Im with Anthony, I don't see where the community has even come close to using the DX7 engine to its fullest. of all the projects I have worked with in the last 4 years, non of them used Blitz3D(save 1). The reason was not a lack of 3D capability in blitz, but a lack of any real examples or products that could get game houses to want to use it, versus other eqaully or lower priced options. So far its all been JAVA and C++ on the those projects.
One thing I would like to mention is that developing a 3D engine is sort of counter productive these days, IMHO. With the number of high quality engines out there, some of witch are even FREE, rolling your own is usually just a waste of development time. That time could be used much more productivly working on the actuall game. Natuarally many of us like the tech details and pride of doing it ourselves, and this too is fine for a hobby, but if you plan to go commercial, get a engine and use that.
Here are 2 free 3D engines that are being used to create games as I write this:
CrystalSpace
Genesis3D
I have mentioned in the past that these should be looked at for use with BlitzMax, but if DLL is your bag of tea, you could probably wrap these for use in Blitz.
The biggest problem I see with roll your own engines, is that they never seem to go gold. Its always in a eternal development loop. You create the engine, but by the time your about halfway done, out comes DirectXnextRevision with a ton of new cool, all be it totally not required, features with just enough changes to the base set of features to make its easier to start over from scratch, in many cases. In a way Im impressed with Mark and BRL, they stuck with DX7, no constant version chasing to add bloat and features that 90% of the users of B3D will never even use. Its not easy to stand your ground on these things.
As for Open Source Libs, while I think it would be kind of neat, I don't see it really having any real impact for the masses of Blitz Users. So I can't say I'd like to see mark waste time on this, just get on with BlitzMax and more TOOLS!
PS: Im was a Linux user and supporter back in the .9x days of the kernal( when the whole OS and tool set fit on 2 3.5" floppies) and I still am, I do support open source. But not all things need to be or even should be open source. :)
One thing I would like to mention is that developing a 3D engine is sort of counter productive these days, IMHO. With the number of high quality engines out there, some of witch are even FREE, rolling your own is usually just a waste of development time. That time could be used much more productivly working on the actuall game. Natuarally many of us like the tech details and pride of doing it ourselves, and this too is fine for a hobby, but if you plan to go commercial, get a engine and use that.
Here are 2 free 3D engines that are being used to create games as I write this:
CrystalSpace
Genesis3D
I have mentioned in the past that these should be looked at for use with BlitzMax, but if DLL is your bag of tea, you could probably wrap these for use in Blitz.
The biggest problem I see with roll your own engines, is that they never seem to go gold. Its always in a eternal development loop. You create the engine, but by the time your about halfway done, out comes DirectXnextRevision with a ton of new cool, all be it totally not required, features with just enough changes to the base set of features to make its easier to start over from scratch, in many cases. In a way Im impressed with Mark and BRL, they stuck with DX7, no constant version chasing to add bloat and features that 90% of the users of B3D will never even use. Its not easy to stand your ground on these things.
As for Open Source Libs, while I think it would be kind of neat, I don't see it really having any real impact for the masses of Blitz Users. So I can't say I'd like to see mark waste time on this, just get on with BlitzMax and more TOOLS!
PS: Im was a Linux user and supporter back in the .9x days of the kernal( when the whole OS and tool set fit on 2 3.5" floppies) and I still am, I do support open source. But not all things need to be or even should be open source. :)