This website is a software curation project
The resources presented on this website are part of an effort to curate Jet3D and tStudio3D as old-school game development systems -- as museum artifacts, so that young enthusiasts can explore a sampling of the early tools in 3D game development. There is no onging, active development of Jet3D or tStudio3D. But, in support of this curation effort, both systems have been freshly rebuilt to run on Windows 11 using Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 (as of April 2023).
Jet3D
Jet3D was developed in the late 1990s by Eclipse Entertainment, Inc. As a successor to Genesis3D (also by Eclipse Entertainment), it was designed to be a general purpose, Windows game development platform intended for the creation of action in interior environments.
It approached "game engine" status because it incorporated most of the elements expected in real time action, including world geometry creation, 3D rendering, physics, rudimentary scripting, animation, and dynamic sound. Jet3D's map editor, jDesigner3D, creates BSP-style world geometry and provides additional tools for adding dynamics to the level. For example, the editor provides control panels for actors, ambient sound, coronas, dynamic lights, path animation, portals, pulsing lights, spouts (smoke), and terrain. Scenes are edited and displayed in the editor's 3D viewport in real time.
Eclipse abandoned Jet3D in the early 2000s. Active development by hobbyists continued through 2005. After that, progress came to a halt and the Jet3D platform languished. Despite its innovative approach, Jet3D was never picked up as a principal development platform for any serious game.
Still, it cannot be denied that for a short time, the emerging indie game development community expressed tremendous interest in Jet3D and had high hopes for its success.
Downloads
Binary (*.exe) files, resources and source code for Jet3D are available for download at SourceForge.net. If you are an amateur coder or a veteran, you will appreciate the remarkable talent and scale of effort it took to bring together a platform like Jet3D in the late 1990s. You are free to edit the code and build your own versions. But beware. The code is very fragile. This is not a system that will support aggressive code polishing, much less feature additions. Like a dusty artifact in a museum, please examine and enjoy Jet3D as it is.
Binary (*.exe) files, resources and source code for Jet3D are available for download at SourceForge.net.
Jet3D is a descendant of the Genesis3D game engine. For a historical sketch of its origin, click here.
tStudio3D / Genesis3D
tStudio3D was created by Tom Morris as an experimental development toolset using Genesis3D, for Windows. tStudio3D includes a custom implementation of Genesis3D including a BSP world editor (tDesigner3D), a scene editor (tDirector3D) and a distribution shell (tDeployer3D). tDirector3D can create unique, stand alone scenes by importing wavefront *.obj meshes, Genesis3D *.bsp files, *.wav sounds, *.mp3 music, and Genesis3D *.act actors. All imported resources are managed in tDirector3D through a plugin system of control panels. tDirector3D scenes then can be distributed and viewed fullscreen with tDeployer3D.
Binary (*.exe) files, resources and source code for tStudio3D are available for download at SourceForge.net.
