Official demo release is now ready

http://www.squeakyduck.co.uk/

I'll say no more.

I have go on it and it is very good :)

Example files can be found in the "My Documents\My Cobra Projects\Examples" directory

Looking at the command list, regarding meshes:


I don't understand why indie languages always underestimate the importance of having proper mesh and animation support (either with interchangeable formats like FBX or Collada, or at least support for major modellers). So far, it is only useful for static meshes, unless you want to mess with old and limited gaming formats such as SMD/MD2/MD3/GL2.

I don’t know. I’m still undecided on Cobra3d. The first 3d things I tried (skyboxes and terrains) I encountered possible bugs and inconsistencies (details posted in the squeakyduck Cobra3d forum). Still don’t know if this is a result of my incompetence or not. The docs require a bit more work too, IMO.

I do prefer Cobra’s Pascal-esque language to Blitz3d’s BASIC. Though it’s not as powerful as BlitzMax’s partial-OO BASIC - and not as complicated either, which is a good thing for some people.

I will say Cobra3d has a *lot* of nice, easy-to-use features. It will be interesting see how it is six months from now. And Puki likes it, so there must be something good about it. ;)

I'm pretty sure that file format list must be out of date. Graham was working on adding animated B3D support ages ago. ( Don't take my word on this 100%, I am not a Cobra user. )

Partial support, what is that? why not go the whole hog and put it in

Me either. I'm guessing "because the language developers never had to do anything with it themselves"?

Simply because it's easier implementing proper static model support than reliable animation support.

Does the modeller do it's part correctly?
Is the export and import for instance built on a reliable FBX SDK?
Does the 3d engine handle this properly?

A lot of things can go wrong in this chain. Animations are a subject were you can divide the good from the bad ones. Beside of this you can do quite some stuff with static meshes already.

Cobra has full support for .b3d.

I have to register to download the demo?

Can someone mirror the demo? Having to 'register' to check out a demo is rubbish.

Can't find the post, but from what I recall, Graham had a problem with someone trying to either trigger a DOS attack (or at least being an idiot) by repeatedly initiating multiple downloads of the original demo, so implemented the need to register first.

Fair enough then (and idiots who pull DOS attacks need to get a life).

Yep, the reason you have to register is that some moron decided that he would trigger (multiple times) 10,000 simultaneous downloads of the demo.

It's well worth registering though and trying the demo. You may find yourself byten by the Cobra. :)

Correct. Full B3D support is now in.

Sorry about the registration restriction, but yes as people have said, someone did launch a DOS attack on the server, which luckily the hosting service managed to block, otherwise it would have been a substantial bandwidth bill for me (and potentially called a close to squeakyduck).
Once time and funds allow I'm hoping to remove the restriction and make it open again.

Nearly fell of my chair when I saw the title of this thread. I thought Puki had released something himself :-P

Then the documentation really needs to be updated: how is the user supposed to know, if it isn't written anywhere? :)

Anyway, B3D suffers from similar problems: While it is a good format itself, there aren't good converters except for the max pipeline (which was written by a third party and, if not for this guy, we wouldn't have proper support for any modeller).

It would have made sense if Sibly coded some pipelines himself after releasing his own format, but imposing a proprietary file format and leaving everything else up to third parties just doesn't make sense.

Support for major modellers or interchangeable formats should be a must for any serious 3D engine.

Agreed.

Agreed