Enter the World of Nebula

#1 If you like it post a reply down below this one.



Nebula


Nebula



Nebula

#2 Nebula has a very clean architecture. I follow it's development. In fact, I am looking at their (Jason Asbahr's) nPython module to get some ideas on hooking Python up to Torque...

-=J=-

#3 Hmmm, we looked at this engine prior to choosing Torque. If I remember correctly, the site was a bit out of date and it looked as though there wasn't much activity.

Just checked it out and it's looking good. Nomads got picked up for the XBox. Sweeeeet.

#4 Man Nebula Kicks ASS !
Nice shader Support and other great features multi platform uses TCL/TK this is a Real engine .. I will be playing with it for a while now ..
heh Maybe I can Plug the shader code into torque!

#5 Be carefull such thing will be a violence to the EULA of the Nebula device.

#6 took me a few reads...think he me "violation". (C:

#7 would it?
... not if you provide the source i read the license that is my understanding


yea Correct me if im wrong but it looks to me like it's Real Open ... just keep the headers keep thier code open and readable it is a Real sweet license .. ill clarify with them.

#8 My current engine is based heavily on Nebula + about a year and a half's worth (so far) of extentions to support my current project. It is a great engine.

There are certain pros and cons to it that make it either better or worse than Torque, depending upon your project and goals. It is without a doubt much more difficult to get something up and running to start in Nebula and there is little in the way of existing tools/support for content creation beyond a couple of half-supported exporters. But the interface is cleaner and easier to extend once you get going, because the engine pieces aren't tied to any specific game type. (As great as Torque is, you can't deny its FPS legacy in many areas of the engine)


Anyway, the Nebula license is very clear and very open for developers. It is pretty much like the BSD license. They don't want to you to change the copyright information in existing source files, but other than that you can do essentially whatever you want with the code and the resulting binaries and you aren't required to open your own code extentions or modifications (as you do with the GPL).

#9 Also the current shader support in Nebula isn't as good as the above post would have you believe. The shaders in Nebula are similar to the shaders in Quake3 and do not make direct use of hardware accelerated pixel/vertex shading, and in general are very limited to specific pre-defined operations.

Radonlabs is currently working on a new graphics server for Nebula, from what I've read, that has heavy support for programmable pipeline/shaders, but this isn't yet released.

Just FYI.

#10 the nebula device has a truly open licence, like you said, you can do everything with it, even mix it with torque without any need to release the source code (just leave the copyright text in it intact). not sure if it uses any physics, but nebula with ODE might be an interesting combination - and perfect for indie developers, since it wont cost you a dime...

#11 I chose Torque over Nebula for a simple reason : support, as in community (yes, there are helpful guys in the TND community, but nowhere the extent of contributions we see here), but also as in creators' support : Radon Labs does NOT use the same sourcetree as the CVS release on sourceforge, even if they roll back important changes once in a while. Granted, GG also branched off for MB's development, but in lots of way the TGE community is way more involved together, ie after all, GG maintains the CVS, while in Nebula's case, it's a stricly volunteer effort, that is not headed (anymore) by someone at Radon Labs (afaik, Leaf is not one of their employees).
Cross platform support was also a major clincher for us : back in the spring of this year, Nebula only ran fully on Windows, with evolving support on Linux. MacOS X support hadn't been started, and was barely talked about. Same with the other nixes.

Nota Bene : I'm not bashing TND, far from there. And I still follow its evolution. But, for us, the choice was clear once we researched things a little, and tried to get things going with TND.
To sum it up, spending 100 bucks on TGE saved us a lot of time getting set up with Nebula.

In the end, it's a matter of weighting things, and choosing what makes the most sense for you and your goals.
Hope that helps :)

#12 Though I'm currently using Nebula, I agree with everything you've said. It isn't for all projects/teams. There are lots of situations where Torque will work out much better for you and there is certainly much more community contribution going on in the Torque world thanks to GG's efforts.

In Radon Lab's defense, though, their goals are completely different.. Their goal is to develop their own games, not to foster an indie community, so it is completely understandable that they don't expend too much on the 'community' and such.

#13 Absolutely : giving out their engine was a gift, rather than trying to foster a community like here at GG :)