You wanted Shaders, B3D Like syntax, ease of use..

And Cobra is that, yet I don't see many folks from here embracing it.

Is the price putting you off?

Is the fact that you have to buy 2 seperate licenses, one for Cobra Core and one for Cobra3D also swaying your decision not to buy and would you buy it if it was an all in one solution?

Do you want more OOP ways of programming in Cobra before you buy?

Is it the syntax that puts you off and the fact that you have to learn a delphi like syntax?

If Cobra came as a dll which you could use with BlitzMax, c#, C++ would you then consider buying it.

I hope this is ok to post as it's game related and in General Discussion and as other Engines such as TV3D, Dreamotion, minib3d, 3impact, S2 are dicussed here I thought it would be ok to discuss Cobra.

:)

Personally, I hate the sintax of Pascal: it takes out the benefits of Basic by being unnecessarily picky.

Also, the last time I tried it the 3D part wasn't even documented. As of now, there isn't a complete featureset on the homepage, and from what is written on the homepage I can't even tell if it actually surpasses B3D in that respect.

Finally, I'm not so sure of its performance and stability since the demo I tried months ago weren't very performing or complex, and the showcase isn't inspiring.

without a good community and it being well used etc, i won't use it. I know its kinda catch 22, but thats how I feel.

Personally, the demos of Cobra are completely mince (least the last time I looked they were) and without some inspiration of clever, well thought out demos I'm not interested in paying money to find out what it's capable of.

Demos seem to be the weak point of languages/engines I see about here. Leadwerks engine, flow etc all cack demos = no sale from me.

Why did I buy Blitz3D? Because of Rob's cubemapped water demo, the head, the two birds flying in a canyon and Mark's Castle demo (not visually inspiring but showed the key programming techniques required for a 3D game).

So.... Demos, demos demos! They should not be just some after thought they are the KEY element in marketing your product.

I've got so used to using OOP now, I'd hate to go back to something like Blitz3D. Cobra isn't cross platform either, is it? I'm not doing and Mac/Linux stuff yet but I'll probably want to in the future.

What I've seen of Cobra looks great, don't get me wrong. But I'm semi-happy where I am now, save for the lack of official, cross-platform 3D.

Honestly, Cobra could be Max3D and a lot of people would reject it for not having the word "Blitz" in the name. I'm not saying that is the case, but I am saying there is a strong loyalty to the name. A lot of people moved on from Blitz3D, and many of the remaining are the true faithful.

I am the true faithfull.

Im with gfk if it aint cross platform I aint touching it, I only use Blitz3d for prototyping now.

the guy who made cobra is waiting for more enthusiasm before he ports it to other platforms and makes it OOP.
He should just go ahead and do those 2 things and then he will see his community grow.

Also the cobra downloadable demo is poor because there were no example programs last time I checked. Blitz3D comes with about 30 example programs.

Cobra is not selling well due to fact that unless you know about it, you won't know about it.

I don't see it here:
http://www.devmaster.net/engines/

i have bought it, but i am still using b3d ;) never touched Cobra right now - i will switch over when my current project is finished.

I'm interested but do think making a "package" deal would help.
Kind of waiting to see just where it's going to go before making the decision.

What ardee said.

The thing that got me with Blitz was looking at the demos, going "Oh yeah, that's pretty cool", and then looking at the source code and thinking "Holy crap - that's it?!".

There's no similar experience for Cobra yet, and until there is, there's no "hook" - just a list of things smart people might be able to make use of somehow.

..I was interested a lot..I was on forums often, i asked for some infos, features wise, i waited..i never got answer, and I leave it..

Not interested in Cobra, sorry.

More than the name the track record, as Blitz Research has proven to provide solid, widely compatible and stable products already used in many commercial games. Reliability and support goes before anything else in a third party engine since you don't have control over its bugs.

However, everything aside, the author of Cobra 3D didn't make any effort whatsoever to show the capabilities of its product, so that only their existent user base can know how much it's worth.

I can live with 2D....

Even if Max3D still died this year, I'll keep using BMax.

And uh, Cobra is GOOD anyway, but finishing a game is the #1 priority for me, not waiting for a tool etc.

Just had a quick look at Cobra.

It does look interesting - it seems to have the same commandset as Blitz3d and with a lot of the things built in that Blitz users have had to shoehorn in with extra libs.

Faster too I think - possibly much faster.

Demos are a bit basic though - if they had a few games thrown in rather than spinning cubes, etc..

I'm a Cobra owner/user (so perhaps you should take my opinion with a pinch of salt) and Cobra+3d module embodies everything that I always hoped for from "Blitz3d v2". Since it's bad form to promote directly competing products here I'll say no more.

For a start, googling 'Cobra programming' brings up this...

cobra-language.com

That's not the same language, is it? Plus, the website for Cobra3D looks downright ugly. Incredibly ugly. If a guy can't at least fix the nasty design of his site and create a few images demonstrating the engine can actually do something (more than really bad beginner dx7 attempts), I tend to wonder what the development of the product might be like.

No, there's 2 Cobras.

Cobra (programming language from Cobra Language LLC)

Cobra (programming language from Squeaky Duck)

That was a smart name choice by one of them.

If they let me beta test max3d i'll do a similar flashy demo ;)

Ah man I would love the chance to get a demo on the official distribution. A competition to produce the best demos could be a laugh.

>That was a smart name choice by one of them.
When I went public with info on a language called Cobra 2 years prior to the other one... ;)

I'm also wondering what is it that means that someone who isn't great on web design, can't be a decent compiler developer.... Generally, I truly suck at graphics, and being an indie (like most people here) I don't have the $$$ to sink into paying people to produce flash demo's. Is that a bad thing ? well yes, can I do much about that ? we'll no, not at the moment.

All I can say is that I've taken on board a lot of suggestions on how to make Cobra better, sell it better etc.. And there will be a fair few changes happening in the next few months.

And that's about all I'll say, as I still stick to my policy of not plugging cobra to any real extent on Marks forum.

Ah okay... well, we'll blame the other guy then ;) Still, he is winning the google search war.



Sure you can. You take down the google ads (or you make them more discreet, but personally I'd just take them down) and you either buy Sitespinner and go with a minimalistic design, or you make the whole site a blog. Then, you actually test your website in a browser. Or two. I mean, your website isn't just bad... it looks like an absolute disaster. A third of your own banner ads are cut off in Opera, and IE (I didn't bother testing Firefox). What that says to me is you're not taking the thing seriously, and you don't care enough about your own work to check to make sure what you just did on your website works. Maybe that's not true (in fact I know it's not true), but you're asking me to take out my wallet and hand you over a fair amount of cash, and then trust you actually do care about your product, even though it looks like you've left your own webspace to rot. The idea really isn't go with a killer flash website. The idea is to fix things that make you look incompetent.

Plus, the example images don't help the situation. You should hold a contest- a free copy to anyone that can provide a decent example. You'd have your fair share of willing participants, I guarentee it. Right now, a quick look at Cobrabytes.com and anyone with half a brain would run in the other direction. Some of the example images look worse than my first levels in Ken Silverman's build engine.



Very good of you.

I don't think there is too much wrong with the Cobrabytes site - baring in mind it is just a start - Blitzbasic didn't start with this site.

OK, one last reply.
That's odd.. the site (I take it you mean cobrabytes) looks fine in IE/Opera and firefox which is what I usually check with? Still happy to hear if there are issues so I can fix them. Squeakyduck wasn't a good looking site, I never really got the hang of the template system in subdreamer. (actually, thanks for the pointer to sitespinner, that looks quite interesting).

The contest is a bit of a chicken & egg situation.. It's a new language, so not many people know how to use it, people don't really want to try a new language without flashy demo's, can't get flashy demo's without people who know how to use it.. rinse & repeat!

With Sitespinner... it's annoying in certain ways, but it's good for simple jobs. Plus, the community will help get things sorted if you hit troubles, and the devs are good people.

I'll have to get back to you about the site... it's my bedtime :) For a demo- buy a mesh with a nice normal map (or find a free one- there are a few around) and add it to a scene with fairly neutral lights and shadows and whatever else you have to make it look nice. Avoid strong colours like pink and flouro green! If you're not sure of the quality of the model, or your lighting choices, ask an artist. Do not ask a programmer ;) I believe people will love it, and programmers from all around will rock up to create pretty shader thingies... as they usually like to do.

EDIT: Also, congrats on getting Cobra to where you have. I remember reading about your development of it a long while back.

Pay me and I'll do one for you.

I would if it ran on Linux and Mac...

I think it would sell better at one price, if it was going to be used by a professional development company, then they could contact the author for a license.
I am waiting for Nuclear basic, one license, one cheap price.

Build a World Creator and they will come. One that incorporates all the languages features with pulldown menus and little buttons to push.
This will appeals to both the lazy guys who want to see code without actually writing any and the one-uppers who will want to prove they can make one better than comes with it.

Sales will skyrocket ^

DOG

I hear where you're coming from. It would need a few demos straight off the bat, but there's nothing stopping them having a compo and updating the distribution after that. Learning the language will be no problem- it will taste a lot like B3D with a little more sprinkles and sauce.

Im with Edzup & TAtoad; no XPlat, no go.

I don't like to learn new language or syntax anymore, I started with the Amos(basic) then added Asm, then went to C, then the Blitz3d, then started working with the Java.. I looked the Cobra little bit but there was nothing extra that could make me to get and learn it. Mayby using 3impact has spoiled me, intergrated physics, simple stencil shadows and shaders and relatively easy to use with C makes me hard customes to please now.. I like 3d physics and 3impact servers me well for that and Blitz3d servers me for things where I dont need shadows, shaders and physics.. :)
Still sometimes, I dont know why, I search and "dream" about Blitz3d that could have all that physics and shaders and shadows and that extra something... which in my case content pipeline that is bit annoyance when using 3impact.

Ew, pascal.

Nope, I'm now just awaiting Max3D..

I am quite satisfied with BlitzMax.

I don't think that matters very much: a sober web design is sufficient, and there are plenty of CMS and templates. I didn't care about this aspect anyway.

People mostly complained about engine demos which were not able to show the capabilities of the engine, which looks shallow by the showcase even though it may not be the case.

Personally, I was also baffled by the total absence of a complete featureset on the website about 3D but a short list of features which don't give a proper idea. Also an online command reference could be useful to understand at a glance what it can do.

I wonder why nobody mentioned this:



Ok, okaaaay, I'll shut up now :)