FAQ
Is BBMOD truly free to use, even for commercial projects?
Yes! BBMOD is released under the MIT license, which means you can use it for free in both non-commercial and commerical projects.
Do I need BBMOD GUI (paid) to use BBMOD?
No, BBMOD already comes with everything you need to use it! BBMOD GUI is only for those who wish to financially support the development of BBMOD and/or wish to use a windowed application instead of command line tools.
What versions of GameMaker does BBMOD support?
BBMOD always targets the latest Monthly release of GameMaker. It does not use any features that are available only in Beta. GameMaker LTS is not supported!
Which platforms does BBMOD support?
BBMOD is actively developed and tested on macOS and Windows. It's written in pure GML and uses GLSL ES shaders only, so it has the potential to run on all platforms supported by GameMaker, but it is not guaranteed! HTML5 is the only platform that we have stopped releasing fixes for, in favor of the GX.games ZIP file export. Mobile platforms may also not be powerful enough to run BBMOD.
Does BBMOD follow SemVer?
Although BBMOD versions are numbered as major.minor.patch, historically it has introduced breaking changes in minor releases on multiple occasions, therefore it does not follow SemVer. Here is how we interpret version increments: major means a new iteration of the library - usually a complete rewrite, minor is used for adding new features within the same iteration and can introduce breaking changes for sake of better performance etc. and patch is used mainly for fixes and sometimes for small additions, which should be backwards compatible. We will always warn you about breaking changes in the release notes.
Does BBMOD also help with other things 3D, like collisions for example?
BBMOD's main focus has been on rendering, though it does provide some functions outside of that scope (gizmo for level editing, a system for saving and loading instances, raycasting functions or state machines to name a few). For things like collisions, physics, pathfinding or similar we suggest using a dedicated library or implementing a custom solution.
Does BBMOD have functions for drawing basic 3D shapes?
No, but it does include premade model files for a plane, cube, sphere, cone, cylinder etc., which you can load and draw transformed as required, like other 3D models.
What scale of 3D games can BBMOD handle?
BBMOD 3 can currently handle low hundreds of static objects and a few tens of animated characters rendered on screen at once. With these limitations, you could either have quite densely populated small levels, or sparsely populated larger worlds. Definitely do not expect to have large open worlds with thousands of objects. For that it's better to use an actual 3D game engine instead of GameMaker.
Does BBMOD support cel shading?
BBMOD currently implements only physically based rendering. For stylized graphics you will need to create your own shaders and materials. Though cel shading is something we're considering for future releases.
Is BBMOD good for tile/voxel based games?
Game worlds that consist of tiles or voxels usually require specialized solutions to make the rendering fast. BBMOD does have a method for rendering of multiple instances of the same model in a single draw call, but it might not be enough in this specific case. If you're going to use BBMOD for tile/voxel based games, you might need to write your own specialized solutions and use BBMOD just for its material system, post-processing effects etc.
Is BBMOD good for Doom 3D-like games?
BBMOD does not provide anything that would make creating such games easier and might actually get in the way. Using other libraries or custom solutions is highly recommended in this case.
Does BBMOD work in 2D projects too?
Absolutely! BBMOD is written in a modular fashion and at its absolute minimum it "just" draws textured models. You don't need to include other parts of the library in your project and you don't need to have a 3D camera to display 3D models in GameMaker.
Does BBMOD support blend shapes/morph targets?
No, BBMOD currently supports only skeletal animations!
Does BBMOD support scaling in animations?
BBMOD 3 uses dual quaternions to store animation data, which can only represent position and rotation, therefore it does not support scaling in animations! This is something that we would like to add, but doing it now would break backwards compatibility, so this will not be supported sooner than in BBMOD 4.
How can I give you credits when I use BBMOD?
BBMOD is released under the MIT license, so technically you should include its full license text in your game's credits, be we won't bite you if you just say you're "using BBMOD by BlueBurn" 😊 You can find the whole license text here on GitHub.
Does BBMOD have a logo?
Yes, here are the two variations that you are free to use in your game's credits. Please note that the logo is property of BlueBurn and you're not allowed to do any modifications to it! Only uniform scaling is allowed, to change the logo size as required.
Could you showcase my BBMOD game on this website?
Absolutely! If you have a finished game or you're currently developing a game using BBMOD, that you'd like to showcase here, please join our Discord server and let us know!
How can I contribute to BBMOD?
We really appreciate you'd like to help us develop BBMOD further! If you find a bug that you're able to fix, feel free to open a pull request on GitHub. Please make sure you're following BBMOD's coding standards if you do. Other than that, we currently don't have any tasks that people outside of BlueBurn could work on.
Is PushEd 2 compatible with BBMOD?
PushEd 2 currently does not support BBMOD! When it's ready and released, we will let you know here on this website and on our Discord server.