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Editing	Testing

Download the minigame source

Summary

Blender worked well for this minigame. The API is more compact than Unity's, but not as polished. Despite some rough edges in the engine and documentation, porting the minigame to Blender was pretty easy, and the end result runs smoothly. At least within the limited scope of the minigame, Blender felt about as capable as Unity.

Pluses

• apt-get install blender
• Popular enough that web searches can answer many questions
• Fast 3D graphics and physics, as far as tested
• KX_Camera is a subclass of KX_GameObject, so cameras can be controlled like other GameObjects. Also any GameObject can be used as the camera.
• Many keyboard shortcuts, all customizable
• Integrated 3D modeling, texturing, and animation, UV editing, and non-linear video editing because they allow for asset creation?

Minuses

• Rough edges in the docs and engine:
  • Sensors instead of call-back functions, so for example separating initialization code and update code takes a little thinking.
  • The documentation says: Properties assigned to game objects are accessible as attributes of this class. This wording is confusing. Properties added in the GUI are not accessible as attributes, but instead as dictionary keys of the object: obj["foo"] rather than obj.foo.
  • If Collision sensors work just like Touch sensors except they can also filter by property, why are there still Touch sensors? Backwards compatibility?
  • Calling KX_Camera.getScreenVect() with the same inputs sometimes returns different values from back-to-back calls. Unless I've misunderstood the documentation this is a bug. (Bug report submitted 20 Jan 2013) This bug is fixed in the latest SVN versions.
• All project settings and all assets other than text files are packed into the project file.
• Integrated 3D modeling, texturing, and animation, UV editing, and non-linear video editing because they complicate they interface.

Hints

• print() can be used to output text to the console from within Python Controllers
• The Python Tips and Tricks are helpful, especially the one for dropping into a Python interpreter. Make sure to toggle on the System Console if using Windows. To close the interactive prompt in Windows press Control-Z and then Enter.
• Use Module Mode for Python controllers.
• The Tips and Tricks include some ways to use external text editors, but I preferred to reload all the text files by UI scripting (download the addon).
• The Camera takes one logic step to initialize. Specifically the projection matrix is not set until after the first frame.
• Check the user manual for explanation of the GUI, and the Python API for available Python functions and classes.
• To see the information button properties when testing the game, switch to Blender Game render mode, and enable Show Debug Properties in the Game menu.

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