Documentations & Tutorials?

[Slacker]

Hi,
I'm new to 3D and game programming, but I have experience in
developing .Net applications. I found the RealmForge GDK to have good
reviews on DevMaster, and it was compatible with the .Net languages.
I was able to download the last upload from SourceForge.

The problem I'm having is that the documentation file refer to pages
that were once on the RealmForge page and no longer exist, and Google
searches on guides and references to the engine weren't too helpful

Can someone post me some links with some type of documentations or
tutorials?

If nothing, then I'll have to resort to the classic "peek and poke"
method to figure out how everything works, but I'd hate to do that if
there's a more efficient way.

Thanks in advance.

[Clint Herron]

Hello!

 

AFAIK, the Realmforge project hasn't been touched in well over a year, and is an officially "dead" open-source project. From what I've read, all of the key developers have moved on. They got funding to work on a commercial version of RealmForge, and so left to work on that. RealmForge was really cool, but at the time that development stopped, it wasn't quite in a user-friendly usable state, so I'm not sure how much good it would be for you to mess with it. If you're interested in using .Net to make 3d games, I would recommend using something more along the lines of a supported engine like Irrlicht.
 

I may be wrong about any of these facts, but I hope this gives you a point in the right direction.

 

Thanks!

 

--clint

[Clint Herron]

Oh yeah, much of what Realmforge was got merged into the Axiom project, which looks like it's still being updated. So don't forget about that option too. :)

http://axiomengine.sourceforge.net

 

Cheers!

 

--clint

 

[andris]

Yes, the RF GDK was abandoned in favor of the of Visual3D.NET
toolkit&framework, which will be a commercial solution, will be
available for free for non-commercial purposes however. See
http://www.visual3d.net You'll also find some forum thread regarding
RF there.

AFAIK the RF was based on the Axiom3D engine mentioned here, the
current Axiom is much advanced, seems pretty stable and is still in
active development, so you might want to check it as suggested. It's
only a graphics engine, it doesn't provide all the stuff like sounds,
physics, game AI etc. IIRC the RF framework was far from complete
regarding that either ;)

Neither Axiom nor RF GDK are pure .NET solutions yet, where the
Visual3D.NET is.

Btw. the RF reviews on DevMaster and possibly other sites are all
lies! Beware that, it seems the developers rather posted all their
long-term planned features there, than being relevant with what the SW
can really do. :(((
like:
Scripts can be developed in the IDE with an optional minimized syntax
to emulate JScript.net
Scripts can be compiled and run on the fly mid-game
The Game Editor is integrated into the engine and can be displayed in-
game similar to Doom III
etc.
(Har har, however ;)

[Slacker]

Thanks all for the valuable inputs. Looks like I stumbled onto a
valuable source for game dev questions.

I was able to get the RF download to compile in VS2005, and it seems
that most of the samples were visual 3D presentations with one sound
sample. I'm guessing if I picked up the Axiom engine, it still
wouldn't put me too far back. I'd also like to check out all this
hype about Microsoft's new XNA Game Dev Studio.

The purpose for this research is that my school is planing to create
an open source language learning game, so I thought it would make
sense to start with an open source game engine rather than starting
from scratch. I probably won't need much physics or AI; just
collision and sound will probably work. Visual3D.Net is only in beta
stages, so I don't know if it will be ready in time for use.

They haven't really decided on what to do yet, so I'm just researching
for general knowledge.

Thanks a bunch.

[andris]

Slacker, the Visual3D promotes a friendly licensing in the field of
educational usage (IIRC it's free for that purpose ;) however is in
Beta stage yet).

One of the advantages of Axiom among other managed engines is that it
has it's big brother OGRE which is a good knowledge resource, you know
the OGRE docs and forum information can be applied to Axiom in many
cases. Axiom seems also pretty stable, didn't check other engines for
a while, but it could be well the most advanced OpenSource .NET engine
today.

To the RF team:
Yet wanted to mention something. Regarding my previous post talking
about RF's team reviews, sounded badly? ;) Please forgive me and don't
take it personally. Notice instead, that the review is really way to
inaccurate. It quite disappointed me after 1+ year hobbying with RF
and awaiting those, even repeatedly discussed and promoted, features.
I found RF through such truly promising and shiny review, too. But the
reality was just very else :| (wanted to save someone's time
today... )
Come on, it's not fair to publicate such misleading information. Would
be nice if that could be corrected.

Greetings