hi guys.. currently im working on a project to improve the interfaces of game development tools.. I would like to find out what are the general downsides of conventional game development tools from the most common users, you guys, esp for areas such as working designs internationally with other designers.. it could be in 3dmodeling, level design or even game mechanics designs.. yup please do state the game development tool you are currently using ... and yes .. i want to hear your complaints :) thanks

And this is a "game design" topic HOW...?

Hello!

When you develop something, all you really do is take a concept from a low-level and bring it to high level and let the users go at it. The only main things that can drive away users other than bugs, etc. is a lack of convenience or the tool's inability to solve the user's problem(s). Take Conitec. They developed a 3D engine called 3D GameStudio. Their modeler was very minimalistic. The A6 models offered non-linear animation but had no biped editing tools and only supported fixed animation sets like walk, run or swim. So, it offered the ability to store skinned mesh data but would not let you place and manipulate joints with child vertices. It's UV editor was also completely manual with miserable auto-gen algorithms. Note I'm talking about an earlier version here, so I don't know how much better it is now.

The example I cited proves that I was looking for features 3D Gamestudio did not have. So I ended up not using it. Just remember tools are designed to solve problems, not present them again in a different light. You wouldn't drive a nail into a plank with a stapler.

Cheers!
-Zyro

I might get lynched for this, but milkshape has been pretty problematic for me and my team.

It seems like a good product til you try to use it in a real way.

it tends to lock up and crash a lot and the importers often don't work at all.

I contacted the creator once with a simple repro case for a crash and he told me "oh, just don't do that" and that was the end of the conversation.

keep in mind, this is software that you PAY for :P

It's a great product in theory but in practice you wouldnt want to rely on it for any commercial uses since it's so buggy and the creator doesn't seem to care.

Quote:

Original post by Atrix256 I might get lynched for this, but milkshape has been pretty problematic for me and my team.

I can agree about some points, actually. Even if it was relatively good many years ago, especially considering the cheap price!

My main issue was that at least I couldn't find any official complete documentation for a programmer's perspective, which made skeletal animation unnecessarily troublesome during implementation - just take joint rotations for example - were they Euler? Yaw/pitch/roll? y/x/z-convention? x/y/z? Trial and error solved it eventually. [grin]
- If anyone knows of documentation that explains this, do correct me.

About the exporters though, I think many of them are community contributions, so you can't blame them much.