Ogre > Irrlicht

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 8:15 pm

Haahha! sio2, you really got me there...

Awesome!

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 8:45 pm

I guess this mis-balance is pretty common when comparing light-weight and bloated frameworks

No, don't want to start any flame war here, just tried to give some interpretation to avoid any flame wars

etcaptor · Post by **etcaptor** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:23 am

I currently stopped my work with 3d related tasks, but periodically come here. I have a feeling that after 2 years, many important Irr features still stays unfinished.
Hybrid, Irr devteam can include any advantages like extensions, because the the OGL/DX wrapper is very very light, but not well featured.
There should be any balance.
Here are my suggestions:
1. When I tried Irrlicht and Ogre at first time, I failed with CBuilder port with Ogre, but Irrlicht port was successful.
This is an Irrlicht advantage, but despite that we wrote dozen posts related here, Irrlicht still doesn't support C++Builder officially after more than 4 years. Making of new port after each new version is a bored task.
I will never post in beginners help topic about this more.
2. Some Irrlicht internal software design changes violates software compatibility with old projects. I still just wonder about excessively using of const methods and functions after Irrlicht 1.3:
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... 311#141311
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... ight=const
3. One of big Irrlicht disadvantages via Ogre is missing of engine supported realistic water. There was some user issues, but after each new Irr release many problems related appears. So, over 4-5 years without this feature. Someone will say that you have to write your own, because it's just a graphics engine. Well, maybe should write any CAD systems instead games in this case? Also when any beautiful screenshots are present we just cannot compare Ogre and Irrlicht. This is not only design related. The magic is in the mirror obviously - water reflections,refractions, soft shadows... In current scope Ogre is and will superior, Irrlicht have not any chance. Despite we can remember the impressive sio2's demos related.
4. Shadows mapping as far I remember from Irr 0.X-1.4 was terribly slow. There was some user issues related, but can't find them in new Irr. versions.
5. I don't know about Ogre speed development, but seems Irrlicht development speed is slow. After 2 years IrrSpintz particle emitters are not full implemented. Just forgot about of any kind of serilization.
6. About animation system - I not tried Irr 1.5 yet, but hope that new animation system maybe is ready.
Someone wrote that Irr is the best start for beginner, but if any advanced project exist, the chances are not very good with Irrlicht.
By my opinion this user is right. In case like this you can't avoid engine modification.
The one way for increasing of Irrlicht weight via Ogre /sio2 suggest about this

/ is including of any good featured users projects like engine extensions. For example Nadro's IrrCG, realistic water node, tree node, grass scene node, some shaders related project./ Maybe any basic shader collection equipped with engine is a good idea.
Why including of users project like engine extension is good? Because engine devteam is too lazy? - Because these features will be supported by engine even if user leave on his project - just remember about my3d.

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 6:16 am

Is this topic even worth continuing to leave open? Both sides have had their chance to vent, and it essentially boils down to (as almost all things do) choice and whichever one feels better.

@etcaptor:
1. Providing some patches would probably help.
3. Ogre doesn't support water internally. It does provide a shader approach to water in its examples/demos.
4. Shadow volumes, not shadow mapping. They're known to be slow. If you need fast, quality shadows, then you should use BlindSide's XEffects.
5. First of all, IrrSpintz has been ditched for 3Demon. Secondly, what does IrrSpintz have to do with Irrlicht? It's a fork.

By the way, insulting the developers isn't going to get you anywhere.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:30 am

C++-Builder is a niche without reason to exist. We will support it as good as people help us to support it, but no one ever used this for more than a test. Simply use a compiler that is used by more than a few dozen people. And the rest, yeah, we don't support too many of those shader based extensions in the engine, but that's by choice and will change in the future with e.g. BlindSide's XEffects in the engine.

etcaptor · Post by **etcaptor** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:15 am

hybrid wrote:C++-Builder is a niche without reason to exist. .

Maybe this is not totally right. When any new user fails with compiling he often leave Irr engine instead switching to VC or Devcpp. I remember many posts in beginner help related. I can't describe this situation like test only.
My whole project was based on this compiler including newton physics and Openal. Sorry that not tried Irr 1.5 yet with CBuilder.

@Halifax, as far i remember Spintz wrote some of extended particles that was included in Irrlicht later, right? You can look for ring and mesh emitter for example. By this reason I mentioned this project.

shadowslair · Post by **shadowslair** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:59 pm

Охооо, etcaptor! Поздрави от БГ!

The only feature I really envy OGRE is it`s hardware skinning functionality.

sio2 · Post by **sio2** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 3:13 pm

shadowslair wrote:The only feature I really envy OGRE is it`s hardware skinning functionality.

The MultiAnimation demo from my website is nearly 2.5 years old. 100 hardware skinned meshes blending between two animations at almost 100fps (my latest gpu pulls 400 meshes at 40fps).

Anyway, I'm currently looking at Cal3D. I noticed that it has hardware skinning so I'm going to be making a Cal3DHWSceneNode. I'll have to start with IrrSpintz to get it working and then work out how to get it into Irrlicht with its fixed vertex types.

Nox · Post by **Nox** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:25 pm

I proposed a flexible type system like in dx but just an idea which is already used by other systems is not enough. Without working patch this may come with the magic so called 2.x.x version

shadowslair · Post by **shadowslair** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 6:59 pm

sio2 wrote:The MultiAnimation demo from my website is nearly 2.5 years old. 100 hardware skinned meshes blending between two animations at almost 100fps (my latest gpu pulls 400 meshes at 40fps).

Yeah, I know it very well and I love it. I even tried learning DX to implement it myself, but gave up soon- it`s too much for a person, who started C++ 15 months ago with Irrlicht, programming 5-8 hours per week. In fact I was hoping of a build-in implementation and as far as I see it will happen soon or later.

sio2 · Post by **sio2** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 7:24 pm

Nox wrote:I proposed a flexible type system like in dx but just an idea which is already used by other systems is not enough.

Are you talking about flexible vertex formats? Do you have an implementation?

Nox · Post by **Nox** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:14 pm

Well thats the problem. I have no worked out patch because i lake the knowledge and the time for it. But i already searched some infos for it: http://www.7bitfaster.de/downloads/irrl ... iative.pdf point 2.2.2 .

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:54 pm

After reading some of the Pro OGRE3D Programming book, I realized that OGRE has many many great features and design decisions.. over Irrlicht. Still, I applaud Irrlicht for it's ease of use and general ability to do things I need it to do. I love Irrlicht, but do not argue one engine over the other. Use the engine you like best. End of discussion.

MasterM · Post by **MasterM** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:07 pm

I realized that OGRE has many many great features and design decisions

can you mention atleast 10 of these features and whicht design decisions?, pleas tell me cause i really wanna know.