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Engine Details

DX Studio

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DX Studio is a complete integrated development environment for creating interactive 3D graphics. The system comprises of both a real-time 3D engine and a suite of editing tools. The engine allows JavaScript control of everything from changing the background to editing meshes in real-time. You can also command and control documents from outside of the player using the ActiveX/COM interface. Using DX Studio you can build complete real-time interactive applications, simulations or games, for standalone use or for embedding in other Microsoft Office/Visual Studio applications. The playback engine in both EXE and ActiveX DLL forms can be redistributed without any further royalties.

Author

Worldweaver Ltd.

Graphics API

DirectX

Operating Systems

Windows

Programming Language

C/C++, C#, Visual Basic 6, VB.NET

Status

Productive/Stable

Documentation

Yes

Features

General Features

Object-Oriented Design, Plug-in Architecture, Save/Load System, Other:

•	3D Modeller
•	Resource Editor
•	Document Encryption
•	Rebranding
•	Streaming Scenes/Meshes/Textures
•	XML/ZIP standards
•	Shell Integration

Scripting

•	Fully scriptable (JavaScript) for all events and actions
•	Complete runtime control of effects, meshes, materials, backgrounds, etc possible via script
•	File, Web and XML classes provided

Built-in Editors

Drill down from document, to scene, to mesh, to vertex, to texture map.

Physics

Basic Physics, Collision Detection, Rigid Body, Vehicle Physics:

•	Constraints
•	Complete integrated physics engine (Bullet) and collision detection system
•	Ageia PhysX implementation

Lighting

Per-vertex, Per-pixel, Lightmapping, Radiosity, Gloss maps, Anisotropic:

•	Emissive maps
•	Gradient based reflection for metals

Shadows

Shadow Mapping, Shadow Volume:

•	Shadow maps can be built/recreated at runtime
•	Vertex shader shadows

Texturing

Basic, Multi-texturing, Bumpmapping, Mipmapping, Volumetric, Procedural:

•	Specular mapping
•	Opacity mapping
•	Bump mapping

Shaders

Vertex, Pixel, High Level:

•	Ability to define your own material from a FX file
•	Change shader parameters from script
•	Graceful degradation to fixed function pipeline for older cards

Scene Management

General, BSP, LOD:

•	Stream scenes in the background to avoid loading screens
•	Area visibility

Animation

Keyframe Animation, Skeletal Animation, Facial Animation, Animation Blending:

Meshes

Mesh Loading, Skinning, Tessellation, Deformation:

•	Imports FBX, DAE (COLLADA), X, 3DS, LWO, OBJ, DXF, WRL
•	Run-time mesh generation and vertex morphing

Special Effects

Environment Mapping, Lens Flares, Billboarding, Particle System, Depth of Field, Motion Blur, Sky, Water, Fire, Explosion, Decals, Fog, Weather:

•	Complete external DirectX plugin support
•	Post production effects (including bloom, fuzzy tv, camera shake, sepia)
•	Cube-mapped environments supported for display and reflections
•	Radial Blur
•	Animated Textures (with GIF support)

Terrain

Rendering:

•	DTED support

Networking System

Client-Server:

•	Client/Server networking via sockets, with automatic discovery and GUID protection
•	Call remote script functions

Sound & Video

2D Sound, 3D Sound, Streaming Sound:

•	Streaming Video
•	Multiple simultaneous video channels
•	Streaming Live Capture
•	Compatible media file formats include WAV, MPEG, AVI, MP3 and OGG

Artificial Intelligence

Pathfinding, Decision Making, Finite State Machines, Scripted, Neural Networks:

Rendering

Fixed-function, Raycasting, Render-to-Texture, Fonts, GUI:

Features:

Ease of Use:

Stability:

Support:

Date Added

Thu, 14 Jun 2007

Last Updated

Tue, 1 Apr 2008

There are currently 35 reviews for this engine

License Name	Price	Source Code	Comments
Other/Custom	Free	No	Freeware Edition
Other/Custom	$98.12	No	Non Commercial, Standard Edition
Other/Custom	$196.24	No	Non Commercial, Pro Edition
Other/Custom	$343.42	No	Commercial, Standard Edition
Other/Custom	$735.90	No	Commercial, Pro Edition

Screenshots:

Member Reviews

NOTE: The ratings and reviews below reflect the opinions of their respective authors and as such, do not reflect the opinions of DevMaster.net or its staff. The reviews are not moderated and some are completely inaccurate. Therefore, most reviews should be taken with a grain of salt. If you find any inaccurate or inappropriate reviews, let us know by stating in detail why you think the review should be removed and any links/documents that support your contention.

Great Engine at a Great Price

Posted by: sbwilliams at Aug 25, 2005

I have spent several months looking for an easy to learn and use Game Engine for a large commercial project.

I found it when I found DX Studio. The interface is very easy to use and learn. I didn't have to compile anything. The scripting language is Javascript. The learning curve is low but the things you can do are comparable to some of the higher priced engines I've tested.

The support is the best I've ever recieved for any product. I received quick and professional service and support everytime I had a question or problem. They want your project to be a success.

One of the major problems is using models from Maya. Many engines require you to use a .X format. The problem is that there is little support for Maya beyond version 5. DX Studio is able to import Maya models directly using the RTG format found in Maya. It is an absolute joy to create something in Maya and then be able to see it in your game faster than you thought possible.

For someone looking to get into Game Development for the first time, or a seasoned pro looking for a better way, I highly recommed this engine.

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One of the best indies engine out there.

Posted by: at Mar 1, 2009

I was a DXstudio member since end of 2007.
By the same time we were looking for a nice kick ass indie engine, that would let us make a 3D game with a very limited time and easyness.
We are developing a commercial game called Forgotten Memories. After looking and testing several engines out there, we found DXstudio!
This is not a game library, or scene graph, this is not a 3D graphics engine. This is a wonderful entire game framework platform!
Theses ho are waiting for the Windows release of Unity, i would like to tell them that the upcoming version of DXstudio (3.1)will make a real step into the future of 3D game/app dev. Watch out Unity ;)
New and state of the art features.
More shaders and effects.
Paged geometry.
Huges terrains,
terrain tools,
better scene graph.
Better occlussion and culling optimization.
Better resources management.
Better and faster lighting techniques.
Better networking tools.
PSSM.
Collada and FBX native support.
(Currently suporting dxmes mesh, .x, 3ds and obj 100%)
Just to name a few upcoming features, the list is just too big.
The strongest point of this engine is the easiness. You can make things up quickly fast. Also you get first class support. Even freeware users get support by DXstudio developers!
The engine is writhed in C++, its inscripting language is Javascript(with intellisense in the code editor!).
The engine is very stable, it never crashed in game, only 1-2 times in the editor and i was because i was loading corrupted 3D data!
You can embed the engine into any app, export it in a web site version or simply in .exe format.
You can also export, meshes, scenes, materials or any resources form the engine to make your own game pipeline.
You can stream them from local or networked computers, and the multy-threaded background loading makes your scene loads in the background while playing at the same time. We have about 40 scenes that loads dynamically, the player dint even know when the scenes loads!
This is just awesomeee!!
You can try the new upcoming 3.1 (public beta) version, first week of march.

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A great software program

Posted by: dave1913 at Jun 20, 2006

This is an amazing piece of kit.
I have been checking out various engines for a while and I am glad I didn’t rush into any as this beats all those I tried.
As a 3d modeller I intend to use it mainly for interactive visualisations and walkthroughs and in the few weeks I have been using it, it is a dream.
The first thing you notice about DX Studio is the friendly Windows interface and once you have gone through the examples and tutorials you are ready to design and create your own scenes and start becoming productive right away.
Although I have never used java script before, it seems to have a similar syntax to the basic I have already learnt and as a non-programmer it will only be my own limitations on the programming side that will slow me down. I have used support a couple of times for programming help and each time they have been excellent.
The features in DX Studio are already amazing and development continues to add new stuff. Those of you who are a bit more technically and code proficient will be best checking out the full specs. Executables or html pages can be compiled easily and run without any problems.
I am currently designing and creating my own scenes and along with the visual effects such as the environment mapping, water, ocean and rain, the visuals are brilliant and all available to be viewed on your web site.
All I can say is check out the demo version yourself, you won’t be disappointed. I can see this going to the top ten; it’s Number 1 for me anyway, top marks in every category.

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Seems to have good future

Posted by: gdev2 at Jun 7, 2007

Version 2 is Much better than 1.3 version.

Features: 5
It has lots of 3D features plus physics. It has Authoring tools and easy to use object oriented scripting. Just download the engine and try it. You won't get disappointed and you will see the future of game programming very well. I am not sure its scripting features are enough for applying complex algorithms and techniques.

Ease of Use: 5
Your create a dynamic scene using visual tools. You can program relationship among the objects of the scene by scripting. Big part of structuring your code and coding itself is removed from your responsibility. APIs are smartly designed and are simple.

Stability:4
I have noticed instability in some cases.

Support:5
Good manual, have some step by step tutorials, have many interesting examples that could be used for learning scripts and scene setting. Supports seems to be in right direction, a good wiki and is growing.

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Great software

Posted by: gdev2 at Jun 24, 2007

Features : 4/5
Although not all features are complete, but they are there to become better. You can see where this software could go. The software seems to be completely OOP. New features and APIs could be added. However, APIs are still not enough in DX Studio. JavaScript in DX Studio is a good choice, but user might need direct class defining capability. I am not expert in this area, but perhaps having an imaginary, not visual custom Object to be good idea if JavaScript better to be limited in this kind of software.

Ease of Use: 5/5
Make or import models (objects), put them in a scene - you can have more than one 2D or 3D simultaneously - use existing tools to modify those, use JavaScript script engine to give the whole scene or its component the behavior that you want. Many other easy and powerful things, for example, a material editor for mesh editor. All are done within one unified environment.

Stability & Performance: 4/5
To me this is the most important area. DXS Seems to be stable (v 2.0.2). However, I haven't been happy with accuracy in some calculation. I haven't tested DXS for performance yet, but I couldn't see any problem in a simulation with about 10 dynamic lowpoly models with some collision. Game Engine and Simulation engine designers must understand that programmers don't like to go half a way in a project and stop the project to wait for bugs to be tested. I strongly recommend that DX Studio to have a fully tested stable Engine and a beta version.

Support: 5/5
Documentation is good, although there are some errors and not enough examples. Forum and email response to questions have been, so far, very good. Some high level math APIs need good documentation and examples. Also wiki is there and is growing.

Above is my impression, I may change it in future.

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If I had to choose only one reason to use DX Studio...

Posted by: BUnzaga at Jun 18, 2007

It would be their amazing customer interaction and development response. I guess that's two reasons!

Seriously though, I have NEVER seen a company ANYWHERE that has impressed me more than WorldWeaver has. If their product doesn't fit the needs of their customers, they will add the feature! I bring this up because a lot of people out there will look at the features of a product, and perhaps pass it up because it lacks a spacific need. Well with DX Studio, you don't have to do that, because chances are if you wan't a feature, someone else does too. All you have to do is submit it as a feature request on their forums, and usually within a day or two you have a response from the actual DX Studio Development team of when they can impliment your idea.

The customer interaction is also amazing. I first came to use DX Studio when I was looking for a web based real time 3d engine. I wanted to develop a 3d multiplayer game which users could connect to and play via a web browser. A simlar concept is the familar 'Runescape' game. Well I had no experience with 3d graphics, no experience with programming, and no money. DX Studio was the answer 110%.

With their tutorials on creating objects in 3d and basic scripting, their user forums, and their dedication to their customers, I have been able to create several starter games, such as a Tetris clone, a simple 2d shooter, a 3d first person shooter, and several other projects that represent different asepcts in todays games.

DX Studio is the product to choose if you are starting out and want to prototype games in a hurry.

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Good for business -> good choice

Posted by: bertin at Jun 19, 2007

Features:
The most valuable features of DXS are it's world-editor/IDE and the fact that it is a FULL game engine. Before bumping into DXS i was using OGRE, and, sure, it gives me 800 fps, but i have to spend a year coding to get anything done. DXS has full support for 2d/3d audio, graphics, physics (using bullet library, fast and stable) and coding in one place: the editor.

Easy of use:
DXS is by far the easiest engine i have ever worked with. This is mainly due to the ECMA bindings (i don't think programming can get any easier than that). I had some problems with the art pipeline, but those are mainly the same format problems all the engines have, and there is always a workaround.

Stability & performance:
DXS is very stable, but performance is an area where i espect to see improvements.

Support:
I can't stress enough how good is the support from Worldweaver. In all my years of working with commercial software, i have never seen such a good and responsive support from a company. The DXS development and support team are great.

In general, DXS gives my company the ability to produce prototypes like 400% faster than any other engine. In only a few months we have created 3 products and now we are waiting (really, waiting) to get response from our potencial clients. This is something that never happened to us before: delivering a demo before deadline and finding ourselves with enough time to refine and create new things. Another very good thing is the license options: We have bought a non-commercial license (very reasonable price) to create demos, wich reduces the costs between creating a project and actually selling it to a client. As soon as we get another contract, we are planning to buy a full commercial license.

Thanks to the DXS team.

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One of the best indies engine out there.

Posted by: at Mar 1, 2009

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Definitely the Game Engine to go with !

Posted by: Dromac_J at Dec 14, 2007

I have tried Torque,3D Gamestudio,Unity,DarkBasic Pro.
DXStudio beats them all.

In case you are wandering what the heck I am talking about.
Well,after downloading the freeware edition and giving it a try I can surely say:

1. DXStudio has the most easy to use interface that I have ever seen in a 3D/2D game engine. It's like every tool is talking to each other. You can compare DXStudio to other Game Engines,just like you would compare Maya to other 3D packages. DXStudio is defenitely the "Maya" among Game Engines.

2. DXStudio uses a very easy to use version of JavaScript called ECMA,which makes programming very easy. And even with JavaScripting in DXStudio,after compiling your game to an .EXE file,the preformance is amazing. You get almost 98% of the performance of C++.
So you do not have to worry about C++ programming,but use the easy JavaScript and still get the C++ power. I like it !

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Extremely intuitive, good shader support

Posted by: Richard_Sneyd at Aug 24, 2007

I have been watching the development of this engine for a while now. It has finally reached ver: 2.0. I love the interface. All included editors are excellent, the 2d and 3d scene editors are mature now. The mesh and material editors work well, and there improving with each release.

There is built in support for FX files, and plugins for effects like specular bloom have been created. shader support is essencial for next-gen game design.

The syntax to the scripting language (javascript) is easy to learn, but if you want to create above-average documents you will need good problems solving skills, or someone with programming savy. Over-all its an excellent Dev suite with an excellent dev team.

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This is an outstanding system

Posted by: stylus499 at Sep 3, 2007

I work as part of a research team at a small university, and it normally takes us a few months to develop a 3D visualization of our various simulations (that are pretty boring numbers without the display).

With DX Studio we've just managed to get a simulation running from total scratch to pretty much done in 3 days! In terms of time saving alone this is phenomenal value for money, but the results are also better than we've achieved before.

I cannot recommend this engine enough for simulation and control, and can see it becoming an industry standard within a couple of years.

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Exellent Dev Suite, Active Dev Community

Posted by: Richard_Sneyd at Sep 3, 2007

I've been through my fair share of engines, from Darkbasic to Pand3D. Finally I've found one that suits me, as a student game Designer.

DX Studio 2.0 features Normal map support, Bump to Normal map conversion, Various Post Processing affects (and the ability to write your own as plugins if your a programmer). Shader support is essential for Next Gen game dev.

The physics engine is getting better all the time. A* (Pathfinding) is built in, which makes NPC A.I programming alot easeir. they now have a collection of functions called VectorMath, which automate otherwise complex tasks.

No need for low level coding, everything is done in the built in scripting language (javascript). The syntax are easy to learn, but if you want to do something that stands out as above-average, you will need good problem solving skills, or a team mate with such abilities.

the community is Active and helpfull, as are the support team. your posts never go unaswered for long! The IDE is very user friendly, irrespective of your vocation.

Over all its quite a mature engine at this time, that can only get better with time!

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Does more than it says on the tin

Posted by: tom109 at Sep 3, 2007

I have to say I'm a convert to this product. I've been checking out all the engines on DevMaster for a couple of years now, but I often find engines sound great then a few weeks of dev in you suddenly find you're missing a key feature. So you have to edit the code yourself (breaking from updates) or wait until the product improves (and it often never does).

What I like about DX Studio is there are a *LOT* of features built in. From reading the forums it seems that the dev is driven by a group of enthusiat users, so most things that people want have already been asked for and implemented. I've also been pleasantly surprised by quick responses on the forums and to my support emails.

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Great New Version

Posted by: Dino3842 at Sep 4, 2007

I took a look at this engine a year ago, and although it promised a lot there were too many issues to really make it useable in a commercial environment.

However, I've just downloaded the latest v2.1 and it seems everything promised has been delivered! You get per pixel lighting with normal maps, skinned meshes, dynamic shadows, A* pathfinding, integrated physics, pixel shader post processing and other high end features - all working, all easy to use and most importantly it's giving me awesome results.

The forums seem pretty active too now, so it looks like this is going to be a long term winner.

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Gets you hooked in no time

Posted by: StereoMike at Sep 4, 2007

I read alot of reviews and tested some 3D engines /studios when I read the comment of somebody saying DXstudio would be soo easy to work with. I tried the free version and I got immediately stuck.
The concept is great, it's easy to do simple stuff, yet you can do far more complex scenes when you code some scripts for your application. And it's javascript compliant, very easy to grasp.

The features built in right now are great, and the ones coming sound awesome too.

DXstudio never crashed here. Bugfixing your scripts is also easy, you get a lot of error messages.

The support belongs to the best on the planet I guess.
You get an answer on in-depth questions within few hours, even minutes.
Feature requests are taken seriously and are often found in the next minor release.

The community is also willing to help, and due to the way the forum works, people often let each other see their code and let each other testdrive the projects.

Try out the free version, you can't do anything wrong.

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Great Software Package

Posted by: paulroberts at Sep 4, 2007

I started using DX Studio (in my spare time) about a month ago to create an interactive demo of a new house I'm planning to build.
I've not done much modelling or programming before so it was a bit daunting, but DX Studio has a very simple interface and I was able to build and place models quickly.
I also found the material editor easy to use and have been able to add some great (free) textures for my hand made clay tiles, bricks and windows (though I did need to email support to figure out that I had to adjust the UV mapping to get the sizes right, doh).
The free model library has also been very useful, though I could do with a few more plants & bushes please!

I got the house, garage, garden, fences, trees, etc all looking pretty good a couple of weeks ago and since then have been adding in some functionality. So far I have managed to add in a tour around the house and garden (using waypoints), getting the camera to follow a character around and a car going up the driveway, and used some bitmap buttons with sounds to change from day to night.

I showed what I had done so far to my architect the other day and he was v.impressed and reckons we should use it as part of the planning application!!!

Anyway, I'm now wondering what else I can do with this! I guess it's going to be limited by my ability, but I've always fancied making a game - maybe one based around building a house ;)

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Excellent engine, with few minor flaws.

Posted by: Eamonn98 at Sep 5, 2007

As a student game designer, I've been researching and experimenting with various 3d development packages, DarkBasic, Blitz 3d and Xna to name a few. None have been as simple to comprehend and understand as Dxstudio. As a learning user of Flash, the changeover to the use of Dxstudio's programming language was simple. The innovative layout of the editors UI is to thank for that.

After a couple of weeks of getting used to the editor, I began running into a series of problems, importing models from 3ds MAX, and .fx file compatability. Thankfully, through Worldweavers excellent customer support and friendly advice, I was able to successfully overcome these issues. Ever since version 2.1 however, the need for .fx files has diminished, thanks to their new integrated Normal Mapping support and excellent lighting engine.

As a student developer, I am only new to developing games, however I must say, the learning curve for Dxstudio is rather simple, and I would definately reccommend it to anybody needing to speedily develop a small project.

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Incredible Engine!!

Posted by: carlj at Jul 20, 2008

If you want an engine that just works then this is the engine for you. I was able to setup a full game in a week and that includes coding. The engine uses Javascript so its very easy to use and theres plenty of help around.

Support is second to none. Ask the developers anything and you always get a friendly reply.

Once thing i would like to see improved though is performacne but it's still impressive. All that for $100 shows that your getting a fantastic deal.

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Pays attention to the details most others don't

Posted by: karmamule at Sep 8, 2007

DX Studio stands out because they pay attention to the details other engines don't. They have excellent documentation, lots of tutorials easily available from within the application, and they even build in simple modeling with all their other tools. Rather than having the tools be a collection of separate apps, they are all easily available within the main DX Studio application itself.

They use javascript for their scripting language, and the built-in editor has code completion, which comes in very handy when you're getting up-to-speed with their API.

On rare occasions it has crashed, but that was the exception rather than the rule. The developers pay close attention to the forum and respond very quickly to user questions.

After looking through many of the other engines, this was the one on the PC that best balanced ease-of-use with a deep feature set and excellent documentation.

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Better Than Unity And On A PC...

Posted by: The_D at Oct 15, 2007

I hate giving 5 stars across the board for anything, so I gave DXStudio a 4 in stability/performance. It's actually very stable, and performs probably better than any engine I've ever seen like it (and I've seen a lot of them). I gave it a 4 in that field only because they've still got a couple "luxuries" to include, and even the DXStudio team is still trying to figure out how to do certain things with it. Outside of that, there seems to be a way to do almost anything with this engine.

This isn't a a hardcore first person shooter or mmorpg engine, although you could pull those off with it way easier than with many other engines. This is a general purpose, all you can eat, incredibly easy to use, deploys to exe and webbrowsers, fully networked, super-smart engine for dummies and experts alike. I have never seen an easier interface. I THOUGHT I had when I was a Unity user. I have abandoned my Unity system (as much as I love them) and am fully addicted to DXStudio. In my first week, I accomplished what took me months to pull off with Unity. It's like an even easier, more powerful version of Unity but for the PC. I'm sure someone will get angry that I said that, but I'm standing by it. Don't let the crappy graphics on their site fool you... If you've been around other "general use/virtual world/viz'ing" engines, and you even try the free version of DX Studio, you will soon be posting a happy review here like I have...

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Thank goodness for an engine like this

Posted by: enthuse at Nov 1, 2007

I don't know how much weight my review will carry since I'm just an enthusiastic novice in the world of 3D. I have tried a lot of engines but so far DXStudio hasn't disappointed me yet as much as the others. I'm working on a project right now and with DXS I was able to start on an RTS game complete with a working navigation map. That may not be a big deal but for a newbie that is really something. I don't think I will ever have the time to learn C++, much less program a navigation map with it. JavaScript is easy to learn and so is the DXS gui. I might consider buying an indie license but the support doesn't seem adequate. I can just imagine how much easier my project will be if I had my hands on a complete user's guide. The release might be worth waiting for. Thumbs up, Worldweaver.

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Amazing

Posted by: Slaine at Dec 6, 2007

This is an outstanding engine, in all ways too, all the editors are there you need to create most things, shaders are all there which you need in most games, with the ability to easily add extra shaders from good shader applications! the level editor is excellent allowing you to accomplish what you would need to make a game, with tutorials to run you through the runnings of the engine, which are very helpfull.

Features:
I have given it a 4 star because there wasn't a 3.5 and it's better than 3, reason being there is an annoying feature missing, there is no real-time soft shadows, so you are stuffed when it comes to casting shadows with opacity mapped objects (trees), this is an industry standard effect and this engine is classed as commercial, whoops.

[EDITED] I have just found out this feature will be implemented on next release, which is January, so I will adjust features to 5 star then.

Ease of use:
This engine is very easy to use, but 4 starts because there isn't a resource editor, eg. you can't setup (as far as I can tell) objects with effects attached to them, so then you can just drop them onto your map with the effects already there, the way you have to do it is drop all your objects onto your map, i.e. houses for a town, then you have to go over every object in the editor and attach smoke for the chimneys for example, every single one!! Other than that the engine is capable of making games fluently.

Stability and perf:
Great, very fast.

Support:
Again very good!

At the end of the day, if you are going to make a game, and it's not totally AAA (graphically) then this is your engine, there is no scary classes to program, missing chunks, it's all there, ready to be built into an exe.

Well done.

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Very nice !

Posted by: Mike86 at Dec 14, 2007

I came upon this engine about a while ago,and I have to say that it's the most flexible,most powerful and most easy to use engine available on the market.
The features and ease of use allow you to have a simple prototype to a full working game up and running in no time !

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It's not the best, but it could get the job done

Posted by: bryced at Mar 24, 2008

If you are trying to make a professional game, the biggest drawback here is simply that it doesn't have the graphical firepower. Even TGE is really behind the times.

Also, TorqueScript leaves a lot to be desired. It kind of reminds me of a bizarre combination of perl and C. You can get stuff done with it but realize it is strictly a scripting language and you are very quickly going to find it lacking full power of a decent object oriented language.

The support is terrible. The documentation is the worst issue. Even to get a list of what graphics components EXIST is a chore. Plus there is so much cruft in the forums (which are only viewable to licensees due to all the complaints and bugs I suppose) that it bcomes nearly impossible to tell if something you searched on is relavent. Has it been fixed? Did it even ever affect TGE?

On the bright side a lot of games have been published with it, though no AAA game is remotely possible (I mean, even 3dsm is not supported!). If you look at the top ten engine list, I have looked at them all to varying degrees and I would say with most of them it's questionable if you could even get a professional grade game with decent performance going with most of them.

I have since dropped torque like a hot potato and am using C4 which is so far very nice (knock on wood), and my backup choice is Ogre in case that doesn't work out. The rest of the top ten are either authoring tools or simply to be avoided due to one serious issue or another.

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workflow

Posted by: Alberto at Apr 4, 2008

I am familiar with 4 other game engines

I must say DXSTUDIO is by far the best one as far as the workflow is concerned ,thanks to its intuitive engine architecture

Also the choice of javascript as programming language has definitly been a good decision
Its event driven, semi - object oriented architecture makes this script language particulary suitable for game programming

I know that a lot of people may disagree but in my opinion the workflow is definitly the most important feature for a game engine

Graphic quality mainly depends on the artist
The engine , every engine, can do very little for you

there are still some minor stability problems manily for importing animated files

The speed should be also improved
This engine has been originally designed for virtual reality rather than for games , maybe this is the reason why it is a little slower than the other ones I own

Last but not least the comunity is fantastic

I have never seen a group of so nice and competent members, not to mention the excellent support provided by the development team

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A great RAD for Indie developers

Posted by: ale870 at Apr 4, 2008

This is an excellent 3d engine, and can be used for games, for education, and can be embedded in other documents (Ms Word, Powerpoint, etc...).
It contains many filters to import many 3D file formats.
Javascript language is very fast and very well implemented.
Technical support is excellent!

I tried many 3D engines, but I think this is the only engine very productive for indie developers!
Do not miss it!

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The best Game Engine I have tried

Posted by: Janet Merai at Jul 10, 2008

If you haven't tried this engine, do it now... trust me, you will love it!

Almost a year and a half later searching for a proper engine to use for my fan-game and original projects, I came to a dead-end with:

Blender Engine
Irrlicht
Torque
Panda3D
Blitz Basic
Dark Basic (Pro)
Ogre
Agar

and more I cannot remember.

After about a year and a half later from searching for engines, I have not moved away from DX Studio and I am still using the freeware version!

The engine is absolutely amazing, it works like 3D Studio Max and is also eye-candy, but it doesn't stop there!
While it is aesthetically pleasing it also serves as a stable and well perfoming application.
You can move objects around, easily place camera's ANYWHERE and make a FPS Shotter, Zelda 3D type games, RPG's, side-scrolling... ANYTHING!

I cannot stress enough how GREAT this game engine is... infact my searching ceased when I first started exploring it :D
Great engine, it will NOT let you down and I am not a programmer at all, and I made and built demo's out of it, 3 infact! :D

The support is superb, amazing and they add any feature you request almost immediately.
I asked questions and they were answered within just a hour or few, even minutes! :D

I also got support from programmers who just use it for a hobby and everyone is VERY friendly.

You won't see me going anywhere else with an engine, DX Studio is staying as my project plans permanently :D

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Can i say "amen" ?

Posted by: k4071c at Jul 11, 2008

This is the real deal, the best engine out there hands down. All the integrated tools in DX Studio alongside with the great support, stability and features make all the other engines look like kids stuff.

You got a wide array of 3D features available at your disposal whether you want to make dynamic scenes or static scenes (including physics as well ofcourse). This allied with a great support (great tutorials and Dev support overall) and a very competitive price makes it a sweet deal.

All i can say is don't think twice before acquiring this product if you're into 3D, because you won't regret it, i guarantee you that much.

Kudos to Worldweaver

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Simply GREAT!

Posted by: Catarina at Jul 11, 2008

DX Studio is simply amazing, quite simple to understand and start working with. The overall package is impressive.

The interface is very friendly and very easy to use, the information supplied such as tutorials and examples are very clear and get you up and running with DX Studio sooner than you would expect. You can easily import models from Maya and use them as you want. Although I'm a modeller I can't hide the fact that even programming is appealing JavaScript is quite simple and the performance results are not what would be expected, they are GREATER than that, and being able to program in Java makes it simple and possible for people who only had some programming basis (which is my case) and for people who don't really have the time to learn C++ to have impressive results in a much simpler way.

The support given is amazing and by that I mean really amazing, not only the response from the support team is fast and helpful but also the development team will hapilly implement any good sugestions.

I haven't had any issues so far concerning the stability of DX Studio so that's another 5 for me.

Thx WorldWeaver for the great package!

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very easy to use, powerful, great support

Posted by: stevehaigh at Oct 17, 2008

i just started game development 2 months ago although i'm a (very) old hand at programming.

i tried torque and c4 before i found dxstudio. dxstudio is a very impressive product, here's why

pros -

very easy to use - you can get a basic game up and running in one day. i got the first demo of my 3D Roman chariot race complete with animating chariot, horses and charioteer running in 3 weeks.

very powerful - good 2D and 3D support, good physics engine, very complete and easy to use API in javascript

great support - usually I get replies to email same day (mon-fri). usually get good replies. many small feature requests are added within a few days, big feature requests go on the list and i'm confident will be added soon.

good forum - very helpful online community, no a-holes, people willing to really help, provide samples, etc.

stable - rarely crashes in the editor, never had a crash at runtime, even in my buggy code.

good value for money - i have the commercial pro licence which is well worth the money i paid considering the quality and usefullness of the product and the level of support.

cons:

the documentation is a bit sparse - the reference pages are usually a one liners where more detail is often required and examples would be nice.

no wiki search - how can you have a wiki with no search!

sometimes i think the dev team spends too much time on flashy features and not enough on core functionality. for example, there was a major overhaul of the editor in version 3 at add a 3D manipulator (gysmo) and a live editor which personally i think was unnecessary since the old editor interface was fine. that development effort should have been used to improve core features like 3D model import, physics, etc.

overall i would say if you are an indy game developer looking for a powerful, stable, well supported engine, this is the one.

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Impressive!

Posted by: Xergon at Oct 22, 2008

Hello,

well, I put it like this. The first time I booted up DXStudio in May2008 all I could think was: OMG, THATS WHAT I SEARCHED FOR ALL THAT LONG - an intuitive and straight-forwad 3d game editor with all the freedoms you need and still so simple to use.

full-realtime preview 3D Editor is just awesome, as is the oo-scripting concept.

The web-apllet is also a killer.

great community,
all that i can complain about right now (ver 3.0.9) are:
- inclusion of self-made shaders not optimal yet
- NO SOFT SHADOWS - yet
- 3d sound support broken, but workaround available in the forum
- 3d mesh import from older 3dmax systems not this easy..

the rest is just .. well.. great! Everything there.

I think the best to say about it is just: IT MAKES FUN!!!

Hard to say this about any other engine or sdk i tested!

go for it!!

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An amazingly easy to use game engine, with a awesome community!

Posted by: aran at Jul 21, 2009

Being a student in game development, I have searched and tried many different game engines. But none of the other game engines can compare to this engine DX Studio, this is because:

1. It has amazing community forums and great technical support(whenever I have issues I post them on the forum and somone from DX Studio or the community is ready with a helpful reply within minutes).

2. Has numerous handy features that high-end game engines have, but gladly without the big price tag that they ask for (Bump mapping, light mapping, specular mapping, shadowing).

3. It has an inbuilt, easy to use level editor. Unlike other engines which you have to place objects through coding the position of the models and the repeative task of compiling to see if the models are in teh correct position.

4. It uses javascript, which in my opinion is quite a basic and easy language to learn for anyone new to coding.

5. It has a physics engine compiled and ready to use, so there is no need of waiting and downloading SDK of a free physics engine then having the tedious task of having to compile it with your game.

6. It is FREE, unless you want to commercialise your game, but even then it is still affordable for an independant game developer to buy a commecrcial Edition.

7. There is a library full of thousands of free; 3D models, textures, sounds, sprites, tutorials and much more to help you in creating whatever you want to make.

8. And finally I have to say it is unbelievable EASY to use DX Studio, you can make a game or simulation in a matter of minutes not hours.

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One of the best things that ever happened to the gaming industry

Posted by: Moach at Dec 13, 2009

i found out about DXS while attempting to work with the defunct Adobe Director... when i fisrt got it i remember thinking: "this is too good to be thruth"... but turns out, it was...

DXS was rather limited back then, it was still in version 2.something and had several performance issues and lacked a bunch of somewhat needed features... that´s where DXS greatest trumph comes into scene:

the support from the development crew is BEYOND THIS WORLD! never have i seen such a responsive team, that shows such genuine care for their user´s necessities and ideas.
not only they are open for suggestions, they consistently reply to them, confirming or providing alternatives... not just some forum representative, the very head of development, Chris S. posts regularly, bringing news and precious help to users.
this is something i had never experienced before coming from any development team.

nowadays, DXS is rapidly growing into a full-fledged engine, performance has been boosted greatly since the early days, over the MANY service releases that are released on a nearly bi-weekly basis... each bringing new features and correcting bugs reported by the users, to which the developers so honestly reply (in contrast to other packages out there, where the developers prefer to sweep their bugs under the rug)

feature-wise, DXS brings ease into game design. coming from a Flash+AS3 background, i found DXS very intuitive! it´s layers-and-scenes-based approach, makes for a very familiar production environment.

another very elegant feature, which is not one that goes easily noticed, is the fact that ALL of the proprietary file formats used by DXS are .zip compatible, meaning every file can be opened with winzip or powerarchiver and freely edited even if you don´t have DXS installed

the deployment options range from flash-like web-player to fully standalone, which gives the user a sensation of having the means to be in the same league as the big-shot companies.
publishing DXS projects "feels" very professional, even if you are a hobbyist or small indie developer, unlike other packages (such as XNA, which makes you jump through every hoop to get something usable out), DXS treats every user as a potential pro

the scripting support is simply genious! instead of using some proprietary scripting language, DXS features FULL javascript 1.8 implementation directly from mozilla, meaning every feature available to the JS language can be used in DXS

also, DXS offers full file-handling scripting abilities, adding a lot to the professional feel of the engine, users have total access to external files, regardless of path or format, being able to freely read and write with all the ease provided by JavaScript

the script performance is surprising, although based on interpreted language, scripts run incredibly fast and offer a very responsive platform for development, creating complex simulations is perfectly feasible

unfortunately, this where DXS´s biggest shorcoming appears: it doesn´t offer more than one thread for scripting, meaning heavy scripts can easily lag-up the whole system... many alternatives have been developed by users, mainly relying on time-out scripts that pause heavy proccesses so the engine can get to the next frame...

happily, we´re yet so see the greatest feature offered by DXS: a plug-in SDK, that will allow seamless engine extensions to be made by users, this has been promised for early 2010 and potentially will solve EVERY limitation an user might find, since it allows said user to program a needed feature on his own, or find his solution in a plugin made by another user.

to sum up, DXS makes developing "real" games a possibility even for the most unpretentious hobbyist, placing a few determined designers on the same grounds as a professional studio.

with the promised potential, DXS can be the best thing that ever befell the gaming industry, making 3d games as easy to create as Flash has made for 2d

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Simple and powerful

Posted by: droeni at Jan 3, 2010

By far the most simply to use Game Engine and 3D real time authoring system, which i used until now. Stable and good support. The right for non programmers. DX Studio makes the scripting extremely easy.

Performance is good but need a little optimization. Soft shadows would be nice.

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Simply Amazing

Posted by: dawnclover at Apr 9, 2010

Simply Amazing.

Never did these two words classify something so well as they do DX Studio.

Beginning work on a prototype of a game project was never so fast, simple and intuitive. I've looked at many, many, MANY affordable 3D Game Engines for some game ideas I had. After much searching and testing, I found DX Studio.

Friendly users and some (or all?) the members of the DX Studio team wander around the forums every day. I've had many questions answered thanks to these great people. It's a great place to get help, to help others and start new friendships even! I've seen projects evolve with the cooperation of other users, projects between users starting to appear, it's just a friendly ambient, which is most welcome.

After messing around with the trial for some time I decided I had to get it, so I bought the Standard license to pursue further into building the prototype for my next game.

I have no doubt in the future, I will buy a Commercial license for this game.

DX Studio made me feel welcome and had me programming bits of code for my prototype within the hour! Impressive is all that comes to mind.

Feature-wise it could, will and has evolved. I've been with DX Studio for almost a year and the feature addictions have been many! The Forums have a place where you can request future features, and the DX Studio team is awesome enough to lend a hear to it's users, so, many of the user-requested features in the past, are now in the engine.

In terms of stability I have had the FPS drop a bit on me, but that is also a bit my fault for some excessive experimentation. Overall the engine performs great, and I can see it improving further in the future on this department.

Overall, if you're an one-man / indie team developer or even a gaming / 3D student you HAVE to try out DX Studio. It's affordable, easy to use, and the community is the best there is.

Think no further, DX Studio is here.

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