Blender Gamekit sneak preview

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Carsten Wartman, the author of the upcoming second edition of the Blender Gamekit, has released a sneek preview of one of the games.

Carsten writes:

Facts

  • Title: Subracer
  • Author: Carsten (Logic, Physics, HUD, Ship, Gates, Mines)
  • Level: Chris (blengine) (Rocks, Sand, Plants, Ancient Columns)

Features GLSL Matrials (Normaps, Caustics, Waterreflection), GLSL Mist (much nicer than the normal GE Mist), GLSL Shadows, working HUD (Heading, Speed, Depth, next Gate, direction to next gate, damage, round time, turboboost, Sonar), Sound (ambient, weapons, sonar, explosions)

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    • Reece

      This is so cool! I can’t wait until the book is finished. Keep it coming.

    • http://www.wsag.ch.vu OldJim

      WoW cool video. Cant wait for the release of this book. Its going to be awesom. Keep us up to date.

    • Nemesis

      Just let me kow when you publish.

      I will be purchasing it.

    • http://brakk.com/ Olav

      I’m planning to buy this book, if it’s out before Christmas, it’ll be under my tree :)

    • BLENDER BOY!

      Impressive for a solo work.

    • http://blenderecia.orgfree.com Dalai Felinto

      So this game is used as an example during the book?

      I didn’t get the relation between the game and the book.

    • http://blenderbuch.de Carsten

      @Dalia: This is one of the games which will be used to explain how to make a game with the Blender Game Engine.

      Carsten

    • http://blenderbuch.de Carsten

      Oh and here you can see it in a bit better quality:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Rhdq3-Lww;fmt=18

      However, the YT quality did not show the subtle mist effects or shadows.

      Carsten

    • Duranial

      I’m waiting for this book, I love this kind of things xD

    • Olaf

      I’m gonna buy it for sure!!

    • http://blendenzo.com blendenzo *imposter*

      - comment removed -

    • BlenderLovingSquirrel

      *heads over to blendenzo.com*

      *will click on lots of ads*

    • BlenderLovingSquirrel

      you’re site seems great blendenzo only there are no post Apricrot tutorials in it that I can find

    • kinduun

      What’s up blender family?

      Please lets start posting stuff on vimeo.

      I beg for the sake of the family.
      We need to see quality.

      Bart, Could you headline Vimeo in a post?

      thanks fam.

    • tidbit

      blendenzo:
      I go to your site quite often, atleast when I’m attempting to make a game :P it is quite excellent and useful.

      also game preview looking good. add motion blur during boosting :)

    • banor

      Pretty neat! Sounds like a great resource. I know that graphics are not the most important part, but having great graphics would be an uber-treat – think of the Gauss Tank by endi!!!

      -b
      http://minosafilms.wordpress.com/

    • Mantar

      What’s a sneek? Is it expensive? If I was to buy one, how hard would it be to house-train it?

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      Ah :) Fixed!

    • http://pw-software.com NetOperator Wibby

      This reminds me of the intro demo level of Starfox Command for the DS. This is a great demonstration of the gamekit.

    • banor

      I want to know what happens when you surface! :P

    • http://samsrandomjunk.com flyvin

      @ Olaf & Nemesis:
      I think its going to be free!

      I got the old game kit book a while ago, It was annoying because so much has changed. I cant wait!

    • http://blenderbuch.de Carsten

      @tidbit: Great idea! However YOU are supposed to change and enhance the game ;-)

      Carsten

    • siegel

      looks very similar to a community game I used to be involved in.

    • roofoo

      What happens if you swim up to the surface?

    • BobbieJONES

      the first book SUCKED. Why should i buy this one???

    • banor

      @blendenzo: thanks for the info! I hope to check out the site some more… :) This will be quite useful. You have already solved my question about parenting to a rigid body – THANKS!

      God bless,
      Until then,
      -b
      http://minosafilms.wordpress.com/

      P.S. Perhaps if I get a lot better at the GE I will be able to contribute back to the community… :) Please keep that in mind, blendenzo… someday I may start contributing games or tuts… :)

    • Tony

      @blendenzo, In my owm upcoming book “Mastering Blender” there’s a section on the Game Engine, and specifically using Python in the GE, and your website is among a few of the best resources that I recommend readers to check out, so hopefully you’ll get some more credit for your excellent tutorials.

      In the book I also recommend the new GameKit, even though I haven’t seen it yet. The first one was excellent, and I can tell from this example that Carsten is keeping things top quality.

      I’m really glad that Carsten has decided to revisit and update the GameKit. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it!

    • Tony

      @BobbieJONES, why don’t you think of it this way. You’ve got here a really excellent forum where you can tell the author directly what, exactly, you think could have been improved about the book. By giving constructive criticism, you could actually do some small thing to help the quality of the next book improve.

      By sputtering about how much it “sucked” you don’t really help anybody.

    • http://wickes.webs.com Papasmurf

      all of the Stargate fans will love it! Great job!

    • http://www.wsag.ch.vu OldJim

      @blendenzo
      Yes you have a great website and I learned a lot from it.
      But why do you say that your website has all the stuff and even more and that for free?
      Related to the context of this post it sounds like you would like to say: “Why buy this book if you can get everything for free on my site.”
      If I miss understood you here, Im sorry. But otherwise I think as statement like this is pretty rude.
      Think of all the work Carsten puts in to his book.

      Besides your site dos not cover all the stuff… As BlenderLovingSquirrel all ready pointed out you don’t have many up to date Tutorials on your Website.
      GLSL
      Netwoksetups (Multiplayer games)
      Softbody
      …

      To End this post, I would like to say once again that you have a excellent site and Thanx for making it public to every one.

    • http://www.rgbk.org Bmud

      Looks exactly like the underwater racing game that was under development by the BCGP a few years ago. If that’s not like some sort of slap to the past’s face. then I don’t know what is.

    • Siegel

      For sure Bmud but I still think our underwater racing game looked better :P

    • Siegel

      here’s an old pic http://img217.imageshack.us/my.php?image=uwrgscreenei4.png , BTW I only mention any of it to reminisce

    • http://salvador.mata.com.mx/blog Mataii

      Yes, I remember the underwater racing game, from Blender Community Game Project , you guys did a great work with it :), what happened with it?

      The video of Carsten looks very good even in it earlier stage, and I have to say the first Blender Game Kit I bought some years ago, help me A LOT with the exercises covered and it give me a better idea of what can be archieved with the old engine ( Blender 2.25 :) ) and for sure the new book represent the best option for those people who want to learn the new things of the blender game engine. This book will be a good investment :)

    • http://blenderbuch.de Carsten

      Strange! It even has gates looking like mine (or vice versa). Either we both had the “stargate” in mind or this image was burried somewhere in my brain all the years.

      Carsten

    • Siegel

      We kinda ran out of steam with the project but I still have all the files and had vowed to complete it when the blender game engine was improved to a certain lvl which it may have reached but im busy on another project at the moment.

    • goodiecollector

      @Blender Comm. Project Guys:
      Oh wow, underwater! And underwater gates! What a brillant new idea! There have never been such games before, not in water and nor in space.

    • http://blenderbuch.de Carsten

      Be sure at the moment I am inventing a new game idea I will sell it to a major producer and not publish it in a book ;-)

      Carsten

    • UndercoverBlenderist

      My one and only suggestion about this book would be to make it a DVD…

      Books are soooo unpractical and anti-didactic compared to video tutorials. In fact I think tutorial books should become an exception and not the norm anymore.
      As an exemple, I bought Allan Brito’s Blender for architecture book and barely went beyond 1/3 of the book : in the meantime I’ve found video tutorials from Vaclav Chaloupka (sorry to him if I mispelled) and had every information I needed in a much more intuitive way and with a faster learning curve (like 10x faster…).

      Well, you got my point…

    • Vladimir Tyazhev

      My suggestion would be for the book is to make one long game and continue it in each chapter. For example: We start from simple things, then build first level, then go underwater, then leave the submarine and go shoot people, then fly airplane, then go to space and then establish a simple game trade system, then this and then that. If one big game would come up; it would be best thing that ever happened. Its easier to follow and in this way writers don’t lose anything out. And its easier to follow.

    • Squiggly_P

      Wow, I’m gonna have to buy that book. Looks like it goes into a lot of useful stuff.

      @Vladimir: I think that would be a great idea as well, but on teh flip side, having a lot of smaller projects like this will allow you to get used to a complete workflow, and then you can let people experiment with past games by adding their own stuff to them. I think the rapid-prototyping features of the Game Engine is one of it’s strengths, even to pro studios who might just want to make a mockup of a game idea. I think there’s a lot of pros and cons to both methods. Would be nice to see a larger project come together, tho.

    • http://inkweaver-review.blogspot.com NathanKP

      Very nice work! This looks like an admirable project that I’m inclined to look further into. Any idea when the gamekit will be out?

      NathanKP – Imagination Manifesto

    • mjordan

      Dudes, use a stitched binding fot the book, please…. My “Introducing Character Animation with Blender” has a glued binding and is losing pages…. :-/

    • http://blenderecia.orgfree.com Dalai Felinto

      What I like in underwater projects (being involved in one myself – see banner above ;) ) is that this is a world Blender was not made specifically for.

      It brings a lot of challenges. For example, the radar sensor is useless because it doesn’t cast rays in all directions but stick to a plane. The physics doesn’t help much without tricks (and treats ;p), and other fun challenges.

      Looking forward for the book. BGE really lacks of a good unified documentation.

    • http://www.wsag.ch.vu OldJim

      @UndercoverBlenderist
      Having a book, has its good sides to!:
      - You can read it where ever you are (Bus, Airplain, Toilet, outside….)
      - You dont need a big Screen and still can have the tutorial and Workingspace visible at the same time (Working Space on your Screen Book on your Desk…)
      -You can higlight and mark things that are importent to you.
      -You can write your own notes in to the book.
      -Thing you read you remeber longer then things that you see
      -I know there are a lot more points but it early in the mornig here in switzerland and I just woke up and did not have my cup of cofe yet,,, ;-)

    • UndercoverBlenderist

      @OldJim
      - I’ll admit video tutorials require you to have a big screen or, even better, a dual screen to be really effective.
      That’s the only limitation I see as real, but any serious artist (earning enough money to buy professional educational material) should already have that kind of rig.
      - About the fact you can read book wherever you are, I would be quite stubborn on the fact that trying to learn something without practicing at the same time is just a waste of time. You could read an entire tutorial book in your toilets (as you seem to like it ;-)), you’ll get almost nothing out of it when you finally come out.
      - “Things you read you remember longer then things that you see”… but best is things you actually do. And video tutorials are easing the flow : quite often you can find yourself struggling between tons of lines and small black and white screenshots trying to understand what the autor meant. You surely lose a part of the benefit of practice if you break it in small pieces with looking back and forth to the book.
      How many lines will we have to read for a tutorial about a reasonably complex logical node setup ? How many seconds of video would it take for the same setup ?
      To me it’s clear that video tutorials are the best way to go for professionals (not a coincidence if gnomon goes video and not books).
      But : 1-what’s true for me is maybe not what’s true for another, and 2-I’m not the one building that up.
      So I cross my fingers for Carsten to go video (at least some day) and hope your coffee was as nice as mine (mmmh, Switzerland milk. I just can imagine a coffee cream over there, you lucky one) =)

    • http://www.wsag.ch.vu OldJim

      @UndercoverBlenderist [... and hope your coffee was as nice as mine (mmmh, Switzerland milk. I just can imagine a coffee cream over there, you lucky one) =)]
      LoL, Yes I’m a lucky one and really enjoyed my Cup of coffee.

      [1-what's true for me is maybe not what's true for another,]
      Yep I think that true, different people learn different Ways.
      I most of the time fist read a book from finish to end, giving me a over all view of what’s in there. Then I get in front of the Computer and do the different Tutorials in there and as a next step maybe 1 or 2 Years leather I remember that this or that is written in that book and since I have highlighted and market and wrote all my personal notes in there I just skip trough the book and voila there is what I’m looking for.
      But here again, that’s just my way of learning if someone learns different a other way, go ahead and do it your way…

      [So I cross my fingers for Carsten to go video (at least some day)]
      he already did so: http://blenderbuch.de/DVD.php
      but its in German… :-)

      So I hope you one time get the chance to come to Switzerland and enjoy a good Swiss milk cream Coffee… If you come send me a note and you may can stay at my place some time… Gstaad is one of the nicest sites in switzerland.

    • Olaf

      I too think that video tutorials are the way to go. Although they ussually suffer from going to fast for beginners, so you’d have to be very carefull to clearly explain everything you’re doing, and show a litle window that shows which keys are being pressed at each time.

    • http://blenderbuch.de Carsten

      Your suggestions are very welcome.

      One sidenote: I also did made a video tutorial next to my german Blender book, however, the sales compared to the book are… well… low. So either the DVD gets copied or people don’t like video tutorials. For the Blender Foundation it is also important to make money to continue developing Blender in the way it is now. Apricot proved that also the realtime development is intresting for the community. The gamekit is the next step, the Reference part is the biggest in the book!

      If this new gamekit is a success I am sure that video tutorials and other game projects will follow.

      Carsten

    • UndercoverBlenderist

      @OldJim
      Thanks for the invitation !
      If I have the opportunity to come next to your place, I’ll contact you so we can have a coffee together =)
      Gstaad is said to be a splendid place.

      By the way, thanks for the link. Too bad the DVD is only in German (or too bad I don’t speak German…) as it seems quite well done.

      @Olaf
      You’re absolutly right. But I suppose it’s always a matter of how good the teacher is.

      @Carsten
      It makes sense, it’s probably easier to copy a DVD and not a paper book.
      On the other hand, I bought Creature Factory not so long ago and thought I wouldn’t be the only one to do so. Are there any numbers about sells of those DVDs (Creature Factory, Mancandy, …) ? Are they so terribles ?