Shiva 2.0 open discussion

[Teo]

Hey Stonetrip,

Any news on Shiva 2.0?

"When is ready" and "soon" are not the answers what we expect. We are putting our money and plans into the game. And we have to take decisions carefully. Features and dates matters.

At least licensed customers should receive a mail with a 2.0 roadmap or something.

From what I've seen on forums, "early 2012, before GDC" Shiva 2.0 will be out.

Lets be honest, can we have an official announcement or something about it?

EDIT:
- I want to clarify some things. I don't want this post to sounds rude or arrogant or something like that. I've seen some reactions and I don't want to be misunderstood. I like Shiva 3D, I am really excited about 2.0 and I expect to be a step forward with new features and improvements.

[michax]

According to wiki: "ShiVa 2.0 should be officially released Q1 2012..Before GDC"

GDC start's in two days, http://www.gdconf.com/.

I hope for some details as well

[redmotion]

Don't want to rain on your parade but it also says this in the same sentence:

We hope we'll be able to start betas some months before.

Would be nice to have some info next week though. Some screenies...

PS: I believe there may be an article about Shiva3d posted up sometime over the next week at http://www.develop-online.net/features.

PPS: Found it: http://www.develop-online.net/features/1572/Essential-Game-Engines-ShiVa - it gives away absolutely nothing!

[kalango]

The thing i want most right now is the feature set of 2.0.
I'm really expecting some features like programable sahders but i dont know if shiva 2.x will support them, so would be nice to have that cleared. Also would be even nicer if the dev team took into account our wishlists and complaints.

[makkar]

Good to know Shiva got a place among essential game engines.

When will there be time for some essential information?

[kalango]

Oh and also, the blog should have updates... its frustrating.

[dpharaoh]

Much smaller staff compared to the other guys. Top quality product however.

[dreamora]

Don't see a use in this thread. I want to remember everyone that Shiva 2 was originally scheduled for christmas 2010 and between then and now different far less important things happened than programmable shaders, code reusability / import / require or editor extendability, which is a crucial must have for bigger projects, have not been added nor addressed, with editor extendability always being pushed to 'Shiva 2 will support that'

Or what I wanted to say: I wouldn't hold my breath and just wait and see when it happens.
If you need something new now, then take something new, if it does not matter cause shiva 1.x is enough do that but for christs sake, NEVER base your planning on other companies roadmap, never ever, unless you give that little about your business that you want to sink it anyway (relying on stuff outside your control when the stuff is known to not meet its timeline is like going to bungee jump where someone promises you to get the rope around your ankles midflight)

[codinghero]

Wow, not a single response on either 2.0 tread. You guys getting the feeling they took the money and ran?

[redmotion]

And to follow on from what Dreamora said, you can make a game and publish it in 1.9, right now and v2.0 won't change that.

What we are experiencing is the main drawback of supporting the underdog. They can't declare what they are doing until its actually done. This is the same problem I experienced with Softimage and nothing has changed since AD took over. If they have competitors then showing their cards too early could be very bad.

They know what they're doing.

[dreamora]

Hmm they show the cards to early pretty often though.
The problem is more that it seems that Shiva 2 is not their priority, they prefer to waste time on new platforms instead like Flash and alike, which while definitely being great, are not half as important as finally getting the editor out of its 2006 'little hobbiest' state so real teams with real projects and large scale needs can work with it. Right now its an engine great for smaller to medium sized iphone 3g class games and alike, not even large scale iOS / Android titles can be handled through the engine due to the lack of editor scriptability, custom shaders and the simple fact that the 'self existant' AI model is completely impossible to be maintained on a codebase with several hundred scripts, complex dependencies and halfway modern development workflows and paradigms.

I for example would definitely love to work more with Shiva but I simply can't as none of my customers would even touch Shiva once they realize that you can't develop with modern development standards (OO, patterns, ...) and as such its not possible for me to use it either as I'm not a 15 year old with sparetime like stupid to waste on something thats business irrelevant ...
And please don't come up with C++. If I wanted to work on source levels like that I would use OGRE3D, not invest the money I did in Advanced! I want to be able to make use of the editor etc and thats not possible as C++ is a oneway pipeline in shiva, you can't write AIs in C++ that work again in shiva and alike.

I got the Advanced license I own to look deep into what Shiva would theoretically possible to achieve and its really frustrating to see such a great technology being held back in such a way.

[michax]

I for example would definitely love to work more with Shiva but I simply can't as none of my customers would even touch Shiva once they realize that you can't develop with modern development standards (OO, patterns, ...) and as such its not possible for me to use it either as I'm not a 15 year old with sparetime like stupid to waste on something thats business irrelevant ...

I can fully agree with that. For my own simple games, Shiva is ok. I cry a little when i see my code base Yeah but games are running smoothly on even older devices. In the end i can live with messy code base (but not for a long time).

There is a whole different world when you create product for a client :/

I would love to buy Advanced version now. But i'm realy worried that i will see 2.0 in 2013. In the other hand it's better to get it right, then release bugy mess.

Either way some sneak peak would be nice one day before GDC.

[Teo]

Well, I edited my post to do not sounds like an "order". Do not judge me wrong.

[michax]

Does anybody know if there is Europe GDC scheduled ? I don't see any info on their page. Only big timer for San Francisco.

PS. I wonder if Stonetrip is planing to showcase 2.0 on GDC. It would be nice suprise

[Benton]

Oh man, if they showcased ShiVa 2.0...that would be awesome. Or maybe if someone from Stonetrip shared with us at least SOMETHING like a feature list...

I mean, 2.0 is LONG LONG LONG overdue. The graphic's that 1x can put out is 2008 from what I can see. I mean, even GameStart has SSAO, deferred rendering, volumetric lighting. ShiVa 1x is ok for simple mobile games, but for anything else, like high end mobile games, PC games, games with next gen graphics...I mean, ShiVa 1x does not even let you make your own shaders. How can I make a good looking PC game when the terrain system is pretty poor, I don't see any support for complex materials, no custom shaders...it needs to be updated. Right now, I am thinking of doing my project in GameStart.

Now, don't get the wrong impression. I love ShiVa, I really do. But if I am going to make games with it, I will need to wait for 2.0 and see what that has. I would start my project now, with 1.9.1, and merge it with 2.0, but I don't know if ShiVa 2.0 will have what I want.

How bad can giving us a feature list be? Even if it's a WIP list.

I am not looking for UDK/Cryengine graphics, thats too much to wish for. But GameStart/Unity graphics in 2.0 would be REALLY nice (and would make me stay).

Benton