Hello, I am trying to create a 3D Space Environment, one that you could travel through it in real time, and also needs to include other objects such as asteriods and a space station.

Anyone have a suggestion on what software I could purchase to do such things? It would be nice if i could end up with an executable so I am able to run it on any Windows machine.

I am open to any suggestion at all. Thank you in advance

Um, GameMaker? I'm not exactly sure how precise you want this to be. If you're planning to write a full-featured 3D game with millions of features, that would be a definite no.

If you want more control over the enviroment or write something fancy, you'll need to learn a programming language such as C/C++, and a graphics library like OpenGL or DirectX to power your graphics. Be prepared to spend half-year to a whole year learning how to program, and even then you'll only be able to write 2D games.

Thankyou Joe, but I am leaning more towards just a whole 3D environment, nothing fancy, maybe zoom in and zoom out on objects, but that's about it, not a game. Its more of a um...enviroment, like if you were playing some fps game, and you're the only one on the map, running around.

That's the base of a game, though. Unless I'm mistaken, Game Maker can do that. And it will probably be sufficient, given that you only need to create a 3D enviroment, and not a full featured game.

Unless you already considered, I'd advise playing around with Blender, but if you're looking for an application that would make an application, then it's GameMaker.

In Blender, for example, one could create a huge box structure, and give the interior walls a "spacey" texture, then take a camera inside it, try it out. Even cooler, a sphere, keep the idea of distance accurate, I guess. Don't know much about the program, but seeing how open it is, and what my friend can do on it, I'd advise it first over anything.

Blender is a very powerful tool, and you can even create games within the program using Python however, it is very difficult to learn. The interface is one of the worst I've ever seen, the keyboard shortcuts don't follow any convention ("We've put the keys into groups so it's easier to operate"), and when you're following the tutorials included with the documentation, one wrong keypress can send you crashing to the ground.

So be prepared for lots of frustration and mistakes, and a forum will probably be handy when learning, but if you can overcome the learning stage, you will be able to create beautiful things with Blender.

Ah, yea, I did fail to mention the complexity of Blender.

You may wish to review this link and try some of the tutorials to get you started beginning with the first tutorial entitled "OpenGL WINDOW'.

http://www.morrowland.com/apron/tut_gl.php

and

http://www.codecolony.de/opengl.htm

**NOTE: This will require at the least on your system:

• OpenGL
• A compiler that will handle OPENGL code ( Microsoft Visual C++ Expresss Edition 2005, for example. Free from Microsoft)
• GLUT (libraries possibly necessary to run OPENGL on the above-mentioned compiler)

Regards,
sharky_machine

WoW, thankyou very mcuH!