Greetings folks. As is generally the case, I like thousands others before me, decided that I can make better games than the current AAA titles out there, despite having 0 game development knowledge. Unfortunately, unlike the more practical people, I decided not to start with asteroid and tetris clones. Fortunately, I am also not trying to make a Bioshock. What I am looking towards creating is a tech demo of sorts; @ A single small level (around the size of a large quake iii map) @ volumetric clouds and diffuse lighting @ real time dynamic soft shadows and shader mappings @ Rigid bodies, Proper real world physics and collision detecton @ models of a small segment of a medieval town near the docks @ main character model with 3ps pov @ day night cycles and weather. @ ambient directonal sound The demo will consist of one street boxed on side with houses and the other side with water. All the user will be able to do is to run back and forth admiring the shadows and lighting and twiddle his thumbs while the weather and day-night cycles kick in. Again, I am not looking to make a full fledged game, rather a low content high scope run through demo. As I don't have much coding knowledge, i decided to go for editors and wrapper languages. Though if I do end up with something really good, i will get into C++. I probably will be using 3ds max for the model and animation parts. At first i tried using open source tools but gave them up when i realized that they are too hard for my current level and that there are free commercial alternatives. the tools that i am thinking of using are; 1. TV3D - the soft shadows here and the shaders are just too good. Even better is the fact that its free for non commercial use. non n00b friendly.:/ 2. Neoaxis - good physics but shoddy lighting/shadows. has a free non commercial version which is somewhat gimped. 3. Leadwerks: The absolutely best lighting i have seen. the graphics in this one look comparable to most AA games out there. There is no free version, though the price is pretty low and i can get it if everyone overwhelmingly recommends it. 4. Game Studio: Probably the easiest one to start off with. But i keep hearing that its outdated and bloated. All my opinion here is based off some reviews, screenshots and demos out there. I would love top hear from people who have actually used them. I am currently leaning more towards TV3D. Can any of you recommend one out of these? Which one is the best toolset for me in terms of ease of use (don't want just a map maker/editor, though), best graphical output (with which to dazzle and wow the ladies), allowance for maximum technical bragging rights with minimal effort.

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didn't expect that... ^_^

hi and thanks Josh for taking the time to type all that down.
I have seen most of your demos and am currently rummaging through your forums for interesting stuff. My initial impression of your engine is great. i absolutely heart the lighting model that you have implemented. even though your demo totally kills my moderate machine.

The only doubt i have with your engine is the lack of a free non commercial license. I believe that a feature limited non commercial license would be great for fence sitters like me. That way i could try my hand at your engine, find out if its good for me and then if i really want to go somewhere with it, fork out the license fee.

I still feel TV3D to be sronger contender just because I can try it out first. Anyway, I surely will be keeping an eye out on your engine.

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