There can be no argument that mobile games and mobile game platforms have proliferated within the last five years. As computing devices become smaller and more powerful, the trend will likely continue; in fact, some claim that gamers will soon give up their consoles in favor of phones and other mobile devices. However, targeting mobile devices is no easy task, especially for indie developers and hobbyists. Each platform has its own development environment and APIs, not to mention the differences in hardware within a given platform. Fortunately, solutions exist, such as ShiVa3D, that allow you to leverage your work on multiple platforms.

Why ShiVa3D?

There are many game creation solutions that are available as easily as plugging in a few terms in your favorite search engine. The problem can be that there are too many options and it is difficult to determine which game engine to use. Some focus on creating games as simply as possible, while others have high-end features required by AAA studios. Costs also vary from free to thousands of dollars and a cut of your game sales. Even software that is free often restricts your deployment options or feature set. A single game engine cannot solve all the world's gaming problems, but ShiVa3D does a great job of balancing cost, features, and complexity while still being able to be deployed to a huge number of devices.

Cost

ShiVa3D makes it affordable for indie game developers and hobbyists by making the ShiVa Editor and Authoring Tool completely free. This means that you have access to all of the features you would need to create a great, professional game. Ah, but you say there must be a catch! Well, yes, there is a catch. The free edition is called ShiVa Editor Web and although you can deploy your game to all of the available platforms, all but the web browser deployment are for testing purposes only and will be watermarked. Still, you have the ability to completely develop your game for free and when you are absolutely sure that ShiVa3D will work for you and you are ready to publish your game, you simply purchase a basic license.

Features

ShiVa3D splits its feature set into basic and advanced depending on the license that you are using. The basic features are available in all licenses and form the bulk of the functionality of ShiVa3D. We will be dealing strictly with the basic feature set in this book. The advanced features provide enhanced asset management, SVN integration, and other features that are helpful for large studios and those looking to optimize performance.

Basic rendering features include the following:

Basic environment features include:

There are also various post rendering features such as bloom and depth of field. Many of the features such as particle effects, motion trails, and terrain have modules directly in the editor for creating and customizing these assets.

Complexity

Many of the parameters and settings within ShiVa3D are available through the GUI and game assets can be configured graphically. Once you learn the basics of getting assets into the game and setting basic behaviors, you can make surprisingly full-featured games with minimal "programming" effort. With ShiVa3D, you can start very simple and make a game with very little programming knowledge, but at the same time, ShiVa3D has enough depth to allow you to make AAA quality games as you learn to use all of the capabilities of the software. As you gain more experience you can add greater complexity in the form of complicated scripting and states. You can even write C++ extensions to add new capabilities.

Supported platforms

ShiVa3D allows you to easily make games, but is making games enough these days? Markets are becoming increasingly crowded and it is harder to gain the recognition needed to actually sell games. One way to overcome this is by taking advantage of every opportunity to market your game. Word of mouth is still the best way to get your game noticed and so it is critical that your game is in as many places as possible. Have you ever had the experience of someone telling you about a really great game but there is no version for your phone or computer? Every time someone is unable to get access to your game, you are not only losing their sale, but all those sales that may have resulted if they had recommended it to others.

ShiVa3D gives you the ability to create your game once and then release it on every major platform on the market. With ShiVa3D, you can publish games to Android, iPhone, Blackberry, web browsers, PCs, Macs, Linux, and you can also publish to Marmalade, which gives you access to all of the platforms that Marmalade can publish to, such as Bada and Symbian. Now when friends recommend your game, chances are their friends will also be able to play your game regardless of their platform.

Licensing

Stonetrip offers licensing for every price range. The strength of their licensing is that each version provides access to a majority of the features available in ShiVa3D and will allow you to deploy at least a test version of your game to any of the supported platforms.

Shiva Editor Web is a free license that allows you create full games using all of the standard features in ShiVa3D. You can deploy full versions of your game to most web browsers, but deploying to other platforms is for testing purposes only and will have watermarks. Support is limited to the forums. The Web edition is a perfect way to develop a game without spending a dime. When the game is done and ready to be published, simply purchase Shiva Editor Basic and you can publish on any of the supported platforms.

Shiva Editor Basic also allows you to make games using all the standard ShiVa3D features, but you can deploy to any of the supported platforms at any time without a watermark. You also get access to e-mail support in addition to the forums.

Shiva Editor Advanced gives you access to all of the standard features, but adds options for more advanced texture capabilities, SVN integration, optimization features, and more. Advanced licenses also have access to phone support.

Shiva Editor Educational is the same as the Advanced license, but at a lower price and commercial production is not allowed.

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local nY, nZ = 0, 0
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