Why not work on improving/extending Minib3d instead?
Because it's not what we need.
How many incomplete 3d solutions do we really need.
I agree- but it will be nice to have at least one complete one, don't you think?
MiniB3D is cool and all, but we're doing things with Flow that MiniB3D can't handle, and things that would take a *long* time to get MiniB3D to support. Scene managers, Static meshes, things like that. Ogre is also way faster than MiniB3D.
I appreciate your thoughts though a bit pessimistic- The system started off for us, but we developed it so that it could be usable by many others. Whats wrong with that? :)
The decision 8 months ago wasn't "lets make an ogre wrapper for the community," it was "We need a decent engine for our future products. Nothing exists that can do what we want yet, lets create it. Oh, wow, this looks like it could be of use to others!"
We have contract work. We can't sit around waiting for someone else to do the work. Ogre gives us more power than anything else available to us right now.
One of the points here is this isn't going to be an incomplete solution. It's not an Antony's Aurora, it's not a SOW, Not just "alot of work" has gone into it, an unbelievable amount of planning by our C-side coder Lina, has gone into preserving ogres infrastructure, and every possible ogre method usable is being made available in blitzmax. This isn't always easy at all with the way Max handles OOP!
Perhaps you will change your mind once you see it in action, I don't know, but you should really look at the good points behind these things. :) Pessimisim can lead to depression you know. :P
One more thing: Would you rather be one of the people complaining that lack of 3D is causing them huge problems, or one of those that gets it done regardless?
..how much you guys going to charge for Flow??
We can't say much on the price yet. I doubt it will be a major sting though. ;)