Best ask Alric that question… I was taking him on his word that using Shaders is tougher in jME than in Unity (which is, as he says, quite straightforward, providing you have a clue about the shader language):
There are some [features] that you get with free Unity but not with jME (yet), such as straightforward shader support,
I was referring to JME2 vs Unity 2 as it seems only fair to compare like for like. Not that you can't use shaders in JME2 but that even using common ones is not straightforward.
Shader support is sure to change in the new versions of each, and I don't think that will be an issue either way long term. JME3 probably superior to Unity 2 free in the shader department, Unity 3 free still an unknown. But up to and including JME2, using shaders has been a mixed experience at best, IMO.
Using shaders in jME2 was really a pain… To have something like reliable per-pixel lighting with multipass you had to jump hoops. Adding HDR, hardware skinning, or in-pass shadows would have been difficult.
I don't know how Unity3D handles shaders, but I guess its mostly automated, you just say you want to use this normal map and that specular map, etc, and it takes care of it for you. jME3 is very similar in that aspect, but you can write or edit the shaders if you need control.
at the end
jme is like linux(open source, free, moving forward with some core coders)
unity is like windows or mac (expensive, has a huge company behind )
so I think jme can only improve when
1, the core members work much harder (dont shorten your own life!)
2, improve the number of core members (with quality) and number of fans (from these you might be able to find new core member)
I wonder which way the team will choose, but personally I would choose the second way.
(if so then at least one of core member has to leave and concentrate only on the tutorials, no fan can help even when they want if they dont know how)
for momoko_fan - a core member (if my information is right) is using shaders in jme2 a pain.
then for users is searching for tuts(+ seeing uncompleted tuts or never written tuts) also a real pain
but still I will stay with jme rather then go with unity
will canonical support jme like they did with ubuntu ?
linux was also a real pain for me until ubuntu and its great community arrived
xieu90 said:That's a far fetched comparison. Unity is backed by a rather small startup company of roughly 50 individuals. The developers actually connect with their community and the community (forum) itself is just as involving and helpful as ours. I have great respect for the Unity3D project.
at the end
jme is like linux(open source, free, moving forward with some core coders)
unity is like windows or mac (expensive, has a huge company behind )
I have great respect for the Unity3D project.
you consider 50 employees a "small startup company"??? :-o
MrCoder said:Okay, maybe in the sense of a startup company, 50 employees isn't small, so excuse the phrasing. Point still stands that a company with 50 employees is rather small, especially when compared to Microsoft.
you consider 50 employees a "small startup company"??? :-o
erlend_sh said:
Okay, maybe in the sense of a startup company, 50 employees isn't small, so excuse the phrasing. Point still stands that a company with 50 employees is rather small, especially when compared to Microsoft.
Big difference between a production team of 50 and a company of 50. In the company of 50, maybe a third to a half of those people will not be in production but in supporting roles e.g. finance, HR, marketing & channel managers, new business, IT support and so on.
A company like Microsoft has all of those supporting staff already, or can get them in rapidly enough. I'd say you're right in that a team of 50 full-time members is pretty damn impressive, I imagine a good many triple-A titles these days have about that many. It also must be hard to manage without a very effective chain of command and reporting structure.
In the game/engine industry, a company with 50 people and only one product is a pretty big company in my mind. Epic Games who has made the Unreal Engine (as well as Gears of War etc) is not many more than that. Not many go beyond that in this industry.
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ComputerGamesIndustry
"Team size 1-100+"
I would agree that a company sitting at 50, even if a third of those are non-production, is doing well. But that's not nearly as large as it gets, apparently.
I hadn't even heard of these guys and they just doubled their team size to 60:
http://www.edge-online.com/news/splash-damage-double-development-team-size
And on Wikipedia we see more sizes, including a report that one team (Assassin's Creed II) was around 450 people:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game#Development
…But I'm guessing 50 is still a good average top-end?
game companies can often grow to 10x it's normal size when in heavy development of a title (when lots of investors throw money at them) 
Yeah like from 1 member to 10. Or 5 to 50 maybe if it is an incredible project with amazingly talented/experienced core members. But beyond that I wouldn't say "often" 
450 people is a record without a doubt.
edit: Doubling or tripling dev team size seems common enough though, when the investment starts coming in, or when it's crunch-time. I just don't agree with 10x being a thing that happens "often".
And if we compare JME and Ogre? Just + and -? Another holy war talking. 
Argh, resurrection! Its ten months later, jME3 now also has an IDE, asset tools and deployment platform, completely different base for the whole discussion