Topic: KatsBits no longer BFCT (where do 'we' go from here?)

[kat]

@ motorsep: One of the reasons for KatsBits achieving 'certified' status was to, in some small way, encourage other 'game devs' to apply because you're right, there's a critical lack of support for anything 'game' related where 'official' educational or training resources are concerned. As for certification, yes the status doesn't confer any privileges in that respect other than it being a 'recognised' status so maybe it should be called the "Blender Foundation Recognised Trainer", "Blender Foundation Affiliate Trainer" program or something along those lines.

[salamanderrake]

Here is some good news regarding blenders role in game dev and modding.

http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/blender-developers-hired-thanks-to-valve-steam-workshop-donations

Its not much but its a start.

[kat]

Thanks for posting, you beat me to it!. Was just reading that and yes, very interesting news indeed.

[ratty redemption]

very cool, thanks for posting guys.

[salamanderrake]

That should probably warrant its own thread in the "about dang time" section. This is also an interesting read.

[motorsep]

That's kinda interesting, but what bothers me is that endless pursuit of BGE being on par with Unity. Just recently I posted a few notes about what BGE needs and those features not only absent, but aren't going to happen any time soon. So yet again we will witness another generation of Blender wasting resources on yet another iteration of its game engine. By the time BGE will be usable in commercial production, UE/CE/Unity/Source/idTech will make yet another leap light years ahead of BGE. Hell, even idTech 4 is light years ahead already (not to mention Doom 3 BFG).

It would be nice if BI understood that making Blender more game dev production friendly and help devs save time using Blender should be a priority.

Speaking of Blender devs, I can't find a single soul to work on MD5 exporter :/

[ratty redemption]

motorsep, i agree with all of that.

[kat]

@ motorsep: Agreed, I've got the same concerns. I will add as well that Blender Institute/Foundation seems to have an odd and possibly somewhat naive (?) outlook with respect to the complexities of a game engine, especially in today's marketplace - what Blender has now was good a couple of years ago when UDK, Unity and other engines were not available or not well known, but it's at a point now where they need to make a firm decision on the matter.. to compete with these other tools now would take a dedicated team, a lot of effort and plenty of monetary resources. Is that something they want to do when there are arguably more pressing matters that need to be considered. I just hope that this time there are enough voices speaking from a 'game' perspective that BF/I actually listens to what's being said properly.

Re: MD5. I feel ya

Slightly OT. Another Blender user interested in game orientated development started a Google Doc document of feature requests. You can find and add to it here - it's shaping up quite nicely so far. Give it the once over.

[motorsep]

Well, the issue again is that I posed ASE exporter and wanted to post MD5/MD6, but ideasman42 and another dev guy said "ASE is meh, no need". So what's the point of posting other stuff :/ I added LWO as it seems more universal format (idTech 4 / idTech 5).

The key issue is that lack of supported exporters deemed idTech 4 unmoddable for many artists using Blender.

[kat]

Completely agree.. and that's the big bugbear we've discussed here for a long time (as you know). I don't know what the answer is except to perhaps keep a pubic discussion going, that way there is at least a history of such which can't be so easily brushed off.

I've been pondering whether to add an 'import/export' suite request to that list to cover idTech and Unreal but had wondered about whether that would be efficient use of resources now that FBX is on the plate (iirc Epic and Unity have said they want to focus their I/O tools on that format going forward?)

[motorsep]

I just added MD5/MD6 to the list. Feel free to put your name on that item #42

The more people will do that, the more Blender devs will see the interest and will be willing to support it.

Yes, Epic has switched to FBX a while back. I have been pondering the idea of replacing Maya plugin in idTech 4 with FBX > MD5 converter. Again, lack of savvy programmers doesn't help for it to come true :/

EDIT: Posted here http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=26811

[Shaderman]

I just found this news and it seems to fit to this topic somehow...

[kat]

Yeah that was mentioned during this years BCon. Given my experience with BlenderNetwork all I can say is we'll have to wait and see how it goes.

The Foundation recently went live with the new version of blender.org as well and unfortunately KatsBits and one or two other minor players in the tutorial 'business' were dropped from the Support > Tutorials page - you could be forgiven for thinking there were only three or so tutorial providers (and it's easy to guess who those are). That's going to annoy a few people

[motorsep]

Lol, commented on Fb accidentally

Sounds like a service aimed at production houses with money. Not at smaller developers.

[kat]

lol.. you too can post any time, from anywhere, using anything... as long as it's facebooked!

Would have to agree with your comment though, especially given the general 'studio' focus much of the conversation at this years BCon. Having said that, it's not easy to provide support services for professionals (paid or not) because security and confidentiality are paramount to that user base. I'm getting some things sorted out for KatsBits that will at least further support for game developers on that score.