Ambiera ForumDiscussions, Help and Support. |
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Hello all I'm Jim, I literally downloaded and started playing around with Coppercube just last night. I wanted to hello and get an idea of what the community is like and share some initial thoughts on the game engine. So, my game dev history is a bit patchy. I did a little of game dev work way back in the day in the 16 bit era of computing - so where I am in UK that was on Commodore Amiga and Atari ST home computers. Mostly using some primitive game dev engines - AMOS and STOS BASIC. After that I pretty much had to deal with life, work and reality for about 20 years, and consoles were pretty much king for any gaming (of which there wasn't that much) that I did. I'd thought individual game development was a thing of the past. Mercifully, with the advance of the internet, mobile gaming and modern fully featured game dev engines, it's possible for the hobbyist to jump back into it now, and that's what I've been trying to do for about the last 3 years. Initially I had no interest in creating anything clever or complicated, or that looked that modern. The code I'd ever tried to write anything in was HTML and PHP about 15 years back, and that didn't exactly go well, so I had it in my head I didn't want to be a programmer at all. I tried out GameSalad - and initially liked the ease of use, but for what I wanted to write it was clear some kind of coding was required. I then found GameMaker Studio, which I actually really loved - and got fairly familiar with it's built in language. I actually got a few proof of concept demos finished - but now it's moved to GMS2, I got to pay for an upgrade, I don't have a lot of disposable income - and I was reaching a point where I wanted to use a bit more in the way of 3D. As great a platform as it is, 3D isn't it's strong suite. You can do rudimentary 3D - and while I was confident in my ability to program the logic and guts of the games I want to make, the legwork and the hassle of manipulating the 3D element in it is a nightmare. Unity seemed like an obvious successor, I did try a few months back, but I was overwhelmed by the layout, the sheer amount of functions, control and screens in the GUI - and of course - C - which felt so completely alien to me it was unbelievable, I started looking for a bit of different solution, something that was as intuitive as GameMaker, but with some of the additional functionality of Unity. I had a quick look at Godot, CryEngine, Unreal Engine and few of the other things aimed more at beginners like AppGameDev Kit, etc. I needed something with a free in - so I could test it, a straight forward GUI for 3D functionality and the ability to add more complex control via some kind of coding language. So far, Coppercube is scoring highly on the intuitive scale - creating a basic 3d world is pretty nice and easy. I'm just about to start getting serious with the engine to see if will do the other stuff I need. I have a few things I'm simply not sure about; 1) Size of the community Evidently, it's small - much smaller than the Unity and GameMaker crowd. I do worry that if I hit a brick wall in something that it's not going to be as easy to find a resource or get assistance. I'm a firm believer of trying to fix something yourself, but every now and again it's really nice to throw a problem out there if you get stuck. 2) Is the engine flexible enough to do what I want? So, I'm totally scared of programming - I've had a look at how Coppercube uses scripting. The method is slightly different in that in GameMaker or Godot or Unity, you can get so far then you have obvious ways to extend the functionality of a game object with code. I sort of see how that works in Coppercube with the JAVAScript behaviours, but I've not delved in far enough yet. I did do some JS work years ago, so it's not completely unfamiliar, but I basically got to learn it all over again. I see I've run out characters for this thread - I'll post a part 2 just after! |
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Carrying straight on; I'm not looking to write FPS games or 3rd person RPG's or stuff. I'm actually trying to create RTS type games - in the mould of the classics of my childhood like Populous and Power Monger, or a little after that - Command and Conquer or Age of Empires. I found with GameMaker I could easily manipulate sprites, get user input and control the game logic, but 2D was limiting because the environments were very good looking, and things like terrain were difficult to generate. The 3D functionality in it gave a few options, but then it became a serious hassle balancing 2D sprites and fudging it with 3D environments. Coppercube suggests to me it could be the opposite - I can create environments easily, but whether the engine is flexible enough for the logic of such a type of game is something I'm trying to figure out. I also have some concerns about things like lack of game controller support and a few other things I kind of took for granted in GMS. But, from the point of view of a new user, to open an engine and be to be able to start using it pretty much straight away - and to be able to see roughly how things work without having to do a 40 hour training course, I think Coppercube is something of a miracle. I actually really like what it does right now, out of the box. I have my expectations in check and just want to see how far you can push the engine. I get the feeling it could well evolve into the 3D equivalent of something like GameMaker in terms of it's future development. If that's the way it goes then it could be a complete game changer for hobbyist devs like myself. So, congratulations to the developers of this rather fascinating application - I hope this is the start of something really significant. Many thanks Jim |
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straight answer for your 2 questions 1. small community - free studio version just got out a few months back, not sure if this helps increase but we're both one of the many new ones here so I guess its getting there (i would assume you got here bec. of the free versional too ;)) 2. you can do anything you want with it, as long as you got the source (studio version - $199). modifying and getting involved with code will be the same thing as with any other game engine. |
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> congratulations to the developers It's a single developer. He's known as "Niko" here on the forum. |
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The community is small, but active. Coppercube has been around a while and can do more than you think with a minimum of coding. You likely won't need the source code (which is likely in c++ anyway) since Coppercube can do a kind of visual scripting with behaviors and actions. If it just cannot be done with those (and believe me, most can), then you can write custom javascript. There are a few very knowledgeable people on this forum that will help, including Niko, but they won't create the game for you. I have EXTENSIVE experience with almost every game engine out there and Coppercube is a great choice for a light weight or mobile game. It's just about the ONLY choice for a browser-based webgl game. The fact that it can deploy to PC, Mac, Android and WebGL is a testament to how good it is. However, it is NOT Unity, Unreal or Cryengine and will NOT give you that AAA PBR texture look (but with the pro version you can get very close). It CAN allow you to create FPS, Third Person games, birds-eye view games and yes, RTS games as well. My advice is to get into it, buy assets you want to use for the game (unless you are a very good 3D modeller) and try to start small - make a small game 1st just to get used to the engine. One thing Coppercube has going for it is EXCELLENT import features. It really can import almost any asset and do it well. You can buy assets off Unity and import them into Coppercube. Good luck and welcome to the CC world. Mike |
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