Dage - New 3D Adventure Game Engine

[Rahakasvi]

Hello.

My name is Pauli Suuraho, and I come from Finland. I'm big fan of adventure games, and lack of free 3D adventure game engine in market, I decided to start developing one myself. Have you played Sam and Max, new series? Like the idea of full 3D point and click games? Ever wanted to create 3D adventure game? Then you would be interested in my current project, called Dage, which stands for Dog Adventure Game Engine.

Dage is still in development, but the goal is to make free standalone engine for creating full scripted 3d animated graphical adventure games. Let these screenshots explain the rest:




Got your attention?


Download the latest alpha from here

View more information about the Dage at www.dageport.com

I have no meaning to create full game with Dage, well not yet. I want to create relatively easy-to-use game engine. See data/scripts folder for examples how the game logic works.

Notes:

• Dage is only an engine! So there are no editors! But scripting interface has been made relatively easy to use.
• Dage is now actively developed. More people show interest in seeing the Dage finished, the quicker it will develop.
• If someone actually wants to start playing around with Dage, let me know and I can tutor you and add features you would want necessary to create your game.
• Dage is in beta version, so it means it's quite stable, but some features haven't been implemented yet.

Thanks for you attention.

-Pauli Suuraho

ps. I don't want to compete with Adventure Game Studio in any way

[Dataflashsabot]

funny, i was wanting to make a 3d adventure game recently. im gonna try it out.

[Dataflashsabot]

hm, played about with the demo game and skimmed the scripting. looks pretty good and easy to use. ok, a few things: one, obj or collada support for meshes would be great. two, can you compile it or do you have to distribute the data folder? will mebbe edit with a few more questions. edit: can you have better shadows

[Rahakasvi]

OBJ support for static meshes is under a way

In future releases everything can be compiled to specific Dog formats. (with no need to modify script files)
I will include the compiling when I feel Engine is stable enough.

See this link for more information about data folder and Dog files

What comes for better shadows, not with my programming skills, sorry.

[Dataflashsabot]

Ok, just two more questions: does it support normal/bump/light maps, and can you completly disable the shadows? oh and will it be open source?

[magintz]

Wow, this looks very impressive. I've yet to try it out but will update as soon as.

Edit: Impressive start, looks straight forward to use. In need of cleaning up and further documentation, but a great start. I know you stated it was just an engine but an editor would be very helpful and make everything much more straightforward.

[Rahakasvi]

Ok, just two more questions: does it support normal/bump/light maps, and can you completly disable the shadows? oh and will it be open source?

Dage supports GLSL shading language (though it is not complete yet, i must add some way to post parameters to shaders) so that way you should be able to create normal and bump maps.

Demo game shows how static lightmaps works. Textures are not baked, but illuminated with light map. If you export 3ds file from Max, put your lightmaps to self-illumination map-slot and Dage will read it from there.

You can disable shadows by pressing F5 during running (for debug purposes). I can insert "disable shadows via script" in next release. I always thought using shadows should be determinated in players end.

Dage is not open source.

[Rahakasvi]

Wow, this looks very impressive. I've yet to try it out but will update as soon as.

Edit: Impressive start, looks straight forward to use. In need of cleaning up and further documentation, but a great start. I know you stated it was just an engine but an editor would be very helpful and make everything much more straightforward.

I agree about the cleaning up Demo is built gradually from first releases, so it has got little messy. I tried to make it so that it showcases a lot of features instead of being clean

I have no plans for creating editor. Engine part takes enough time. Who knows if someone is inspired to create some tools for this game...

[Dataflashsabot]

Great! I like this. Easiest 3d adventure maker ive ever seen (though i havent yet tried ags s 3d plugins) oh and whats the walkarea thing, it includes walls so it cant literally be a walkable areas thing, is it more a what-to-bother-checking collision thing, to speed it up? oh and can you change the name of the exe. really sorry for all these questions

[Rahakasvi]

Well Walkarea is little bit off-named. In AGS the walkarea refers to a polygon, inside which characters can walk. As Dage is 3D, walkarea has to be also 3D. Walkarea is actually a simplified mesh to check collisions faster with the environment. Dage actors can't get out from Walkarea. In tutorials, we use Walkarea differently, and you can see what happens, if you try to get the actor to fall from the edge

edit: yes you can change the name of the EXE. In future releases I try to find a way to change the icon for the EXE.

[Ubel]

That's some really exciting stuff you have there, Rahakasvi! I can hardly wait to see more!

[Buckethead]

I rather wait untill this has progressed a little further but I'm very interested 

[Gilbert]

Interesting! Too bad I cannot try it yet as this comp. in the office uses crappy Intel onboard graphics that has poor OGL driver support (and everything else) and I've been getting thousands of 'Access Violation' errors popping when I execute it. I'll try again when I get home.

I'm just curious in asking, is there any chance that it will support Anim8or files in the future? I ask this because Anim8or is also free, and may thus help in expanding the user base of your programme. There is already a game engine being developed for Anim8or (it's not geared towards adventure games of course) and it looks promising. It even features an AGS-like editor. It will rock if Dage will also have some sort of editors in the future.

[Jakerpot]

Milkshape too! It need a milkshape file format support! I`m a zero at the left on 3D art, but it`s very intersting!

[Layabout]

Wow, I'm impressed by the screenshots, I have to check this out.

The world needs a proper 3D Adventure Game Engine, and this project looks like it might just take that crown.

BTW Jakerpot, Milkshape exports to SMD's so you will have no trouble using Milkshape to create 3d characters. I don't really know how well MS handles shader support if at all, but for not so complex 3d characters, it may suffice.

Or if you own HL2 you can get the Softimage XSi mod tool.

[Rahakasvi]

Thank you very much for feedback

If you have more questions about Dage, or want to get serious, I recommend using

Dage Forum

Currently you don't have to register in order to post questions.

It's better to talk there, because it helps more people interested in Dage. Your questions probably are surely common ones. (And I don't want to flood this forum )

-Pauli

[Dualnames]

It looks really really cool. Wondering however if it really interests me as a I suck with 3d..no wait, I have a couple of models made with Blender are they compatible?

[Buckethead]

Blender has a build in 3ds exporter if I'm not mistaking.

[Rahakasvi]

Okay, couple versions later Dage now supports OBJ files and easy-to-use Sound & Music features with wide range of audio file formats.

See documentation and download latest release

Post your question and/or comments to Dage forum (no registration required, but advisable).

This is the last message about new version I will post to these forums. If you are interested in developing games with Dage, use Dage forum. 

Dage Forum

-Pauli

[Jakerpot]

Can Blender export to milkshape`s format? i barelly remember...