Forums - About the beta test

lord_visionz

Joined: 9 April 2008 GMT
Location:
Posts: 2

I have signed up for the beta testing. I can find any links on the site to login though..

richard

Forum Admin
Joined: 7 April 2008 GMT
Location: UK
Posts: 15

Hello Lord Visionz and thank you for your interest.

As a result of internal testing and comments from interested parties, we decided to incorporate some additional features into the engine which unfortunately pushed the release schedule back somewhat. Consequently we haven't commenced public beta-testing yet.

However, we are planning to release screenshots and movies soon and before the technology preview launches we will also be contacting everybody that has signed up to be a beta tester. Once the testing commences, you'll be contacted with the access information that you'll need.

bleeding

Joined: 9 April 2008 GMT
Location:
Posts: 1

Hi,

I came across this engine a few weeks ago, and it looked very interesting after reading the material on your website. But seriously, I just cant help thinking that this is either vaporware or a fork of jmonkeyengine, with some modifications. First of all, you have published zero visuals of your engine 'in action'. By looking at the mile long feature list, it would be reasonable to think that some of you would have itchy fingers to post some goodies that you know your potential customers would be love to see.

Which brings me to your feature list. Are you done implementing those features, or are you still coding like crazy? Looks like a very long list to implement, and quite similar to jmonkeyengine.

Talk is cheap.

dennis_l

Forum Admin
Joined: 9 April 2008 GMT
Location: UK
Posts: 4

Hi,

Thank you for your comments. You have raised a number of points and I will do my best to answer them.

The Elflight Engine has it's origins in a web based game we designed some years ago for a commercial advertising application. The engine met it's design goals but had serious limitations for future expansion. We therefore took the decision to re-write the engine from the ground up, specifically gearing it to our future requirements.

We are aware of the JMonkey Engine, of course, and have great respect for it's developers and community but the Elflight Engine has no relationship to it in any form. Nor does it draw on other Java engines.

With regard to the feature list, it is very much 'the story so far' and we have more features planned for the future. It has comparable features to a number of engines which is inevitable, but even a cursory examination will show major differences in the mix of features it provides which are geared to the way we intend to use it. In this respect we regard some features specific to this engine.

The current engine (albeit an early release) has been used successfully in a commercial application and our strategy has been to take one step at a time in what has become a major project.

With regard to the release schedule, it would be easy for us to mock up some visuals, but we took the decision to wait until our servers were live, allowing people to look for themselves. What visuals you can see, are taken from a test world. The initial beta testing will essentially be the testing of these servers to make sure we have met our design goals with regard to performance.

There has been a wide range of interest in the project and the decision to implement the website and forum was essentially to keep people informed with regard to development.