Marcus Did good work

mmEngine showed at least one thing, and that was that it is possible to call the b3d dll from Bmax.
This was raised as a question before MiniB3D was started, and I for one was told that it couldn’t happen.

Now I assume that mmEngine doesn’t self list the objects, but if it did do all the things that Marcus claimed then it would be a product worth marketing.

As said in the original mmEngine thread, DarkSdk (or whatever they call it now), was a good idea, it was just that it didn’t work (Well hardly anyone seemed to make it work), so basically became just a gimmick product.

I like Bmax, but I would also like a BRL supported 3d engine, I like for example the way MiniB3D has progressed, but if it now is going to be admitted to be possible to use the DLL of B3D, then why not use it?

I would consider that asking Marcus to help/be employed, as some payment would be morally acceptable if he was employed to actually do what he already seems to be doing, but either way I feel it is a shame that this line is not going to be followed. If Mark had not stated the dubiousness of the engine I would have bought into it as a good idea.

>mmEngine showed at least one thing, and that was that it
>is possible to call the b3d dll from Bmax.

That was never in question.

>I would consider that asking Marcus to help/be employed,
>as some payment would be morally acceptable if he was
>employed to actually do what he already seems to be doing,

For a small business to hire a person who is known to take what isn't his, in a country with unfamiliar IP protection, halfway around the world and give him access to BRL's lifeblood(B3D) is insane. More importantly, what he did is not that dificult, so why should BRL pay a substandard coder with questionable moral constitution to do what BRL could do them selves.

I think the community will just have to accept that BRL owns B3D and has every right to do with it as they wish. Including not adding functionality that the community is asking for.

>but either way I feel it is a shame that this line is not
>going to be followed. If Mark had not stated the
>dubiousness of the engine I would have bought into it as a
>good idea.

Frankly, anyone reading the description on the website, reading the posts and looking at the demo could see what was going on, and if it took Marks comments to give anyone a clue, then I'm shocked at the level of general knowledge.

There's a real problem when programmers don't know a darn thing about the legal aspects of programming.

Andy

Well I questioned it and was told it couldnt be done
True, but if macus didnt include the DLL in his download, then he could still try and sell the wrapper to Bmax users that already have b3d, so why not BRL jump on this bandwagon
But without marks comments I wouldnt have known that Mark did not support this, and nether would you. And I for one would have used the demo rather than base my desicion on the quality of the English on the web page.

>But without marks comments I wouldnt have known that Mark
>did not support this, and nether would you.

So if Mark was OK with it, you wouldn't mind buying a product which is clearly illegal and contains parts of other products by other manufacturers but without their consent?

Good thing it's not about Marks support. There's this thing called IP law, which in most industrialized countries make it illegal to do what the guy did.

>And I for one would have used the demo rather than base my
>desicion on the quality of the English on the web page.

Why?. He admitted to it being B3D on the website! Case closed!

>True, but if macus didnt include the DLL in his download,
>then he could still try and sell the wrapper to Bmax users
>that already have b3d, so why not BRL jump on this
>bandwagon

Because BRL management decided not to. You're not a stockholder, so they don't have to defend their decisions to you.


Andy

Would it have been illeagal if Mark had supported it?
Im not asking them to justify their decision to me, Im just asking if a decision has been made. Whereas you assume that one has.

I in fact am just making a case that the work that Marcus has done could be co-opted and used by BRL, you seem to know that they have thought about this and decided against it. If so then fair enough. I however am not assuming that they have made this decision, and am blindly making a statment about the value of a B3DSDK

I think the solidifying point here which seems to have been ignored is: BRL could easily do this themselves. In fact, they could probably do it better since they can compile the DLL themselves (rather than extract it from the output of their own compiler/linker), specifically for the purpose of being accessed by other languages.

For the sake of argument, one alternative thing that Marcus could do (and should have done in the first place?!) would be to release a program that extracts the DLL from a legally purchased copy of B3d.

That's true. Since BRL has the source code to the engine, they could easily compile a DLL for other languages if they wanted to. This means it would be pointless to "hire" anyone to do this specially; anyone can easily convert a C/C++ library of functions into a DLL in a few minutes / hours.

The only "work" that Marcus did to "make" mmEngine3D was his cleverly hacking the blitz commandset out of blitz's runtime libraries into a DLL form.

I think the problem is that he tried to sell his engine as a competitor to blitz. I'm sure that if it had been marketed differently Mark would have been less inclined to jump on it the way he did.

For instance, if it were sold to existing B3D owners for $20 - $30 after proof of B3D purchase. A week ago Marcus might have been able to negotiate something with BRL.

It would have been a lot of use for existing Blitz3D and Bmax users that wanted to extend the life of B3D.

Kind of a shame that he went about it the way he did.

i wish BRL would do that, at least for B3D owners and BMax owners

just hold them over till Max3D

Right, lets hire someone because they hacked up your program even though you have the original source code and could do a better job yourself.

I want B3D in BMax.
Hope this will be solved out sooner or later.

Mark have issues with Fmod, if he need to release a B3D SDK, he must find an alternative.

Audiere is the most possible solution.

>Hire someone because they hacked up your program.

Like Microsoft hire the author of SysInternal Tools?

> I want B3D in BMax.

Me too, ironically that would probably work better than the dedicated Max3D module.

Microsoft acquired sysinternals. And they did not hack Microsoft tools, they wrote vastly superior replacement tools. From scratch.

Why would BRL hire this guy for his hacked-up dll of blitz3D when they're more than capable of doing it themselves?

Seriously, they have access to the original source, and would be completely mad to do a deal with this guy. What can he bring to the product that BRL can't do?

There's also the question of trust; once that's gone it's gone. The very idea that BRL would split the work/profits with someone who threatened their livelyhood (despite a request to stop) is insane.

The only reason the 'product' was taken down is when he realised he couldn't get away with it.

..what Cicero said..

I'm all for hiring people from halfway around the world without an interview to do a job I could do myself.

No, wait.

Except he already did the job, so there is no work involved. All they would have to do is pay him, package it, and start selling.

Time is worth more than money.

Yes but wouldn't BRL have to pay an additional $6000 for a new fmod license if the dll was marketed as a different product to blitz3d

However the DLL is an excellent idea. A better idea would be to allow the community upgrade blitz itself (a bit like the dds texture stuff) however I guess this will never happen.

Wait another Christmas for Max3D, recently info seems it won't be out soon.

Well, if I was in BRL's place, and I wanted to make a DLL out of a preexisting C/C++ library, I wouldn't pay a cent for someone else to do it, simply because it is extremely easy to do this yourself.

When you have the C/C++ source code to the engine (as BRL does, of course), it's extremely simple to make a DLL: Simply insert "_declspec(dllexport)" and "_stdcall" keywords into the function definitions properly, and recompile as DLL. Done.

Paying somebody to "hack" an EXE into a DLL when it's so simple to do this the "proper" way youself is rediculous. That would be like paying someone to crack your safe every time you want to get your money out, instead of simply entering the combination yourself.

One nice feature for indies that are actualy shipping products internationaly is unicode. Don't know what else was in there but that alone would be a welcome feature if I were still interested in using Blitz3D.

Andy, you're making me ill by speaking for BRL or implying what their intentions are. You're stating that they are deliberately not adding a 3d engine to bmax. This isn't true.

This isn't the problem with Fmod. Even if BRL got permission to use Fmod in a dll version of Blitz3D then every user who made a game using it would have to pay for an Fmod license for every title. When Blitz3D was first made the Fmod developers gave BRL special dispensation to use Fmod without requiring Blitz3D users to obtain a license. They made it quite clear that this was a one time only deal, and have refused such deals to many engine and language developers since. So as others have pointed out above a dll version would require an entirely new sound lib. I think there's a lot more to a dll than just a recompile. Remember 'Maxus' or whatever he is called totally disregarded any legal issues where as BRL are in no position to do so and would probably prefer to stay legitimate.

>>So if Mark was OK with it, you wouldn't mind buying a
>>product which is clearly illegal

>Would it have been illeagal if Mark had supported it?

Yes. Remember Mark used atleast one commercial library, which requires a license to be purchased in order to sell a product that uses it.

>Because BRL management decided not to. You're not a
>stockholder, so they don't have to defend their decisions
>to you

Im not asking them to justify their decision to me, Im just asking if a decision has been made. Whereas you assume that one has.

I contacted BRL years ago about a B3D dll for BMX, to spur BMX adoption among B3D users, so that BRL could discontinue B3D in a final release, in order to fully concentrate on BMX3D. I was told that every option would be considered. Quite frankly, this is so obvious that there must have been hundreds such requests, and since no B3D dll version have been released by BRL, my personal conclusion must be that it has been rejected.

>I in fact am just making a case that the work that Marcus
>has done could be co-opted and used by BRL,

Why would they pay a person who is untrustworthy, to do something that they could do themselves. Give Mark and Skidracer some credit, they've been doing this for many years now.

>you seem to know that they have thought about this and >decided against it.

Not at all. I am in no way in the know, but assume that this is the case as it makes for a logical explanation.

>Andy, you're making me ill by speaking for BRL or implying
>what their intentions are.

I am not speaking for BRL in any way!

This is a discussion about the merits of taking a hack written by a person with no credibility what so ever, and then paying that person to develop what BRL could do themselves. I mean, the idea itself is just insane.

>You're stating that they are deliberately not adding a 3d
>engine to bmax.

Not at all. I have only commented on using B3D as a dll, and since we haven't seen such a product from BRL, I assume that this is not in the works.

>This isn't
>true.

I never said it was!


Andy

It is very obvious that most of the user community would like B3D functionality in Blitz Max. Now it seems that Max3d is possibly still 1 - 2 years away from release, what a mess.

Blitz3D is a great product and the users love it, surely it deserves a second chance.

just my two cents.

If Blitz3D is such a great product, why not use it?

..I think CodeGit mean on Blitz3D flexibility and easy of use, reflected on to fancy features of DX9...

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I think many people are just a little frustrated by BRL (or lets just say Mark's) seeming unwillingness to push the Blitz product as much as it deserves, and get new customers and members to this community.

Perhaps we should just accept that Mark is happy with Blitz3d as it is, and that Max3d is coming slowly.

However what I think many people can't accept is the lack of news and details. Nobody here is childish enough to think that release dates are set in stone. I agree with CodeGit in that it is a bit of a mess.

The Game Creators are very experienced in selling ice to Eskimos, but BRL don't.

Rethink everything the way DarkBASIC get more and more popular, BRL has no bad product, but bad market strategy.

To be honest, all this babble isnt going to get Max3D out any quicker. :)

I see a few routes that people can take:-

1) Wait, use Blitz3D
2) Throw 3D out of the window and make a 2D game instead.
3) Use another engine with one of the many wrappers kicking around
4) Grab the DirectX9 SDK and build your own 3D engine for Max to suit your needs.
5) Move languages, preferbly one that will suit your needs

I know a couple in there are way beyond some peoples reach, but, there are options out there, you've just got to dig in a follow them.

And besides, whether Mark has Max3D in a mess isnt our problem, it's his. There's money sitting in these forums and if he cannot tap in to it quickly enough before peoples interest's dwindle, that's his fault.

My gripes with Max at the moment is the IDE (I truely hate it), which I've explained many times before. I have no interest in 3D, so my plan, to suit me, is to sit and wait for Qubes IDE to be released, rather than depending on BRL to do it.

Which I think, other people should do the same involving this Max3D madness!

Dabz

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Can I just say I don't think max3d is a mess, just the way BRL promotes itself. Lack of news and clarity of what's happening and what product's are even going to arrive.

For instance what if Marcus had offered his wrapper for free to existing blitz3d owners? Would this be any different to Simons (A BRL member) coding MiniB3d? Why doesn't Mark object to Minib3d coming from within BRL, considering it muddies the waters for max3d, and if not what would be wrong with releasing a dll for free? In fact you don't have to own Blitz3d to use MiniB3d? So doesn't that have the same effect as Marcus's idea, in that blitz3d loses sales.

Just seems a lack of clarity and of purpose at the moment.

The people in this community have invested time into blitz, and like an Amiga owner with an ST the thought of using something else which you have derided for so long is a bad thought. People just want the product they support to succeed and have a future. What can be seen as people being negative is in reality people wanting to be super positive

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Qubes IDE info, work in progress stuff is here:-

http://www.syntaxbomb.com/forum/index.php?topic=85.0

What do I hate about the MaxIDE, no code folding, no GUI editor (with a proper 'property' section to easily adjust GUI while still looking at it), crappy docs, MDI would be nice, proper 'project' support, no intellisense type aid for types/classes, erm, a proper IDE, that doesnt resemble a slightly more colourful and functual version of Notepad, that'll do I think.

Que Mr F Wack Wack! :)

Dabz

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So what? Price is not the issue.

Yes because MiniB3D is Simons own work, it is not a rip-off of someone elses. Simon isn't standing on the shoulders of proverbial giants.

MiniB3D does not come "from within BRL". MiniB3D comes from Simon Harrison.

Nothing. By all means make your own 3D engine, and release it for free as a dll. Like ColdSteel. Just don't rip-off ColdSteel and try to pass it as your own.

That's not the point.

No. Mini3D is an original work, mmEngine is piracy. Losing sales to other peoples products is different to losing sales to your own product being sold by someone else.

I think you miss my point. Yes what Marcus tried to do imho was theft.

My point is that Mark doesn't want a B3D module available for Max, else he would have done it. In his own words it would have been easy, and he's been asked repeatedly by the rest of BRL to do so and has decided not too. Now however a member of BRL (The last I knew Simon was anyway) is doing just that. Yes its not theft (though you could argue it is in concept), and I personally think a b3d module is a good idea. However if the head of BRL thinks its a bad idea why is another member doing it anyway?

Just muddy waters and no clear indication to the users.

MiniB3d isn't Blitz3d; it's a native, cross-platform OpenGL 3d graphics engine (badly needed by BlitzMax, since it doesn't have many engines written in straight BlitzMax) with a design inspired by Blitz3d :)

Let's make MiiniB3D with a DX driver, and forget Max3D.....

How do you know that? There could be hundreds of reasons why Mark doesn't do it - my guess is the sheer amount of work required to make B3D work on modern hardware is a pretty good reason not to do it. There could be hundreds of other reasons; (Max3D is built using GCC, Blitz3D using VC++); the FMOD licensing issue mentioned; Blitz3D being coded retardedly (there might be another reason besides lazyness, that Blitz3D hasn't recieved any functionality updates in the last couple of years).

What do you mean by member? You cannot be a member of a company, and as far as I'm aware Simon Harrison isn't an employee of BRL.

MiniB3D is not Blitz3D. Not in concept, not in implementation. It is an original work. There are hundreds of reasons why Simon decided to write his own 3D engine - maybe he didn't want to wait for Mark to come through either.

Speaking strictly personally here, as someone who'd really like to see this...



The Fmod issue could by covered by simply not including it. There's already a Max module for this, which means only interested parties would have to pay for an Fmod license. For me personally, providing *only* what Max doesn't already offer would be great, or even just the 3D command set if it came down to it.



I don't believe Mark's against doing it in principle, but a Blitz3D DLL/SDK would have to sell to be worthwhile adding to the product portfolio, and I suspect many people would want it free if they already have Blitz3D, or want it to sell really cheaply, taking away potential profits from Blitz3D, which still sells well (even to C/C++ and other developers). While free/dirt cheap might be nice, it isn't good business for such a small company.

I'd personally love to see a Blitz3D DLL/SDK, but would people be willing to pay, and what seems reasonable to you, bearing the above points clearly in mind? Maybe the answers to this could help to convince Mark... or put him off completely!

PLEASE NOTE: I'm asking strictly unofficially here, just out of personal interest and because Mark has already mentioned that I've been bugging him about it...

I think a $50-$70 price tag would be very reasonable.

Keep in mind though that it could well be that MiniB3D will pass a Blitz3D DLL/SDK within a year concerning speed and functionality.

Nevertheless, a BlitMax dll version of Blitz3D's 3d runtime would be a good expansion of BRL's product palette imho. And I would happily pull my wallet for it.

Actually, the DarkGDK's price is equal(for making freeware) or twice(for making shareware) as DBPro.

If there's a DLL version SDK, it's probably priced same as Blitz3D and you'l have to get your own audio SDK.

Of course BRL isn't TGC, BRL don't sell ice to Eskimos.

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The dude's name is Maxus not Marcus

Be careful about suggesting a discount... I got a lot of HATE for that very idea... and I still consider it a good one!

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@Maxus, sorry I got your name wrong.

Well... I for one am going to rip a DLL from B3D and see if its faster than miniB3D is. And if it is, Im going to use it.

It isn't.

Thaks Duck. Good job I didnt buy it off Maxus them ;)