I know this is not really the right place to ask this, but i could not see a better one...

I was looking into this engine tonight because I am looking for the best choice for my idea. I'm not a real game developer, but an artist working on a virtual world wherein people can walk around, find objects that represent sounds or ways to manipulate sound and use them to make sort of a 'soundscape', say a musical happening mainly meant for experimental music festivals and such.

So tools to make it easy to construct a world and easy integration of 3d models are a must, and so far Esenthel looks like it offers that (and also impressive visual quality!). I've also experimented with other engines the last months, and all that i found have pro's and cons.

One thing i miss here are multiplayer support, but I read that I could use raknet for that. I don't know that piece of software and wonder if it will mean a lot of extra work, compared to an engine having multiplayer supported in itself.

Another is that I need to have a really good integration of object and sound position. Most sound solutions, like directX, are really not coming close to what I need. So far, FMOD gave me the best results and I think that one would be best. But even then I would have to link it to sound generation via a pcm callback, using portaudio or such.

In that aspect, i see that with a basic license i do not have access to the source code of Esenthel. Would I need that, or is it possible to add my own c code for implementing sound by just overwriting header files? And if not, what kind of source license should i take, because i cannot see the sound source code mentioned in any of the licenses.

A few thoughts of people who know this engine would really help me making a decission.

Regards,

yvan vander sanden

Hello,

You don't need anything special from the engine sources, you can develop your own sound API easily (assuming you know about programming).
But if you need only 3D sound positioning then built-in api based on directsound is more than enough.
Multiplayer can be developed too on your own, but again assuming you have programming experience.

Good luck!

Thanks for the fast response!

Programming as such is not a problem. But new libraries always need some time to get used to. And that is again largely dependant on the amount of accurate documentation. Last engine i worked with, there was no reference manual, for instance. Only tutorials and forums with great and not so great answers. That takes a LOT of your time.

So the better question to ask about that is perhaps, are there good resources I could depend on or would I be entering completely unknown territory?

About directsound, I beg to differ . Compared to fmod it has a lot more latency, for instance (more than a 100 milliseconds). And the rolloff volume does not go smooth enough to zero. And try having 3 or 4 sounds moving around you with a good surround speaker system, close your eyes and try to track their positions. Directsound does a really bad job at balancing all gamesound in multiple channels.

It also doesn't allow for environmental acoustics. With fmod i could hear the impact off flickering walls to positioned sound, for instance. I admit it's not all about things the average gamer cares about, but if people would be made aware of the differences i'm sure they would not want to use directsound ever again :-)

The tutorials and header files will be your best source of information. It's not to say there isn't good support for questions on the forums though.

It may not sound very promising to rely on tutorials for most things but, the truth is, tutorials are provided for most everything. It's not like there are a few basic tutorials and nothing that really demonstrates the stuff you need. These tutorials cover everything.

Ok, after a few days of fiddling around with the tutorials, i must say they're pretty good.