Phoenix3D 360° photo-realistic pre render game engine

I did made a list of Most well known game engines here I did forgot to post one of the best old realistic game engines Phoenix3D Phoenix VR middleware, developed by 4X Technologies S.A, for 360° photo-realistic pre render click and point adventure games. Some of the best Dracula games whas made by this. You can buy the old Dracula games at GOG at reduced pries now. The company that made that engine is no longer around and closed maybe this can give some ideas for new game developers.

About 4X Technologies S.A
"4X Technologies was a French company founded in 1997 by Emmanuel Forsans and Jérôme Larrieu. 4X was located in Paris and employed about 50 people at its peak. It specialized in the creation of middleware tools and is especially known for it Phoenix3D engine, which later became the foundation for Kylotonn Entertainment's Kt engine. Other tools include 4X Movie (movie compression for Windows, Macintosh, Dreamcast and Game Boy Advance games), Phoenix VR (tools package for 360° photo-realistic environments immersion), and the X3D engine.The main company along with the divisions were closed in early 2003."


Games using a version of the Phoenix VR middleware, developed by 4X Technologies S.A, a tools package for 360° photo-realistic environments immersion.

• Amerzone: The Explorer's Legacy  GOG 
• Dracula: The Last Sanctuary    GOG
• Dracula: The Resurrection    GOG
• The Omega Stone    GamersGate
• The Messenger   

1978 Mack Cruiseliner Truck

I've found  the 1978 Mack Cruiseliner mod for PTTM. Mack Cruiseliner  was in Convoy Movie that was Driven by Bobby 'Love Machine' 'Pig Pen' . That truck mod is included in 18wos 70's diesel mod for Pttm you can get it: here

Also i have cleaned up some useless blog topics. I should not post too many post for other games.

Flash back mods for old 18 Wos truck games

It was year 2004 that all modding begun for 18 Wos truck games. Time goes fast 12 years has gone since that time. Some of the good old days mods are forgotten. I will post some picture of the special mods to remember them. There is more mods i can not post all here, tt will take a lot of pages. It nice to look back to see and remember this old mods again. Just do not forget that all this mods was not possible without help and plugin from Zmodeler2 program http://www.zmodeler2.com Back in the old days there was no Blender plugins from Scs and was no modding Wiki.

18 Wos Haulin

Optimus Prime pete by VanDeNiggo & evh5150vanhalen made in 2008
It replace the standard p385 truck. It's not standalone. It's based on the real Peterbilt truck in transformers movie. 









Euro Truck Simulator
Toyota LandCruiser 60 (1987) Drivable Off Road Car made in 2008 Converted by Cristinel and 3dartpol. It Replaces Renault Magnum C truck and It has own interior!










18 Wos Convoy
European double trailers combo by 3dartpol. It can pivot in 2 point. It's not a tandem. I did made in 2006-02-07.












18 Wos Pedal to the Metal
Darker Smoke by Ken Worth
It makes the smoke more darker










18 Wos Pedal to the Metal

Showroom mod by hardtruckisthebest made in year 2005 as you see in picture it add grass and tree to background of showroom...










18 Wos Pedal to the Metal 

Fog Storm weather mod for pttm
It did add fog to some area of the map











18 Wos Across America
Mack-R truck by 3dartpol
I was the first to make truck mods for AA game thanks to Zmodeler2 program without it it was not possible.











18 Wos Across America

P379 dumper truck for AA by 3dartpol for 18 Wos Across America game. I got inspiration from the old Atari Driver game has similar truck.













For more mods and download see this blog post:
http://3dartpol.blogspot.se/2015/11/18ws-old-truck-game-mods-downloads-by.html

18wos 70's diesel mod for Pttm

18wos 70's diesel mod for 18 WoS Pedal to the Metal game is forgotten. Maybe this mod can give some inspiration for a new game. With old rusty trucks. ValuSoft need to come back... I wonder what happen to publisher ValuSoft.

I have the old 70's diesel mod download link left for anyone that want it 99MB:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/dkv16qa3wi6r2kr/18+WoS+70%27s.rar

18wos 70's diesel v1.1 is a mod that change the Pttm map and adds many old trucks from 70's some of my old Mack-R trucks are included and also this mod contain a Bus too, and it adds new buttons for main menus and new color and new bg music, etc. Credits are in the rar file. Screenshots:

This rusty_p351 truck was made by me credit goes for Scs Software for the cabin and chassis the rest is made in 3dsmax.  I have tested 18 WoS Pedal to the Metal game under Windows 10 and it works great. The installation of 70's mod is simple just extract all folders to your dir C:\Users\...\Documents\18 WoS Pedal to the Metal\

Most well known game engines

There is many games engine out there for game development and it's not a easy task to make own engine from zero. I will list most well known game engines.
Some people say that Scs Software need to change their game engine but this people or kids don't know anything about programming or optimization.  Scs Software have skilled programmers they have self created own Prism3D game engine that is optimized for truck games now some people say they should use Unreal Engine 4 that is a bad idea because Unreal Engine 4 is best suitable for shooter fps games and not for truck games. Also it is possible to make a truck game in UE4 but they must optimize it well. What Scs need to do is just update their Prism game engine to support DirectX11 & 12 and OpenGL in their recent interview Pavel said they will update their shader for Directx11.

Cryengine V 
Cryengine new update has been announced more info at https://www.cryengine.com
Best suitable for shooter fps and driving open world games or other stuff can handle large world

Source 2
Valve announced the Source 2 engine, and that it will be free for developers and compatible with the new Vulkan Graphics API. In addition, Valve confirmed that it would be using a new in-house physics engine named Rubikon.

Stingray game engine by Autodesk
Has excellent light and animation support  also it's made by same makers that made 3dsMax and Maya so it should be very good optimized for 3d mesh:
http://www.autodesk.com/products/stingray/overview

Unity 5 
This is low budget game engine best suitable for creating 2D games and for indie dev

OGRE - Open Source 3D Graphics Engine
Rigs of Rods truck simulator game based on an advanced soft-body physics was made with OGRE engine. http://www.ogre3d.org

Unreal Engine 4
Developed by Epic Games since 1998 Excellent high quality engine best for shooter fps games

Frostbite Engine
Is made by DICE is excellent realistic graphic best suitable for shooter fps games
Also it can be used for racing car games. Need for Speed: The Run and Rival was made with Frostbite Engine

Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE)
Used in games Red Dead Redemption and GTA more info Wiki

Phoenix3D 
Phoenix VR middleware, developed by 4X Technologies S.A, for 360° photo-realistic pre render click and point it's a old engine not longer available more info here

Rig'n'Roll Gold Edition on Win10

Some people on Steam posted for Rig'n'Roll game that they had some difficulty to run the game under Windows 8 because of the protection StarForce, the developers do not want to update the protection driver to support Windows 8.1. You have to Go on the Steam Files, Rig N Roll, click on properties in rungame.exe, and take the compability on windows 8. it will run the game.

I have tested "Rig'n'Roll Gold Edition" DVD version 3.05.2726 and it works great under Windows 10 64bit "Rig'n'Roll Gold Edition" was released in 2013 by Polish publisher Cenega and it have not any protection and no StarForce. So if you want stay out of problem do not buy Steam version go for Gold Retail version.

This game could be great but developer ruin it, had some bad design and annoying long cut scene that you can not skip. Also the game map is based on real world distance and it takes very long time to deliver cargo and it make the game very boring and monotonous.


Rig'n'Roll Gold Edition includes Content Monster Cup add-on:
"The „Monster Cup“ is a special add-on to the Rig‘N‘Roll game, providing completely
new routes, vehicles, and allowing you to take part in a major truckers‘ race organized
by the CCWA (California Commercial Warehouse Alliance) In that competition, you not
only need to deliver your cargo - you also have to be the fastest driver! The Monster
Cup race consists of a few different parts and sometimes you just have to win a few
races in order to get to the next stage, but remember that in other cases even being
second won‘t be enough
The add-on is available either after finishing the Rig‘N‘Roll scenario or from the
„Story“ section in main menu, after turning that scenario off" info From Manual page 7

Vulkan (API) is OpenGL2 graphic cards

Vulkan (API) is next generation OpenGL in short you can call it OpenGL2.
The benefits with Vulkan and DirectX12 it will be faster and works closer to hardware.

To make the older graphic cards support Vulkan it is done by driver updates but some older graphic cards  will not be supported by Vulkan (API)
Nvidia and Khronos Group said  "we are not planning to support Geforce 400-500 class GPUs"

For AMD graphic cards to support AMD:s Vulkan (API) it need to be architecture Graphics Core Next (GCN), it means from Radeon HD 7000 and newer that will have support for Vulkan (API)

So in short Nvidia graphic cards from Kepler Geforce GTX 600-series and newer will support Vulkan (API) and if you have older graphic cards then it will not support it.

More info about Vulkan (API) by Khronos Group 1hr 21min video: Link