Wallpaper

[chronologicaldot]

Here, have some wallpaper. Sorry, I rendered it at 1280x960. I could render at other sizes, but I'd have to remake the text.

[CuteAlien]

Hey thanks :-) I just thought a few days ago that having new title-image for the Irrlicht Facebook group once in a while would be nice. Maybe you can render one for that as well? Resolution there is 623x200.

[chronologicaldot]

Sure




I can add text if you want.

I could also do a simpler scene, as in the wallpapers, if you prefer.
The blue was supposed to be water, but I didn't use a texture since I did this spir-of-the-moment. Didn't quite turn out as expected.

[CuteAlien]

Yeah, I liked the one with text. Second wallpaper from first post is my favorite so far (but the other is also cool).

[chronologicaldot]

No problem.

[CuteAlien]

Thanks, I like it! Check our facebook group to see it in action :-)

[Mel]

Kewl! i think a larger resolution irrlicht logo could be created The current one looks very small on big screens

[chronologicaldot]

Sorry about that. I guess I could scale it up, but I don't have a high-res monitor, so I wouldn't know what "looks good" for everyone. Or were you talking about the Facebook page image?

[Vectrotek]

Wow! They're all over my office computer screens! Lovely!

[christianclavet]

Hi. I really like the images, but the text annoy me a little. Speed is not the real strength of Irrlicht. I know this has been used by years now "lightning fast 3D engine". But if this was to be true, it would have been in the "duke nukem" days...

For me the real strength of Irrlicht is that it can be used by almost anybody, even if you don't have good math skills. Even more true today, I'm trying alternatives and here is the results:

Let me image this:
Math skills required to use other engines:


Math skills required to use Irrlicht:


For me it's the second. As the first is alien language. I was able to learn, use Irrlicht, do something usefull in weeks. (Was learning C++ at the same time) I'm trying to use the other engines out there now and by looking at their complexity it might take me years to make something useful out of from them.

This mean that Irrlicht is much more accessible than other engines out there. It can be used by a lot more people that are not "rocket scientists". It would be nice that Irrlicht be promoted by it's easiness of use, instead of it's speed. Speed can still used, but in term of speed of learning it, and for prototyping stuff, that's a great value.

[devsh]

and that is why irrlicht is 4x slower than other engines and forces an API which structures your code into a slow path unless you fight it.

[AReichl]

> 4x slower than other engines
Wow!

> forces an API which structures your code into a slow path unless you fight it
Fight it how? Could we all use "tricks" on the application level to make things faster, or are you speaking of deeply internal changes to Irrlicht ( which you and others are working on, so we only have to wait [ Version 2.x maybe? ] ).

[christianclavet]

It's not because it's easy to use that it have to be slow! It's just because the code base of Irrlicht is quite old. The recent decision to drop the old tech (DX8) and implementing the FVF system was a good one .

Surely, going low level with the API will make it faster, but if the API get too low level, then you cut off your userbase, because it's too complicated to use. What I need is an API that is easy to use. If there are volunteers to go over the source and optimize the code to be more efficient without having us going in the low level of the engine, it's fine for me.

I don't think that being the fastest is the most important, this can be done by iterations once the FEATURES are implemented, it just need to be planned carefully so the API will not become too complex after doing these optimizations. That being said, I just can't wait to see Irrlicht with more modern features implemented.

[chronologicaldot]

@christianclavet - To be clear, "Lightning Fast 3D Engine" was the old slogan. And you do need more math skills than 6+1=11 (haha). But that said, what you've said is certainly felt by the rest of us. I keep considering other engines and returning to irrllicht because it's so intuitive and easy. Still, I don't find irrlicht to be "slow" per se - it just depends on what you're trying to do with it. If you want a "modern game" with modern features, sure, it's slow. But as you know, I'll have to wait awhile before I can change the wallpaper to say "Irrlicht A Modern Game Engine".

[christianclavet]

How about "Irrlicht: The accessible 3D engine". This for me is the slogan that fit the most. For learning to use a 3D engine from C++, a cannot think of anything else than Irrlicht to recommend to anybody.