Integrated game development environment, your take on it?

#1 Well at the expense of sound ing negative; You aren't the first one to have that dream, or share it with the world, but i've yet to see any of these dreams become reality :(

It's a great concept, no doubt. I'd love to see one. It just seems to always get suggested, and never actually happen.

#2 Christiaan: Microsoft anounced what i believe they call XNA.
This will pretty much be a solid solution for the current problem... Just hope it doesn't take as long as DirectX to become something cool and valueble... :)

#3 Oopps miss read the first time.

heh,it would be cool. i guess most ppl figger somthing like that would just be a waste of time since they work good the way they are.

Meaning to say most devs are in a specific feild (coding,modeling, maping, ect.

#4 It makes sense that my dream is not unique.
There is a need.
An investors first question is always: "Is there a market for this".
So, the answer is YES!

Now, I don't want investors, or microsoft, to strengthen their empires
and further monopolizing the game design scene.

I love the idea behing GarageGames. To make it possible for anyone to make
quality game.

We have the game engine, but we lack the development environment.

I want to do this.
I know I can't do it alone.
Is anyone interrested in joining me in such a project ?
I'm serious guys.
I work as much as I can on my artificial animation engine, but
more tools need to be integrated, converted, invented to make it happen.

To make it really clear what my scope is:
-To make a integrated game development environment that would make it
possible for even one-man teams to create a fully functional game.
If I had such a development environment today I'm pretty sure it would be
possible for a single person to make a half-life clone in a year or two.
THAT, my friends, would bring out a lot of new games on the market and
definitely give indie game design a well deserved push forward.

If you are interrested, post your reply here.

Sincerely
/Xtian

#5 I personally don't understand why..

I do see the value of a more integrated toolset, but not at the expense of using the tools I already use. I kind of like the modeling, mapping, and scripting environment that I use.

I would like to see better integration of the existing tools, more tools to help 'glue' everything together.. but a totally integrated editor is not something that I think I would enjoy working in.

For me, if it slows down my workflow in any way, I don't see the value in it. I would have to be convinced that undertaking such an endevour would be an improvement over the existing toolsets in order to be of value to me.

Don't get me wrong, I would be all for it if it were to be capable of replacing the tools I now use with something more robust.. but I am not sure that in the short term any tool created would be able to keep pace and improve upon what already exists.

Joe

#6 I'd worry about integrating GPL licensed code into the Torque codebase...

#7 David, what are you saying ? You can't use GPL code in Torque

#8 That's exactly why I'd be worried about integrating many OS projects into a centralized environment for Torque...

#9 Is LGPL the good one then? not GPL?

Phil.

#10 LPGL is the one that doesn't require you to show your source.

#11 The LGPL allows you to dynamically link your project to the open codebase, but any changes that you make to the open codebase itself have to be released. The BSD and Mozilla licenses are extremely flexible as well.

But a lot of excellent software (like GiMP) is under the GPL, and from the initial post I worried that running with a GPL licensed product for texture processing within Torque's codebase would be an effective way to shoot yourself in the foot with a Flak Cannon.

#12 If you static link to LGPL code, it's the same as GPL (i know David was implying this in his post, sort of, but let's spell it out ;))

That said, you can build a solution with GPL/LGPL binaries, if there is no static or dynamic linking involved between your code and the GPL stuff.
Btw, just about every other OSI approved Open Source license lets you do what you want with the code, politely asking for a mention in credits and leaving the copyright notices intact in the source files (BSD, MIT, zlib, etc.)
Sorry Dave, I didn't catch the irony/sarcasm in your post :)

#13 I guess some of you guys are pretty fluent in tools like 3dsmax or maya.
I am not. I am just like the average guy out there.
The integrated environment in my dream is something that anyone can learn
to use reasonably fast, that is very well integrated and that has "enough"
features for the average designer to realize his/her dream.
That's it.
Don't make it too complicated.
I want an easy to use tool and that means a tradeoff for functionality.

I think you need to understand my oppinion of todays games.
Today, game development has become so complicated that it's impossible for
someone with a dream to realize it in a finished game.

That is a shame.
I want to see those games that are born in someones heart.
Maybe it won't require pixel shader 3.0 and 7.1 sound or a NV40 to run.
That's ok.

A great game doesn't become great because it has some extremely flashy
and never before seen graphics.
It becomes great because it has a soul, born in someones heart.

I know everybody won't like the tool or see a personal use for it.
If you are a professional moddeler, and only a moddeler, continue to use
whatever tool you use and love. This tool us for the majority that
don't have and never will get the skills to use the professional tools.
This is a tool for the average gamer who want to design the game of his dream.

/Xtian

#14 An integrated environment as you describe would be ideal for Artists. Most programmers say it's idiotic, and it's very elitist.

But an environment like you describe would most certainly make it easier to prototype games, and could add to the Torque community as a whole.

And it would not have to take away from what others pipelines already are. There is a tool out there right now that is an integrated environment as described, and funny enough I've already met a few people like myself who are artists that own Torque, but are considering to use this tool simply for it's interface.

WYSIWYG and Integrated Development Environments, seem to be bad words to programmers, and a god send to visual thinkers. Is there a way to create some type of wrapper for Torque that can help? I would buy it immediately.

Flame repellent suit on.

#15 There are some products out there that are designed for rapid prototyping, just as you are describing.

There are also engines, such as Source, which have most of the necessary tools (Hammer,Softimage, etc) built in (free with Half-Life 2, though to publish stand-alone requires special arrangements).

However, the problem with all of these is that they are either trying to be everything to everyone and so the games made in it are very generic, or they are really good at one thing (First Person Shooters, Flight Sims, etc) and everything else made in it is "meh".

So then you have to hack around the inherent flaws in the engine just to get your game up and running, which is sometimes just as time consuming as building a new engine. Consider trying to make Katamari Damashii in one of those "integrated environments". The engine is just too specialized, with too many strange optimization needs, for an environment like that to be of much use. This goes for many game ideas, including my own game Rumble Box that needed such a strangely optimized graphics pipeline that the engine could only be built from scratch (I considered Torque, but it just couldn't do what I needed).

So I would be very careful trying to make one of these IDEs, because every choice the IDE designer makes limits the choices that a game designer can make. And that seems to be opposite of what your intentions are.

#16 I am currently developing an IDE for multi-player and massive multi-player games. Its goal is to integrate as much of the art and coding pipeline as possible to make game creation easier. It is still in development, but you might want to keep an eye on it for your future use.

www.omegacore3d.com

I am also open to bringing on more coders to help finish the project. So if you have programming skills then maybe you'd like to join an already established project.

#17 I understand what you are saying but couldn't there be a solution for both.

For example, the code/scripting could remain visible and editable, but can also be manipulated through dialog boxes/inspectors.

An example would be Dreamweaver. I remember when it first came out many html programmers said it was crap, etc. etc.
But the cool thing about Dreamweaver with it's inspectors and WYSIWYG is that it allows for quick prototyping of pages, and you still have access to the code. And it proved itself as a useful tool.

Another great example is the usefulness of the Torque ShowTool, it for all intents and purposes is a WYSIWYG tool. Where you can click a menu to activate an animation and get immediate feedback.

So I guess when I think integrated tool, I am thinking more in terms of:

1. An interface that will allow quick selections of attributes for an object. For example click and object and a tabbed dialog appears that contains the parameters that can be adjusted for that object. And a tab that you can click and see the code that applies to that object.

2. A 'make game' dialog that lets you choose which OS, and click to compile and create the game. Also click save, to save a whole project in one file, that can be opened by the same environment.

3. A tab, or button that will let you see the code of the overall project.

4. A layout view and a game view which are sychronized, thus in the layout view you simply drag and drop your meshes and position them and both views update.

5. Assets, such as textures, animations, models, sounds don't need to be created in that environment. But can be imported into the environment. Thus a Library dialog that has the list of different types of items. Example of this would be Macromedia Flash's interface, with a library of assets that can be dragged onto the stage and then their attributes adjusted.

6. Maybe a list of behaviors dialog. So a behaviour can be dragged and dropped onto the mesh. With that behaviors code always being editable, so you can view it as a list item or click a tab to see it's code. As you drag and drop the behaviors, it's code is added to overall code window in it's proper place.

7. A way to create custom dialogs for game components and save components. For example someone could create a component that is used to quickly create a "score" component or "timer". Then people could easily trade components.

Again, if anyone wanted to just use Torque as is they don't have to use that environment at all, just use the code etc like normal.

If something like this existed I think quick small games could be created quickly, to get the concept up and running. Then hand it off to the super coders on the team to do the rest. The key would be for that environment to build clean code/scripts.

#18 It all sounds like 3d game studio's enviroment, with a small amount of changes.
I don't really like 3d game studio, but I do like the editors interface.

#19 P.s, I'd love to have such an inviroment, and when I leard enought programming, I'll be willing to help.

#20 It all sounds like 3d game studio's enviroment, with a small amount of changes.
I don't really like 3d game studio, but I do like the editors interface.