Irrlicht.NET???

[niko]

Some of the things assumed here are right, I'll summarize

• The .NET-thing is just a small wrapper around Irrlicht, written in managed C++. It doesn't swallow a lot of development time.
• In this way a lot of other people may use Irrlicht, like people who want to use Visual Basic. And also me, I like C# a lot more than C++. I think .NET is the future, it really simplyfies software development.
• .NET is not Microsoft only, take a look at the mono project. I don't know if it is already possible to use other assembly .dlls from mono but I hope.
• An open source managed c++ compiler does not exist until now as far as I know, so it could take some time until you can use Irrlicht.NET with other operting systems like linux.

I hope this clears everything a little bit.

[simile]

It doesn't swallow a lot of development time.

Seems like Irrlicht is becoming a jack of all trades, master of none.

Simplicity is a good thing. But I wouldn't make the mistake to say 'simplicity' was a synonym for 'feature rich'. In my opinion simplicity is to define things very clearly and cut back on unimportant or redundant things. There are some toppics in the Irrlicht engine where I think Irrlicht is severely mistaking simplicity.

1) Support of mesh models (3ds,obj,md2,ms3d,x,bsp) . Instead of just saying Irrlicht uses the X format from now on. There are a lot of other formats around that partly work but don't fully meet the needs of the users. (I encourage everyone to take a look at the ogre3d mesh/skeletal animation classes)

2) Support for texture formats (bmp,jpg,tga,dsp,pcx). Wouldn't it be much simpler to have tga support that completely works. There would surely soon be support for EMT_TRANSPARENT_ALPHA_CHANNEL (currently only works in directX mode).

I know it's compelling to have each and every format one can think of in an
engine but then again, is this really easier for the users? Doesn't it just blow up the size of the engine without any real use?

[Serg Nechaeff]

Niko should definitely think about joining forces with other developers, no, I really admire Niko but it's hell much work: opengl, dx8,9, .NET, linux, shaders and stuff... still there are many things that need to be fixed in the last releases...

[saigumi]

Nifty... I always wanted to try C# but all the libraries I used don't support it whatsoever and I don't have the technical knowledge to write a wrapper for them.

[warui]

plus, honestly, if 10-15 mb is the limit of the download size for you, its time to think about broadband i'd say. not trying to offend anybody, but im sure we all agree dialup sux....

But remeber that if you can aford better connection that doe's mean other people can. In Poland most people still uses dialup because it's the cheapest way. I have DSL for less then a year, before that i was using dialup.

[Serg Nechaeff]

true! i'm using gprs and it still sucks! 30$ per month is too much for that sh#t because for dialup i used to pays 70-100$ a month! f@ck monopoly!

[buhatkj]

i didnt realize you guys in europe had it so bad as far as getting decent internet. 70-100$ a month for dialup is outrageous!! in the US, internet broadband is so cheap that a lot of people get these VOIP things so they can avoid paying the telephone company, because that's what's expensive here. also i may be mistaken but i think europe has better cellular phone service than us too.
i bet wireless(802.11) will make a big difference for you guys. i know i read about some guys in england who were building a free wireless network for their town. we do that in some places here too (baltimore i think is one) and i think that's really cool. i think once we figure out how to get most of the world online there will be a big acceleration in science and learning because all these different people can communicate and share ideas.

look at irrlicht for one thing, a 3d engine, written by an austrian guy, and used by hundreds of people all over the world.

i guess that is idealism, but i think its really cool that the world is so big.
-ted

[Serg Nechaeff]

I live in belarus, a country next to poland. There is only one phone company here and it has monopoly on all kinds of communication stuff like phone and internet. And these bastards charge you per minute, so I pay $0.003 every minute for just using the phone line. and every f@cking day I stay online about 5-10 hours, PLUS I pay 20 usd for "unlimited" access. but still i pay for every minute. Last month the bill was $60. I switched to gprs. cellular guys provide you with unlimited access for $30 a month... as for broadband - forget about it! dsl is $100 every month + you pay for the traffic. SUXX. i'm waiting for the day civilization comes to the frozen lands...

in the US, internet broadband is so cheap that a lot of people get these VOIP things so they can avoid paying the telephone company, because that's what's expensive here

i know! i lived in the US for 2 years, i really liked your cable internet, DSL even AOL rules! But the it becomes soooooooo boring!! Nothing inspires me with passion more than trying to download intel compiler (110 MB) i've done that two times already and every time the archive is corrupted ... getting ready for another try...

[vermeer]

1) Support of mesh models (3ds,obj,md2,ms3d,x,bsp) . Instead of just saying Irrlicht uses the X format from now on. There are a lot of other formats around that partly work but don't fully meet the needs of the users. (I encourage everyone to take a look at the ogre3d mesh/skeletal animation classes)

argh. People keep insisting in md2, and non weighted ms3d... I am almost totally sure none of those saying these have never dealed hard and deep with this format making organic character animations...

Please, be aware that r2d2 is making a huge effort to make possible load (and he is succeeding) MD3 files. he already was succesful with md3 done by me with a free software art path...

And yup...x is used by DBPRO, Gamestudio, 3dRad, Quest3d, URGH engine, an many, many others (loads of developers at flipcode, gamedev, that just code at c++ and dx their own engine )

So it must not be such a bad thing.

OBJ does not support bones, neither 3ds. 3ds have problems with shared UV coords(will force geometry splits there), has limit for long names in materials (DOS stuff) , has a 65k tris limit, etc...

OBj is nice, good for static as ms3d (for static, as Milkshape 3d does not support weights! for that is preferrable any vertex animation format, like md3) , but has not got multi UVs channel support, as far as I know. Neither vertex colors support (great for extra lighting) Both features, plus bones and weights (please, have a look at these days engines; doom3 uses md5, a format with bones and weights...as most engines today) are in X file.

BSP format is quite limited, and for the production of comercial projects with 3d packages/compilers, there are quite a few bif issues...

Ogre had also its FIRST days (Irrlicht is way young...) and was not that wonderful. I haven't look in a time, but it indeed did not support any standard format with bones and weights (which for now is just only x, and md5, meaning those more or less supported by main packages, free and not free ones)

I prefer that he is a bit ambitiuous(initially was the only one free engine plus URGH to support fully animated x files with weights ). He has shown a lot of capability, and he gets stuff done. Is a matter of time and a great promise. Also several good projects are being done already.So I don't get you point in any manner.

You can't pretend to have an engine for free and expect it to be as a comercial engine in what is refered to updates and support to this or that feature...niko does it all alone (ogre is several people, isn't it? and has been there for a while...) , along with college, etc, etc...

[simile]

You can't pretend to have an engine for free and expect it to be as a comercial engine in what is refered to updates and support to this or that feature...niko does it all alone (ogre is several people, isn't it? and has been there for a while...) , along with college, etc, etc...

Excatamente, my dear. I'd drop every mesh support except the one for X. I know that Niko is able to programm lots of other mesh readers, XML functions, C# and Java wrappers, etc, etc.
But why should he, just because you can doesn't mean you have to.

What I'm worried about is that Niko might loose the focus on the important stuff because it's very seductive to get carried away with programming lot's of funky features.

[Tyn]

I don't see any proof of that above comment. What you are asking is for Niko to make Irrlicht just another engine to add to the stacks already around. Why should he? It's his baby, his project, let him take it where he wants.

I think Niko has shown with releases that the additional features have all been useful enough, you could make an arguement against him using his versions of the STD functions but that is his decision. Unique Selling Point they call it, OGRE is far more advanced that Irrlicht so why should Irrlicht just play catchup all the time? If Niko wants to help the guys using BASIC and Java ( as well as adding future support for C#, which is showing signs that it could be very popular ) all the good to him. I've seen a number of posters wanting a Java wrapper and now they have it. Unless I am mistaken, with this feature, it now means that you can use ASP .net to create Irrlicht inside a web page application, as long as they had the DLL file ( not difficult to give to users ).

For me, I've made use of the features available and wouldn't trade them in just so I can get some pretty graphics with shaders. It'll come I'm sure, I don't see the point of removing all the things that are starting to make Irrlicht special, like the ease of use. You could just use STD, but why not just have it right there for you inside the engine? Same for XML and having a diversity of file formats seems very sensible to me.

[Bunnz]

Hi Niko,

great decision to support C#, which is by all means a really great language. Unfortunately, that means another competitor for me

Have fun,
Bunnz

Visit: http://purplesharp.sourceforge.net
Purple# - a shader driven 3d engine for .NET

[etcaptor]

Hi boys,
Well, I don't know many above C# - /only c++/, but can point one link with open source C# IDE. Very interest and useful
http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/
If anyone start to use C# will can use this IDE.
I to say that this IDE is very nice from first look.
Nico can test Irrlicht C# wrapper with this IDE
Let' all be open source

[niko]

I've heard that sharp develop is really a very nice IDE. Good idea, I should really create projects for this IDE too, like I do currently for C++ for VS and DevCpp.

great decision to support C#, which is by all means a really great language. Unfortunately, that means another competitor for me

Hehe, yes, but your engine has a quite different design, so I think our engines are focusing on different users.

[Tyn]

Can open source engines be in competition?