There is official word on Max3d, that was ignorant.
Mark said, there is no official word, and that it wont be arriving any time soon. Meaning I am at a cross road on where my contracts go (the people I make games for as a freelance consultant).
I want a solution that isn't going to require long waits, and doesn't require messy/clunky work arounds.
LOL. Why wouldn't you try some of the other great FREE 3D modules for BlitzMax instead of throwing away what you've already paid for? Makes absolutely no sense, unless you're on a fishing expedition.
I used blitzmax when it first arrived. With the lack of a 3d engine, I went back to b3d as I had contracts waiting and needed a solution to complete them (without having to spend a year and make my own max 3d engine).
After seeing that things are regretted with the current form of blitzmax (as mark had said in his post), it makes me curious on where the future of max will be. Not 'if' mind you, just how long, and how many core changes will be made that might hinder work in progress.
Mark has done a great job, I respect what he has accomplished. I still like Blitz3D however my coding style has changed greatly over the past 7 years. Every project leans me more twords OO. The amount of overhead in Blitz3D that I have to do to do that is getting painfull.
Why switch to XNA? What are you trying to do which you can't do with bMax or blitz3D?
Make fast 3d games for the pc and target a console whilst I am at it. There is plenty i can/have done with Blitz3D, its a good product. But it's outdated when you get down to the nitty gritty. There are many things it doesnt do in DX7 that it probably should just to say it uses all of DX7. With higher end hardware out there, and a vast amount of XBox 360's (add XBLA on that), the market is opening up, and the only way to sieze some sort of reward from that opportunity is to jump onto the wagon before it leaves.
The official word on XNA is that Microsoft need five versions for a proper product. Being an early adopter is going to be plenty painful.
Thanks for the opinion and all, however I already feel as a 'debugger' of sorts if I choose to use max.
Bottom Line Is
I am at a good point in development here (between projects) and thus am at a fork in the road. Which direction do I go?
Blitz3D:
Pro:Able to do most of what I need to do
Con:No shader support
Pro:Quick prototyping
Con:Rarely updated anymore
Con:Not OO, can do quasi-OO, but it gets kinda messy and bloated
Con:Windows PCs only (not cross platform)
Con:No console support (limited market)
Blitzmax:
Pro:Cross Platform
Con:No Supported 3D module
Pro:Many flavors of 3rd party 3D Modules
con:Like many 3rd party stuff, no telling when support for them will be dropped
Con:Language still going through early development modifications
Pro:OO (for the most part, some features lacking, but not a big deal)
Con:No console support (limited market)
Con:Word from BRL is always "It'll be ready when it's ready", until 2 years the word becomes "We have no clue" (this isn't good for developers trying to plan out their year around a product).
XNA:
Pro:Windows and Console support
Pro:C# (OO)
Pro:Managed DX (managed .net framework)
Pro:Ongoing support from M$
Con:Many patches until stable
con:Not cross platform (Mac or linux, oh well)
Pro:XBLA
Pro:Shader Support
I guess most of you missed the point of this thread. I am not hounding Mark, nor am I saying anything bad about BRL and it's products. I was merely opening the floor up to those who have tried out XNA to get their opinions on it (in general). I can sit here and attempt to defend my reasoning all day, but you all have to realize that when it comes time to delivering a product to an employeer, I have to have my eggs in the basket and ready. I can't say "maybe BRL will release a fix for this" or "They dont know when the 3d module will come about now". We were really counting on the 3d module as we wanted to take advantage of the cross platform compiling. Now that the cat is out of the bag on Max3D, we are force to decide if this is where our future lies.
If your lively hood depended on programming games, selling games, etc, you would be in the same dilema as I am now.