My co-author Dalai Felinto and I spent three years working on a Blender game engine book and it’s finally gone to the printers. You can order the book now and expect it to ship tomorrow. An electronic version is also being prepped, but it will take another two weeks for it to show up on Kindles, etc.
To start, we’ve made Chapter One of the book freely available.
We start covering the basics of Blender for new comers followed by a simple game project from start to end. That should give the reader the perspective of the components of the Blender game engine important for making your own projects.
The following chapters are self-contained, each one with its own approach. Most of them have tutorials and short projects focused on the presented tools. Finally, chapter 10 gives the reader a perspective of real usage of the Blender game engine presenting 10 projects from different artists around the world explained by the authors themselves.
So, if you are interested in the game engine, please spread the word!
Here is my brutally honest answer: The BGE isn’t for everyone.
If you are inexperienced with Blender, or if you want to build a BIG, cross-device game (tablet, phone, etc), then there are probably better engines out there. One comes to mind that starts with U and ends with nity.
Don’t get me wrong, the BGE is a great little engine that integrates well into the Blender pipeline. If you already have plenty of Blender experience, learning the BGE is simple enough. And you don’t have to deal with all the import/export headaches. The BGE is great for smallish games and interactive applications. I’ve been using the BGE for work building interactive apps and science visualizations for over 5 years, and I feel BGE is the right tool for the job.
BGE is the best prototyping game engine in the world, but really lacks love and power, lets see how it goes in the future.I started game developing with that.
Not that I disagree with you completely, but I find that hard to believe. Dont forget that there are engines built into Maya itself, which allow rapid prototyping as well. Blender really can build itself up if it can sell that point if true.
Can you perhaps explain in better detail why you think the BGE is the best prototyping platform in the world?
This looks promising. I’ll have to see if my local bookstore can get it. (I’m not a fan of online retailers, but I am a supporter of local small businesses where possible.)
In the chapter on graphics, how deep does the rabbit hole go? I’m more of an artist with delusions of being an animator than I am a game designer, but I am very interested in real time rendering as of late. I am sometimes floored by the artistry and variety of styles possible in games. I often ask myself, “why should I have to spend 10 minutes to render a single image when moving art can be made in mere fractions of a second?” So, I would like in depth information on what it takes to get the most out of BGE graphics.
It is my understanding that the game engine exists strictly to support still and animation rendering. Please let me know if I am mistaken, and then post a link to a Blender game worth playing (other than Dead Cyborg).
This is rather dependant upon your preference in game. There are s plethora of games that I enjoy playing in the BGE. Furthermore, the majority of BGE users are not using the engine for its animation features alone. You’re describing the basis of any game engine, it renders and animates
A game engine is supposed to create an interactive environment of some sort. I’m still not convinced that the BGE is supposed to be more than a supporting feature for animation. It seems to be like Cycles. If it is supposed to be taken more seriously by game studios/indie developers, then it should be supported more. For example, the Cycles page says “Remember that Cycles is intended to be a render engine for individuals / small studios, aimed primarily at rendering animations, and this goal is what we evaluate priorities of features by.” This mission statement allows them to avoid supporting the game engine with Cycles, even while Blender Internal is on its way out. It does seem that mpan3 is correct, “The BGE is great for smallish games and interactive applications. I’ve been using the BGE for work building interactive apps and science visualizations for over 5 years, and I feel BGE is the right tool for the job.” This is evidence that the BGE was built, and is maintained, to support animations/stills, and is not to be taken seriously as a professional game engine. BGE definitely has a different purpose than most game engines.
It is because of those differences that I’m considering making my own interactive tools using BGE, just like mpan3. I’d like to read this book, because it looks like a solid resource. I regret that I haven’t had a chance to order it yet, as I just started going through all the Blender Cookie resources, and I like to study one resource thoroughly before I move on to the next.
I partially agree with you. But as far as i know, the BGE is situable for game developing, and i say that because of my personal experience.
I’ve been using it for about 4 years, and that is enough time to learn how to use the tool the right way.
There are many good examples of what can be achieved with it.
I’ve been developing my game, Virtual Survival for about 3 months, and this is the outcome:
However, the BGE still needs a lot of work on the Performance area. If we want bigger game studios to notice us, then that’s one thing that need to be fixed. The fact that the BGE and Blender are both merged togheter is great, and saves time. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with UDK trying to export and import models and stuff. On the BGE, you just do your model, and it’s ready to use it on your game.
I ordered my copy yesterday. I look forward to getting it this week. I think that learning the BGE is more about developing the thinking process for creating interactive CG. If I later decide to get more involved in game making for a serious project targeted to specific platform(s), then I would likely get into other software.
I got my copy and am very pleased with what I see in a quick overview of the book. It didn’t come with a DVD, but I’ve already downloaded the supplemental data from the website. My only criticism at this time is the low contrast imagery in the screen shots of Blender’s interface. Blender’s default theme doesn’t lend itself well to printing. It might look better on screen, but I don’t plan on buying a digital version. This is not a big deal, really. Most images are readable.
I went into my local independent bookstore on Monday, and they got it for me by Tuesday! I’m very glad our small town has a nice bookstore where the people who run it care about service.
ty and congratz