Would Irrlicht be good?

[LizardGamer]

I just want to ask, would Irrlicht be good to make a great (modern) looking game. Like compared to some Indie games out now. Because I'm sort of a newby with all the game creation.

I've looked at other graphics engines like Ogre 3D (To fat and bloated, but very nice demos, and hard to change source code when you only get a cmake file, large community), Horde3D (C API, hard to understand, bad choice of license), G3D Innovation (Looks very nice, nice demos, not exactly a big community), and Irrlicht (What I have heard is that it is easy to change/extend, not the greatest looking demos but I like what some people have made, large community)

I'm wanting to make a Alien or Zombie FPS (after getting all the components ready like OpenAl Soft, Newton or Bullet, Lua etc.)

But I'm not exactly sure what I should use, because I'm a beginner with making games and C++.

[Radikalizm]

If you're a beginner you shouldn't expect to make anything epic or with flashy effects with any library soon, you should start out simple to learn the fundamentals of game programming and the concepts behind it

Making a good looking game with irrlicht is very much possible, but it takes a lot of time, experience, dedication and some good artwork to get it up and running

If you're willing to learn and if you're willing to spend a lot of time on learning and working on simple projects you should definitely be able to create a nice game, but it won't be easy

[LizardGamer]

If you're a beginner you shouldn't expect to make anything epic or with flashy effects with any library soon, you should start out simple to learn the fundamentals of game programming and the concepts behind it

Ok, because I am a beginner Irrlicht could be very good for me, but what if I made a mod for current game first and then went on with using Irrlicht?

[serengeor]

If you're a beginner you shouldn't expect to make anything epic or with flashy effects with any library soon, you should start out simple to learn the fundamentals of game programming and the concepts behind it

Ok, because I am a beginner Irrlicht could be very good for me, but what if I made a mod for current game first and then went on with using Irrlicht?

As long as you know how the basics of programming. Though modding is not the same as creating your own framework for game from scratch. But it might be a good Idea, as you might learn how things work In that game engine, and you could try creating your own engine based on that engines concept. But it still would be really hard if you've never written a game. I think you could start with small projects like tetris, pong, air hockey etc. and then make something bigger.

[roelor]

My game frameworks always collapse on me :/ Its very hard to make a good structure (when you have never done so before).

Making a game engine for me is like laying a never ending multi dimensional puzzle.

[serengeor]

My game frameworks always collapse on me :/ Its very hard to make a good structure (when you have never done so before).

Making a game engine for me is like laying a never ending multi dimensional puzzle.

Yeah, my old frameworks always got up to unusable state, when it came to actually making a game with it. Though my latest approach gives me much freedom and ease of use, though from time to time I find some design flaws in it, but all of them were fixable. And from time to time it needs some polishing, refactoring. Nothing is as bad as unreadable code, or functions that don't make sense if you get to code after some time.

[ChaiRuiPeng]

My game frameworks always collapse on me :/ Its very hard to make a good structure (when you have never done so before).

Making a game engine for me is like laying a never ending multi dimensional puzzle.

i tried to write from scratch my "tetra resource shell" i ended up having to put that project in hibernation. the ideas worked well on paper, but its a nother story on computer

its best to make a game, then extract things you can see will be reused in other games, maybe like a game object logic execution priority system. then just add it slowly and build up your codebase for your engine bit by bit.

because really all a "true" or "pure" game engine should be is code that can be reused in pretty much every game you make. i read an article linked from here and as i have been making my game it has proven to be true.

http://scientificninja.com/blog/write-games-not-engines

make games not engines!

[Radikalizm]

@ChaiRuiPeng:

I can see where the concept of "write games, not engines" comes from, and there's definitely some truth in it especially for people who are new to game development, but when moving to more complex projects it's a good idea to invest time in building an engine (like I'm doing right now)

The concept of engines based on reusable snippets of code from previous projects would assume that the person in question actually writes reusable code (and sadly, a lot of people aren't that great at writing reusable code), and that the projects done by the person in question are rather similar, since engines are mostly genre-bound

I'd rather rephrase the saying to "write games first, engines afterwards" so some experience is gathered so you know what an engine needs

[Gorbstein]

The best way to learn engine programming, IMO, is to make lots of games. Small games, ones that you can finish.

It is hard to over-emphasise how important the act of finishing is when it comes to producing games. If you are working by yourself I think the chance of failure / abandonment grows exponentially with the amount of time you spend on a project. When you spend weeks tracking down stupid bugs, burnout hits you fast.

The design sometimes seems nice and simple on the outside, but once you start writing you soon realise there are 1000000000 problems you never thought about. They soon get on top of you.

However, working on small projects lets you attack these things one by one. If you have finished projects you can see what worked and what didn't. This gives you the vision to create new things.

The good bits will be kept, the unwieldy and unfriendly bits will probably be refactored into something better. You build up a skill set and things become quicker and quicker.

D

[Gorbstein]

I also second that good visuals mostly come from good artists.

A graphics engine (like ogre/irrlicht) only throws stuff at the screen. Either of them can throw very ugly or very pretty pixels.

Irrlicht gets an undeserved reputation for not having good visuals. But mainly I think thats because a lot of the projects come from hobbyists who use stock models or spend more time programming than producing art.

Irrlicht gives you a lot of game related things that people take for granted like GUI, Xml parsing, and simple collision detect. In this way, it is good for learning game programming. If you were to start with another engine you might have to develop those things yourself.

D