Convince me (I'm already nearly there) ...

[MKG]

Hi all,

I'm Mike, and I have an ambitious 3D project in mind - modelling a real medieval village (with real medieval people) and producing a guided walkthrough. The problem is that the last time I coded anything, BASIC wasn't a dirty word, C was an absolute revolution, and anyone who could use dBase was a wizard. So, I don't have the ability at the moment to judge. I'm fast relearning, especially with C++ and Python, so I'm getting there slowly.

However, slowly doesn't do it. To even begin on my project, I need to decide on the old cherry - which 3D engine to use. I've looked at a lot and, of course, they're all the absolute best, aren't they? Nothing is as good at doing anything as the particular engine you're reading about at the time.

Through the fog, I've managed to discern that Irrlicht is good - at least as good as others. But good Irrlicht demos are thin on the ground (I've seen Christian's bus station/underground terminal, and it answered a few of my questions but posed others - however, nice one Christian).

I need to make my decision now - I'm fairly wrinkly these days and, although I'm still a fast learner, I don't want to waste my time.

I THINK Irrlicht is the way to go. But is it going to continue to be supported? Is it - or Crystal Space - going to be the engine adopted by the Blender community? Is C++ a worthwhile pursuit? And a million more questions.

Is there anyone out there who can tell me something which could firm up the opinion I already have? I really hope so, because I'm sinking in a marsh of information.

I don't mind something not being easy to use (and the fact that I've already gone for Blender as my modeller should tell you that). I don't mind a steep learning curve. I don't mind effort. I just want something which will help me to produce the thing which is already alive and kicking in my head.

It's a tall order, I know. But is there anything anyone can throw at me in the way of constructive advice? I shall wait in hope.

Cheers everyone.

[dlangdev]

Stick around for a month or two and you'll get an idea how good/crappy are the people who go here.

[Rytz]

Some thoughts from my experiences here with Irrlicht:

- Great community support. Every thread I've started with a question has been answered. 99.9% of the people here are nice and will help you if they can.

- The engine can be used by the beginner through the expert. Start small and work your way up to the harder stuff. The best place to start (other than understanding c++) is to understand the flow of the library (the design). Irrlicht projects can be a great way to dive back into C++.

Just like any online community, if you ask a question that can probably be found easily by searching through the forums or looking through the FAQ / Documentation, you'll probably catch some flak for it.

Hope that helps.

[hybrid]

Irrlicht will be definitely supported and (even more important) also further developed. The dev team just has grown by another member, fostering support for the several platforms Irrlicht runs on.
CS is the engine used by Blender and those large community projects . However, if you want to use Blender just as a modeller and animation tool, you can just do so. Blender has many export modules which create (animated) meshes which load into Irrlicht apps without problems. I guess most people here do so.
Using Irrlicht with C++ is a good idea, but Irrlicht's other language bindings (e.g. C#, Java, Lua) are also quite mature and a possible way for people with stronger knowledge of one of those languages.
I think the situation with demos and projects have pretty much changed since the Irrlicht 1.0 release. Instead of just presenting some nice visual effects or adding scene nodes (which is still pretty useful and also done by many) there has been an increasing number of large, fully-featured projects, some of those even gone commercial. Just check the project screenshots on the Irrlicht website, browse Niko's blog, or just go through the last few pages of the project announcements. You'll see many interesting developments. And even more are comming.
I'd suggest to read the example apps which are provided with the SDK. These will give you a first impression of how Irrlicht apps work, and how you'd be supposed to design your app (at least the very basic things). And keep the API docs somewhere near you, browsing them when in need for some specific method is always a good idea.
In case you have more questions on the general idea and architecture of Irrlicht, or you encounter problems with your code, just ask here. There are lots of people willing to help in this community.

[rogerborg]

Ditto to the above. IMHO Irrlicht is an engine for people who actually want to use it as part of a larger project, rather than just producing a great looking tech demo to show off how bleeding edge their graphics card is (for all of 5 minutes).

Of course, the usual gotchas apply. It is a 3d engine, not a game engine. There are (transient) areas of flaky and still in progress functionality. However, it's under constant and active development, and the devs (hi hybrid) are great fellows who you can always approach with suggestions or requests.

While I'm a crusty old C++ dinosaur, I'm very impressed with C# and would suggest that as a viable (and valuable, career wise) alternative. The only caveat is that you may get less community support if/when you run into problems.

[MKG]

Thanks guys ...

I think all I really needed was exactly what you provided - a quick response and a positive one. OK - I'm on board with Irrlicht. Now I have to kick myself for looking everywhere around the net for Irrlicht examples EXCEPT here (senior moment).

Thanks again - now I can narrow down the learning effort and get on with the job (the first part of which will be the modelling of a certain Hacon Bubulcus - meaning Hacon the Ox - a man who was very much alive in Nottinghamshire in the twelfth century. I'm sure he'll thank you too).

Cheers

[rogerborg]

Super!

If you do go with a C-family solution, then I'd recommend offloading some of the logic to a scripting language. gamemonkey and lua are both fine solutions.

And while this has nothing to do with Irrlicht, I don't need much of an excuse to pimp myself. This is me, doing circa 1314, although I go back to 950 or so as well. 12th century seems to be a sadly neglected period, so I look forward to hearing more about your project.

[MasterGod]

After you read the tutorials I suggest you to check those projects as they can really help you.
1. NUSoftware Game Engine (NGE) - My project which is based on irrWizard.
2. irrWizard - Game framework
Both using irrlicht although irrWizard is quite old.
Also I'm not sure how much information there is there you'll be interested in but also check The Irrlicht Beginners Manual

[bitplane]

Wow rogerborg, you were into reinactment? 950 you say, Regia Anglorum by any chance? I was in Otringemelr about 12 years ago, a broke student peasant with just a spear and shield, in it for the underage mead and fighting

Back on topic-
Another thing against .net is that you need some C++ experience to compile the wrapper and apply any patches to the core library. If you're a C# programmer who also knows a bit of C++ and can write C# code faster then .net is the best choice. If you only know a .net language then you'll struggle making modifications to the library, in which case a pure .net 3D engine would probably be a better choice. If your options are still open then C++ and native Irrlicht is the best way to go.

[CppJunky]

Hey Mike, I'm working (ok lets say "experimenting") with Irrlicht for a couple of weeks now and I can tell you, it's a good choice for starting seriously into 3D engines stuff. Not because Irrlicht is "noob-ware", but because of its well designed interface.
Regarding your programming skills: For most of the c++ programmers I know, learning cpp was a boring task. Most of the time you define silly classes and write useless demonstration applications. So, Irrlicht for you could be a really nice and entertaining trainer. Give it a try and good luck!

[rogerborg]

Wow rogerborg, you were into reinactment? 950 you say, Regia Anglorum by any chance? I was in Otringemelr about 12 years ago, a broke student peasant with just a spear and shield, in it for the underage mead and fighting

What the... Snorri's group? Yes, I was in Norar (Strathclyde) at that time. We've probably tried to stab each other at some point. What an astonishingly small world we live in.

[Rytz]

We've probably tried to stab each other at some point.

Sounds kinda kinky Maybe you two should get a room .

[chaotischerapostel]

@MKG- Irrlicht has great documentation and wonderfull suport. I have only been using for a cuple weeks now on free time and I have been able to figure out many things quickly and easily(now on to learning GUI and 2D), You can solve just about any problem just by searching the forums, and I find that soo much more usefull than waiting for a reply to your post, and people tend to be more friendly when you only ask questions that you yourself have gone to the furthest you can go.

@rogerborg- nice rig, I have been working on (my first by the way, but probably won't do any reinacting or SCA with it) a early 14th rig(1323, http://www.themcs.org/armour/knights/Pe ... 201323.jpg). Made the coif and have a shied cut out, and I have an arming jacket.

@Rytz-

We've probably tried to stab each other at some point.

Sounds kinda kinky Maybe you two should get a room .

Seems like your joking and mabye your on these twos good side, but it realy agrivates me when people take normal conversations and try to make them sound sexual

[Vsk]

Seems like your joking and mabye your on these twos good side, but it realy agrivates me when people take normal conversations and try to make them sound sexual

Come on! Is a male over 10 years old joke. He is not offending anyone.

I could say that you are a homophobic for shuting up a guy trying to wake up an homosexual posible relation.

But that would be ridiculus just like considering such a joke like someting insulting;). I hope you get the analogy. .

[Rytz]

@Rytz-

We've probably tried to stab each other at some point.

Sounds kinda kinky Maybe you two should get a room .

Seems like your joking and mabye your on these twos good side, but it realy agrivates me when people take normal conversations and try to make them sound sexual

Wow, it was a joke...