Theme Park Builder 3d

[Parktimes]

I have found some more information on Theme Park Builder 3d, a theme park designing program that I have posted about before.

There is an active forum, with rides that have been designed at:

http://www.tpb3d.net/index.php

There is a wiki article set at:

http://www.tpb3d.net/showthread.php?tid=2186


Main FAQ at:

http://www.tpb3d.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=186

Interesting stuff, although the game itself is sill not released.

[Twisted]

Definitely on it's way!

The selection of carnival/flat rides is simply AMAZING! Trey will be drooling. And the selection of riverboats is enough to make any river rat have an afterglow for awhile! As for Alan R., I can already hear him screaming out VonRoll's name in blissful happiness...

[cleusk]

Here's the link to its You Tube Channel. From the look of things, I think this will blow RCT3 out of the water.




http://www.youtube.com/TPB3D

[Twisted]

The shadows and reflections are impressive. I just hope that it isn't too hard on most machines, as enough already have trouble with RCT3. This looks far nicer.

[rct247]

It's cool that the rides are becoming more realistic, but I see a lot of problems. The relfection effect metioned above WILL result in longer render time, which means slower loading in a game environment. These videos look nice, but there are all animations created from a modeling program, not a game environment.

Since I am studying Computer Graphics, I know that you first model the attraction, then you apply the textures to it. The more photo realistic, the longer load/render time. Adding shadows, reflections, and setting the lighting up right will also add to it. Then the animation is produced in the modeling program. To make it an animation though, usually it has to render out each frame as a still image, then at the end it pieces it together. That is what I am seeing with these videos. None of them seem to prove that they aren't going to lag in a gaming environment. That's why RCT 3 basically sucks. It takes too long to load all the animations, textures, reflections, lighting, and of course the models.

[cleusk]

The main reason why so many games with heavy graphics can lag is the fact that developers are lazy. Instead of developing faster software to handle the graphics, they rely upon the development of faster hardware. I have seen many instances such as Outcast where an entire 3d environment loaded in few minutes, and this was on my clunky Pentium 700.

[Twisted]

Luckily most games give you options for reducing graphic rendering (to a point) and that helps. It's good to also know that game programmers are pushing the envelope since the hardware will eventually catch up.

[AviRaider]

This will blow away RCT3 if fully implemented. I hope it happens. But something just doesn't seem right about the pages cited. I find it hard to believe this things is anything but in it's early stages. The wiki article states the first module to be released in March 09. Other than pictures of certain 3d models of ride units and a few flat rides there are, at lease from what I can find, no pictures of the game being played. i.e. not just one ride but multiple rides with shops, people etc. Maybe I'm missing something here but there is something not quite legit about all this, and I hope I'm wrong because this game would be awesome.
The wiki articles are fake or at least they are meant to mimic wiki articles. If you go to wikipedia you will not find a reference to Theme Park Builder 3d. The forums seem to be lacking anything of real substance like release dates or beneficial progress reports, just people requesting addons and 3d models. There are only 2 videos that don't really show anything other than an animated 3d model of a flat ride in action. As far as we know this could be done with any modeling program, how do we know it is being run in TPB3d? Sorry guys but I don't think this thing will ever really go anywhere.

[Parktimes]

Originally Posted by AviRaider

This will blow away RCT3 if fully implemented. I hope it happens. But something just doesn't seem right about the pages cited. I find it hard to believe this things is anything but in it's early stages. The wiki article states the first module to be released in March 09. Other than pictures of certain 3d models of ride units and a few flat rides there are, at lease from what I can find, no pictures of the game being played. i.e. not just one ride but multiple rides with shops, people etc. Maybe I'm missing something here but there is something not quite legit about all this, and I hope I'm wrong because this game would be awesome.
The wiki articles are fake or at least they are meant to mimic wiki articles. If you go to wikipedia you will not find a reference to Theme Park Builder 3d. The forums seem to be lacking anything of real substance like release dates or beneficial progress reports, just people requesting addons and 3d models. There are only 2 videos that don't really show anything other than an animated 3d model of a flat ride in action. As far as we know this could be done with any modeling program, how do we know it is being run in TPB3d? Sorry guys but I don't think this thing will ever really go anywhere.

I would agree that open software can be an unknown quantity. It is essentially free software usually developed by volunteers coders in their spare time.

Some of your concerns, however, I think I can answer.

Rolling release dates are not unusual with the first release of any type of novel product. The bottom line is that people simply don't know how long it is going to take to put something new together. Again, with volunteers working in the spare time, planning can be difficult. It would be no surprise that they are not as far as they one time planned.

The source code is available at: http://www.tpb3d.com/
as is a directory of recent activity.

Likewise, "wiki" has become both a website at "wikipedia", as well as a format for structuring your own site. In this case, they have simply selected to use the wiki format to distribute their documentation and other information. Anyone can set up a "wiki" site whether or not their topic is covered on wikipedia. Lost has an unofficial show wiki at: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Blender, which is also open software, has a wiki at:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Me...s/Blender_Wiki
The fact that a topic has a wiki site dedicated to it, but is not mentioned in wikipedia isn't a concern to me.

Time will tell.

[AviRaider]

Originally Posted by Parktimes

Rolling release dates are not unusual with the first release of any type of novel product. The bottom line is that people simply don't know how long it is going to take to put something new together. Again, with volunteers working in the spare time, planning can be difficult. It would be no surprise that they are not as far as they one time planned.

Thats true. I flight sim and most aircraft modelers will not give release dates. Too many in the past have burned bridges by giving specific dates and then going way beyond that date to release. Although it doesn't stop the constant "When is it going to be released" question in the forums.

Thanks