossible either, before a whole buncha people start yelling at me =] Still, there are a number of people who have done pretty damn well for themselves on their Blitz-made games. The shareware mass are ripe for the picking and are generally more open minded, which basically means you can do quite well with something a bit less detailed but typically more interesting than your usual FPS romp - tho now you have to keep in mind that most shareware gamers have a considerably lower spec machine than your average gamer lamer. Pixel shaders probably wouldn't be an acceptable way to enhance the quality of your game's graphics anyway.
So, I managed to bring my story back to the original point in the end. What a fascinating ramble.
Max at it's initial release will contain a complete 2d-in-3d module, similar to the current implementation, but of course OpenGL based and have all the features you'd expect from 3d based commands. There will be no 3d -engine- module at it's initial release, however the entire OpenGL standard featuresets will be completely open and accessible to the user.
To create an easy programming environment.
Probably the same places they're coming from now. Mostly the DBP forums =]
BlitzMax is going to be the schiznitz of high level programming languages, even touted in unofficial PR by a Blitz Research member as 'the bees knees'. It will have -the same- accessibility of a high level basic language as current Blitz products do now, with the ability to extend your knowledge over time to a much lower level if you need, without losing many of the high level benefits. The capability behind BlitzMax is literally endless, but that of course relies on the strengths of it's community and/or your own programming skills.
Not a more complicated 2d programming environment, but a richer programming environment.
It will be the same BASIC-based language you know and love today, with a few minor syntax alterations and a truck load of extra useful stuff you can do if you so wish.
but I can't see existing Blitz users flocking to it
You're clearly new here, so what do you know of these existing Blitz users?
Blitz3D is not dead, however it's development is on hiatus it seems - until BlitzMax is finished at least - and when somebody does turn their attention back to B3D it will probably mostly be bug fixes (and the few remaining things that DX7 supports that B3D doesn't) - however, as it stands, right now, the language is at it's peak of 'featureset vs stability', so it really never has been a better time to churn something out with it. Pixel shaders does not a game make - besides, think of your target audience. Do you have the manpower and resources available to you to take on the big AAA titles? Even if you managed to get a AAA class title finished how would you get it sold? It's nigh on impossible getting a major publishing house to recognise you and without heavy promotional funding you're never going to get the attention of the mass 'gamer lamer' market. Having said all that, I must stress it's not impossible either, before a whole buncha people start yelling at me =] Still, there are a number of people who have done pretty damn well for themselves on their Blitz-made games. The shareware mass are ripe for the picking and are generally more open minded, which basically means you can do quite well with something a bit less detailed but typically more interesting than your usual FPS romp - tho now you have to keep in mind that most shareware gamers have a considerably lower spec machine than your average gamer lamer. Pixel shaders probably wouldn't be an acceptable way to enhance the quality of your game's graphics anyway.
So, I managed to bring my story back to the original point in the end. What a fascinating ramble.
Max will be a language without any 3D support at first?
Max at it's initial release will contain a complete 2d-in-3d module, similar to the current implementation, but of course OpenGL based and have all the features you'd expect from 3d based commands. There will be no 3d -engine- module at it's initial release, however the entire OpenGL standard featuresets will be completely open and accessible to the user.
What's BlitzMax aimed to do if not create an easy 3D programming environment?
To create an easy programming environment.
can't understand where the new customers would come from.
Probably the same places they're coming from now. Mostly the DBP forums =]
BlitzMax is going to be the schiznitz of high level programming languages, even touted in unofficial PR by a Blitz Research member as 'the bees knees'. It will have -the same- accessibility of a high level basic language as current Blitz products do now, with the ability to extend your knowledge over time to a much lower level if you need, without losing many of the high level benefits. The capability behind BlitzMax is literally endless, but that of course relies on the strengths of it's community and/or your own programming skills.
Well the short term result will be to produce a more complicated 2D programming environment.
Not a more complicated 2d programming environment, but a richer programming environment.
From the very small code snippets I have seen It looks like it will no longer be 'basic' but more of a hybrid 'c' type language.
It will be the same BASIC-based language you know and love today, with a few minor syntax alterations and a truck load of extra useful stuff you can do if you so wish.