Newbie question regarding speed.

[cocoflop]

Hi there, I'm a new user of thinbasic. :)

I think thinbasic is an amazing piece of software, but is it ideal for games?
Speaking of games, is it ideal for 3D games?

I would like to make not just a simple puzzle game, but something like vehicle sports game.
I plan to use shaders, shadows, AI logic, maybe my own physics..., networking - multiplayer. Like a normal complete game.
(That's why I plan to spend the next 12 months in development, so I would take my time, not in a hurry. ;))

Currently, I search for an easy and usable engine, with a decent amount of features and an active community.
I find Thinbasic to be the the ideal weapon of choice as it includes all the above, but most importantly, it is based on my
coding style and skills.

I hope I don't give an image of me having great expectations...
I appreciate the fact that thinbasic is distributed for free, and this is that does matter mostly.
Next, I'm an indie developer, and I code just for fun. OK, some people are having fun
playing flash games, but that's me. ;) I hope by spending some of my time with thinbasic,
I'll make something that is worth looking.

I would like to hear your opinion based on the features of thinbasic and your experience.

[kryton9]

I think you will be very happy with thinBasic for what you want.

Currently there 2 on going developments that will interest you.

First is tbgl, which is a very easy to use opengl with more features being added all the time.

The second is support for the irrlicht engine.

Another big plus and it is big is that the creators of the language are very active and great at putting new commands you might need.
Usually there are a few updates to the language during the week, that is how quickly it is updated with newer and easier to use commands and wish lists being full filled.

Browse around, download some of the demo programs for games and graphics. You can also do a search on you tube for some video clips of cool programs being run in thinBasic. Just do a search for thinBasic and you find many nice videos to show you aspects of the graphics available!

[Petr Schreiber]

Welcome!,

I am author of TBGL module, thinBASIC special implementation of OpenGL.
From your wish list only problem I can see are ( theoretically ) shaders, as I had not time to experiment with them yet.

I try to make TBGL easy to use and widely compatible with both modern and legacy hardware. This is also one of reasons there is no direct support for shaders yet.

Good thing about thinBASIC is that you can interface with other tools both using compiled modules ( SDK is available for wide range of tools ) and also using standard declares/header. This makes life easier. Also you can combine "classic" OpenGL commands ( provided in include files with standard intallation ) with TBGL.

TBGL uses its own model format - M15. Files of this type can be exported both by dedicated thinEdge (http://psch.thinbasic.com/thinEdge.html) modeler, or extracted using very nice exporter from Blender.

<selfAdvertisement>In a month there will be new version of TBGL which will introduce more speed and lot of handy commands as well as tweaks of older ones.</selfAdvertisement>
Code is done, now is time to write documentation.

As kryton9 said, Roberto is making port of powerful Irrlicht (http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/) engine.
Using Irrlicht you are able to use low level vertex and pixel shaders ( assembly like syntax ) and also HLSL ( nicer syntax, bit slower ). New OpenGL GLSL should be supported too.

I am not sure Roberto ported shading commands already, but I think it should not be problem anyway.
I also recommend you to download SDK from both ATi/nVidia to find some nice shader examples ready to use.

Robertos implementation of Irrlicht will maybe fit your needs better, it depends what you want to create because "something like vehicle sports game" is quite general :)

My personal feeling from thinBASIC is ultrapositive, I am watching this project from its origins years ago.
Both core developers ( Eros Olmi and Roberto Bianchi ) are very smart and friendly people, and community around is simply terrific :)


Bye,
Petr

[ErosOlmi]

Hi cocoflop,

thanks for your post.
thinBasic can do many things, even more than the one we expected but remember thinBasic is an interpreted language and not a compiled language. It will be never possible to compete with the execution speed of a compiled language. So, in order to reduce this gap, we have created many interesting features that with few lines of code make the same as other languages make with much more lines of code.

thinBasic can do very interesting 3D things using a specific module called TBGL created by Psch user (Petr Schreiber). TBGL module wrap and improve standard OpenGL library adding the full OpenGL world to thinBasic language and adding easy to be used new features that with simple commands make great jobs. You will find more info on it at http://psch.thinbasic.com You will also find TBGL .chm help file under thinBasic\Help\ directory. Also a must is a dedicated forum here you can see at http://community.thinbasic.com/index.php?board=39.0 There is a lot of material posted there thanks to generosity of many nice people here.

As kryton9 already mentioned, we are also developing a module to wrap Irrlicht library. This development has just started so it will take some time to have something enough mature to be able to develop real games but so far it seems not impossible. Target of Irrlicht thinBasic module is to bring Irrlicht power into thinBasic but in an easy to be used way. Irrlicht is a quite massive and complex library mostly developed using C++

That said, we are always open to add new features to thinBasic when user ask us. Sometime it is easy sometime it takes more time but be sure we will listen your opinions and we will try our best to accomplish them.

Have fun here and let us know about your ideas, projects, difficulties or whatever you will find interesting to let us know.

Ciao
Eros

[Michael Hartlef]

Welcome on the forum! Mmh, a racing sim, that was allways my dream. :)

Thinbasic script execution is very very fast. The game/graphic/sound functionalities are mostly added through modules/DLLs so I think if you plan your game carefully, it should be possible. Ofcourse, I don't know what kind of polycount you are targeting and which features you are needing.

Like Kent said, Irrlicht is on its way but noone can say when the module is done. But you can use TBGL right now for the graphic part. It doesn't suport shaders and shadws right now but if you talk to Petr, maybe he can come up with something. Also you can use OpenGL directly with it.
Input for the game can be done though the TBDI module which also supports loading FF-Effect files and playing them back. There is also an ODE include file so you can use this for the physics/colllision. For creating/porting you 3d models to TBGL the best choice right now is Blender. I created an export script for it. For sound there is a BASS module.

My advice is that create a simple prototype that have a good amount of polys to move around and uses physics and some ai logic.

Have a look into the TopDown section in this forum. We all trying to create a space shooting game with a story behind it and so far ThinBasic didn't stop us. Of course we are not done. Also maybe you will find here someone who will be glad to help with your project.

[cocoflop]

Great! Thanks for your answers.
That was exactly what I would like know about thinbasic.
So I start from the Nehe tutorials for the moment, and we'll keep in touch.

[ErosOlmi]

cocoflop,

on speed issues, please read this post from Petr: http://community.thinbasic.com/index.php?topic=668.0
Correct drivers make a big difference.

Ciao
Eros

[ErosOlmi]

cocoflop,

sorry to bother you again but a little last tip about thinBasic.
Always be sure to use latest thinBasic preview version (http://) and not latest stable version. Latest preview is updated quite frequently and have always the latest new features and bug fix we were able to add. You will get notice of new preview release from Product announcements (http://community.thinbasic.com/index.php?board=19.0) forum whenever ready.

Have fun with thinBasic.
Ciao
Eros

[matthew]

Hi cocoflop, if ever you have any questions regarding the NeHe tutorials, I'd be happy to try and answer them. :)