Hey, all -
I'm developing an educational software package - an educational game, basically. I'm basing outdoor environments on TG2-generated graphics and terrain and XFrog plants, and with a development pipeline consisting of a series of custom tools, converting static TG2-generated worlds into real-time OpenGL rendered worlds you can wander through and interact with. You can see a screenshot of one of the tools used to transform the TG2-exported data here - forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1919.msg18756#msg18750 (http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=1919.msg18756#msg18750). The goal is to be able to create something in TG2 and then reproduce it as a real-time game environment in just a few minutes.
So I'm happily cranking out the tools to make this possible and a friend mentions that the tools themselves may hold interest - maybe even some commercial potential. So... let's say I documented the process in the form of an eBook, included code for all the tools both in Java as NetBeans projects and C++ as Visual Studio projects. Would anyone every read/buy something like that? Is there a sizable enough community of game developers / programmers using TG2 to justify the effort?
I can honestly say I don't know, Harvey. At the same time, what I've seen hold true is that sometimes the possibility of having a tool not otherwise available will generate an interest, once the tool is available. In other words, it might not be possible to know until you actually have a tool people can use. Maybe you could make one tool now and allow some sort of "try it before you buy it" concept to see what happens.
Or better yet, you could give that tool away for free, analyze demand, and then charge people for expanded/additional tools. I agree with Calico that it is hard to gauge interest for this kind of thing. I would be interested, but I wouldn't buy it simply because there aren't enough hours in the day as it is.
Thanks for the responses, guys. Never mind, then. I was a little leary of dissipating my effort by adding a new set of tasks. Writing documentation sucks anyway.
:D