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Home ? Feedback ? Switch to a different game engine

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24/11/2010 04:49:46

NeXuS
NeXuS
Posts: 4 		Hello everyone,
I hope I do not sound too bold, this being my first post, but I was wondering if there is a special reason that lead to the choice of the UT3 engine to realize Muvizu.

As much as I like it, I find that the UT3 engine is limiting Muvizu in way too many aspects, two of the most prominent being that:

- it does not run on Linux (and I know there are a lot of Linux users who would love it)

- the asset import procedure is a pain in the buttocks.

While I understand the team already has way too much work, I believe a switch to an engine like Ogre3d (which I mention because of its completeness, feature wise) would be highly beneficial to artists as well, given that export plugins are available for the majority of the widespread modeling packages.

Please take this as the humble opinion of a pretty new user who loves Muvizu but would like it to become even better, I do not wish to start a flame war...




Keep up the good work!
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24/11/2010 08:24:15

pyrrho
pyrrho
Posts: 123 		NeXuS wrote:
I was wondering if there is a special reason that lead to the choice of the UT3 engine to realize Muvizu ...

Please take this as the humble opinion of a pretty new user


Hello, Nexus -

Yes, we chose Unreal Engine 3 for quite a few reasons - the Maya pipeline, the open-mindedness of the people at Epic and the flexibility that we get from the technology. I'm sorry that you find the object import a painful process, but we're still working on it so - perhaps aided by your suggestions - it should improve.

It's nice that you describe yourself as humble, but please provide a photo so that we may judge whether or not you are pretty :-)

vince
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24/11/2010 09:17:41

mcmillan-raExperimental userMuvizu staff
mcmillan-ra
Posts: 164 		Hi NeXuS,

Just to add a few additional things to Vince's response...

As I recall, the UT3 engine has more features than OGRE. We looked at it before we started - a few years ago now, OGRE is specifically a rendering engine rather than a game engine. The additional features (such as scripting, object management, IO and a host of other things that I can't remember at the moment) that are in UT3 have made it much easier for us to build muvizu quickly. If we had used Ogre, we'd have needed to write (or find and integrate) these features ourselves, and it would have taken us longer to make it. The main point now, I guess, is if we were to switch now we'd need to start all over again. So, it's unlikely to happen. Sorry.

Regards the import procedure, what is it in particular you are having trouble with? As far as I know exports are available from most 3D Modelling tools, including: Maya, 3DS Max, Blender, Google Sketch-up, and I think Modo. I don't think they should be any more difficult to use than the export for Ogre. I could be wrong though.
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24/11/2010 11:25:43

NeXuS
NeXuS
Posts: 4 		Thanks for the kind replies,
while it is true that Ogre is mainly focused at rendering, from what I remember (but I maybe wrong) it also has quite extensive features for scene management, has plugins for UI and physics and other bells and whistles. I understand that switch would probably mean a lot of work, but mine was just a mere suggestion, given also the fact that you never know what might happen with the future management at Epic (somebody might decide to cut all the licenses and they would have all the rights to do that).


I had spent about 10 minutes writing a long reply about importing, then the servers were down for migration. In the meantime I kept on trying the import process and now it works. And I fail to see what I did differently in the process... oh well, I guess that's one less problem to take care of!

By the way, out of pure curiosity, is the fact that you are keeping Muvizu closed source a team choice or is it because of licensing issues? Did you actually ever think of going open source at all?
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24/11/2010 13:32:17

NeilExperimental userMuvizu staff
Neil
Posts: 396 		NeXuS wrote:
By the way, out of pure curiosity, is the fact that you are keeping Muvizu closed source a team choice or is it because of licensing issues? Did you actually ever think of going open source at all?

Speaking without my Muvizu hat on for a moment, I'd be interested to hear what you think the benefits of making Muvizu open source would be.
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24/11/2010 13:41:16

NeXuS
NeXuS
Posts: 4 		Neil wrote:

Speaking without my Muvizu hat on for a moment, I'd be interested to hear what you think the benefits of making Muvizu open source would be.




First of all let me say that I am not a proposer of Open Source at all costs.

To me, though, Muvizu seems like one of those projects that might actually benefit a lot from an extended pool of developers and artists.

There are two fundamental reasons for my statement... more people means that:

- features would be implemented faster and, at the same time, the original developers could still retain a tight control on code quality/task priority

- the available props library would rapidly grow as well

And I believe that is exactly what everybody, me included, would like to see!




Anyway, as I already said, my question was purely out of curiosity. Muvizu is already a very nice product as it is.
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24/11/2010 14:24:57

NeilExperimental userMuvizu staff
Neil
Posts: 396 		Just to clarify my own opinion of open source: I think it's great. I've contributed to a few open source projects over the years, and have given away much of my home-made software to various communities. I think it has its place however, and I don't think it would suit Muvizu very well.

NeXuS wrote:
- features would be implemented faster and, at the same time, the original developers could still retain a tight control on code quality/task priority


I disagree here, I think it would suffer quite badly. In my opinion, open source projects are contributed to by technically-minded developers with a bias towards the features they desire, and little regard for how it would affect other users. That's something that we've worked particularly hard on, trying to make it easy for beginners to pick up easily. Besides, I think we've got a good pace for adding new features anyway.

NeXuS wrote:
- the available props library would rapidly grow as well


This I *do* agree with. However, we have plans to (eventually) open up user-contributed assets for people to download and use. Btw, we already have several user-contributed pre-built sets available within Muvizu.

Thanks for the feedback. Please don't feel like I'm arguing with you or anything, I just find this sort of discussion quite interesting.
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24/11/2010 14:41:52

NeXuS
NeXuS
Posts: 4 		Neil wrote:

Thanks for the feedback. Please don't feel like I'm arguing with you or anything, I just find this sort of discussion quite interesting.

Thanks for letting me become aware of the very important opinion of one of the developers, as well as reading my opinion for what it is.
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24/11/2010 15:16:11

pyrrho
pyrrho
Posts: 123 		NeXuS wrote:
is the fact that you are keeping Muvizu closed source a team choice or is it because of licensing issues? Did you actually ever think of going open source at all?


I'd like everything to be open source and I believe that information wants to be free. However, real-world constraints intervene occasionally and Muvizu can't be open source because its core is UE3 (this was the most sensible and timely route to getting a product released) and that's a bit of tech that we license on Epic's terms. In short, we don't own the code, we're just allowed to use it on their commercial terms. Mind you, Epic is a pretty good outfit to deal with and its UDK release a year or so ago shows enlightened thinking.

We are, however, trying to open up Muvizu as much as possible to allow import of third-party-created assets - we've got part of the way there and intend to go further.

vince
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Muvizu is easy to use 3D animation software that allows anyone to create high quality animations quickly and easily. Muvizu’s animation engine is ideal for storytellers, animators, teachers and businesses looking to engage, enchant and delight audiences with animated content.