Why tntparticlesengine.com is closed? And what do I do?

sslivka · April 2013

tntparticlesengine.com is closed - "Sorry. TNT ENGiNE is CLOSED. No donations, no further develop.". Ok - no further develop, but why site is closed? Where else I can dowload TNT PARTICLE ENGiNE? What are the alternatives?

moopf · April 2013

Looks like @GregBUG has taken all the TNT stuff down, not just the particle engine. Not sure why.

I'm not aware of any alternatives for particles in Gideros without writing your own. Never quite understood why there isn't a particle system built in - it's something that nearly every game needs and it's best done natively rather than through Lua for speed.

techdojo · April 2013

Due to the overhead that comes from wrapping even a simple image to use in a retained system like Gideros a native particle system - something that could throw lot's of little sprites around as fast as possible would be a real boost.

I suppose a shader based one (when shader support is finally released) would be a good compromise.

Although @GregBUG himself might want to join in and let us know his direction where his TNT stuff has gone / is going.

ar2rsawseen · April 2013

Apparently, although many (probably most) of us were using something from TNT engine, but there were not enough supporters/donators.
Thus @GregBUG might have decided to close it all up, and well, I couldn't blame him, as this takes a lot of his time and without supporters, it does not do him any good.

GregBUG · April 2013

hi guys,

tntengine.com is now up again. with downloads.

and yes... just realized that free/donation software model don't works.
I'm really sorry for that; but this is the sad (for me) truth.

except for some cases 99% of my users base (over 600 user). don't support my work. even peoples that had relesed commercial games using tnt engine.

tnt engine is the result of almost a year of work. I have invested all my free time (and my big mistake is that sometimes I took time to my family) dedicating to the development of something that until now has not brought me to nothing. and this will not happen again.

Excuse me if I created some inconvenience, which is why I decided to reopen the site leaving it open.

thank you all.
and sorry again FOR the inconvenience.

keszegh · April 2013

@GregBUG, I hope you don't stop development, it seems to be a very well written and useful addition to gideros. you should just encourage people to donate more (e.g. i like the way it is on zerobrane's download page, it always managed to make me feel bad when i don't pay for it:) ). as for myself, i always download and follow the latest version of the tnt things, but never used them so far. whenever i use it in any project which provides income, it's just natural to donate for you too (and buy gideros, donate to zerobrane etc).
hopefully others will be frightened now that you may close up the shop completely, and will pay some.
i wish (more) luck with the tnt stuff in the future.

ps: on the other hand i would not stop giving out the latest version for free, as it makes it easy for everybody to use them and when they finally start to produce income, they may donate to you. but if they can never try out tnt then maybe they won't use it at all.

arcadia · April 2013

No more tnt?? ????? Aaargghhhh!! !!!
I wanted to donate my first 15 euro earned with my first game!! !
Don't leave!! !!! And coming soon particle engine 2???

SinisterSoft · April 2013

imho: You should restrict the free versions a little - only add the new features to the source code releases, etc...

Mells · April 2013

I would make it a paid product...
Free products only attract people that are interested in free stuff.
It doesn't convert to paid customers (1% conversion, wow...).

I won't blame people that didn't pay because the choice is given, but it makes sense to donate a little something if TNT helps save at least one hour of work (and it does).
Particle Engine + animation system + joypad + email support. Isn't it worth a few coffees?

Maybe add a few more youtube videos to show how easy to use TNT engine is.

I can hear people saying "please keep a free version" but that does not make sense to me because it doesn't translate to money (to pay for the work done, and provide some support).

BJG · April 2013

It's hard to make an honest buck @GregBUG, but whatever you decide, your work with Gideros is fantastic. Kudos.

WauloK · April 2013

I agree with SinisterSoft. Have a limited free version and a paid version. People might pay up to $20 for something like this.
I have downloaded the TNT stuff but have not released a game nor used it yet. I got it for the future

Mells · April 2013

@ar2rsawseen Wouldn't Gideros Mobile have an interest in maintaining/supporting Tnt?
What happens if the site disappears again?

ar2rsawseen · April 2013

@Mells actually @GregBUG 's licensing was never an open source, thus Gideros can't just take over and proceed maintaining the libs.
We could probably negotiate on hosting space and domain namespace if needed.

We also have plans for developing an infrastructure around Gideros, as creating catalogs and maybe even market place of libs, etc. But you understand that all of this would take time away from Gideros SDK, so creating a stable Gideros release with most of features requested is the first priority.

OZApps · April 2013

@ar2rsawseen, yep. The focus or the aim should be clear with fast results, CoronaSDK missed out on the deliveries, people got tired of waiting for bug fixes and features.

A Marketplace and a whole lot of things would be nice around Gideros, for that Point #1 has to be covered, i.e. Gideros has to have the features requested and stable.

It is always nice to hear officially that the focus is still maintained on what's important.

Nascode · April 2013

@Mells i think you are exaggerating things. You could reach @GregBUG if you want to talk about TNT future.

I see @ar2rsawseen 's comment to be constructive and want to help things, including TNT case.

IMO, TNT is a third party product. It lies beyond Gideros team responsibility for now. To make things officialy supported and maintained takes time and effort.

Mells · April 2013

@ar2rsawseen
I appreciate the effort you make to clarify.

I get your points :
1. You can't host the files because you don't have the rights to do so.
My answer was : that doesn't mean Gideros can't acquire the rights, or just support and participate to some costs so that the files are maintained online.
No additional work.

So when you say : "But it can't be our decision, only his." I feel it would be all in Gideros' interest to push and make it happen. GregBug only has things to lose by maintaining it, currently.
That's my point, why would GregBug maintain the lib?

2. You are going in the direction to make third party libs available on your own server
I get it and I think it's a good thing. Also, I get that doing it is not a priority.
However, due to :

the ROI by maintaining Tnt today
the cost of losing such a resource
the minimal cost to maintain it from today

i would have thought that it's worth acting on it now.

P.S. btw I have no issues talking about roadmap, problem is, I do not know much, can't read @atilim's thoughts and been given only some priority works to do right now.

Obviously no doubt about your honesty, but I am not convinced that talking about the roadmap is a safe topic here.
It has always been a pain to talk about it. Always ends up the same way the poster being told (taught) that he has to understand that a business needs to have some priorities, etc... but the question (and the concern behind) is never truly "listened" and re-routed.
Maybe it's not conscious though.

@Nascode
I don't want to talk about TNT future. I wanted to talk about Gideros' future.
Also I was thinking that if devs can be confident that third parties are supported by Gideros until some features become native, they will jump to the framework more easily which means more resources for devs for the team, more features for us.
It's not the first time this happens, that made me tired but as I said nothing personal with Arturs. I said my appreciation for Gideros and the team enough times.

I don't know if I exaggerate, maybe. It's just that I wanted to participate in some way.

Mells · April 2013

hey @ar2rsawseen
can you please delete our posts? (cleaning mine only didn't make sense)
We are not going anywhere and I don't want you to feel that I had something against you.
That's far from the case. I was frustrated with a few things from past discussions (r*admap), even though I believe I was talking with Gideros' interests in mind.

So Tnt will be available in the future "maybe yes maybe not", and on the other hand lot of good things are coming to Gideros and the team focuses on core features. That's it. Let's move on.

bowerandy · April 2013

@GregBUG, thanks for putting this stuff back online ... But...

Personally, I think you should charge more for your stuff and drop the free model. Gideros is not currently a mass market product and so does not have the competition in add-ons that would demand reduced prices or a free model. If someone is interested in particles and using Gideros then it costs nothing to try your stuff. But you are likely to get nothing either. However, if someone is using Gideros for a serious app and they need particles then you can sell a decent particle system to them for any amount less than the cost (in time) it would take to write it themselves. All you need to do is to convince them of the quality and that can probably be done with YouTube videos. Providing a 30 day guarantee would be another way.

I urge you to take down your site again right now... edit it.. and put out back up charging, say, $50 for each of your modules. If someone (who is serious) wants a game pad, or particles or collisions they will pay this because it is peanuts. If nothing else it would be an interesting experiment to see which strategy rewards you better for your efforts.

Best regards

sslivka · April 2013

@bowerandy "Gideros is not currently a mass market product and so does not have the competition in add-ons that would demand reduced prices or a free model."

But Gideros wants to become a mass product it needs to grow and attract users. And mine Gideros should not indifferent to TNT.

sslivka · April 2013

I like the fact that it gideros everything out of the box and IDE and TeksturePacker rather than that of the corona buy it, buy it. I want to pay a lump sum and so I had everything.

bowerandy · April 2013

@sslivka, yes we all want to pay a small lump sum (or nothing) and have everything. But you don't have the the things that @GregBUG provides in the base Gideros system, do you? So where to go from there?

Surely, the discussion here is how to encourage developers like @GregBUG to make these things for us. He has already said that his original freemium model failed - this is not a great encouragement to any other devs out there to create further add-ons for Gideros. If you want stuff you have to encourage people to create it and one way to do this is by paying them.

BTW, I was happy to contribute 30EUR to GregBUG for the TNT Particle system and I don't even use it for anything yet.

best regards

SinisterSoft · April 2013

@Mells: @GregBUG gives you the source if you pay for the licence - you get the latest version via DropBox - so you can maintain it yourself if it ever goes again - just give him some money for coding it in the first place!

The code is good and well worth the money - and if you make enhancements and send them in then it can become part of the main build and everyone benefits.

Mells · April 2013

@SinisterSoft

just give him some money for coding it in the first place!

I am surprised?

I won't blame people that didn't pay because the choice is given, but it makes sense to donate a little something if TNT helps save at least one hour of work (and it does).
Particle Engine + animation system + joypad + email support. Isn't it worth a few coffees?

I have donated several times for TNT Engine, I already own the sources. It's just that I don't need to claim it everywhere.
I donated a few days after I discovered it, even if at that time I almost couldn't code.

My question never implied that I was looking at my own benefit, it's even the opposite.

ar2rsawseen · April 2013

@SinisterSoft as right as you are, in that I think dropbox resources were not removed, but I think @Mells was more worried about others getting this awesome product rather than himself

SinisterSoft · April 2013

lol. I wasn't getting at @Mells, I'm sorry if it seemed like that.

I didn't know if he knew you could get the sources when you donated.

OZApps · April 2013

If Gideros Studio purchases the code, then it can be made part of Gideros Studio available only to Pro and Enterprise developers, since the main focus of Gideros is Games a Joystick, Animator and Particles would make perfect sense.

However, donation of a license and purchasing the rights to a product are two separate issues.

Scouser · April 2013

As an early adopter (both donated and corrected a couple of bugs) I think it's a shame that more people didn't support @GregBUG with a small donation.

I know my donation wasn't huge but if every user of @GregBUG's libraries donated even a small amount, say €3 (less than the price of a pint or a pack of cigarettes) he might have been inclined to continue development.

Unfortunately donationware just doesn't seem to work. If you have a lib / template then really the only way to monetize it is to sell the lib as a module to anyone who wants to use it.

I saw the benefits of using @GregBUG's TNTParticleEngine rather than writing my own. As yet I haven't released anything using it yet (there are a couple of near finished projects which incorporate it) but I know it's there when I do.

fxone · April 2013

I may promise that at least 3.19$ I dedicate to @GregBUG paypal's donation. Let's make some noise!

>-
I delayed this decision for too long..
[policies restrictions...]

Tom2012 · April 2013

Hey GregBug - you should definitely make a paid version.

I'd be the first in the queue.

fxone · June 2013

Let's make some noise! >-

Done! Thank you, Gianluca for your great work! Guys, if you have some bucks/euros from ads and you are using @GregBUG's works, please do not delay decision (like me) to support this excellent programmer!

MilkyJoe · June 2013

I agree with @moopf. As good as the TNT Particle Engine appears to be, Gideros really needs a native particle system. I am considering MOAI because of this very omission (I want to be able to use the popular Partcile Designer from 71squared).

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