okay, maybe i am stupid, but working with this engine does not make sense to me. i guess that's because i am not a programmer. anyway i hope somebody will be able to explain me a thing or two.
at first, the engine seems not to be user friendly at all. at least for those who are not coders. i don't have c++ on my pc because i am a designer. so when our programmer compiled the sources i was unable to see a single .exe that could make sense to me. i don't see any tools or plugins. how am i supposed to export models and levels from 3d studio max? how am i supposed to compile those levels and turn them into playable? how am i supposed to make a simple benchmark?
take Fly3D for example - once you are ready with the modelling in Max, you export with the supplied plugin, run the shader tool, the properties editor if needed and when you are ready you run the compiler to produce a playable level. it's so easy and time saving. how am i supposed to achieve this with IrrLicht?!?!? don't get me wrong - i like the engine and it's features. i just want to funking know how to work with it when i am not a coder?! and where are all the tools an engine needs to have such as shader for example. i don't want to mess with any code cause i don't get poop of it, i just want some visual editor to play with. are there at least any third party tools?
Well, Irrlicht is a graphical engine library instead of a "game making toolset" like Clik-And-Play, RPGMaker, or Fly3D. "Game making toolsets" are more like tools to Mod-ify a engine, while engine libraries are something a coder uses to create the engine in the first place.
Which is why it may seem user unfriendly to non-coders. If you came from this link(http://www.opengame.org/e107/links.php), Irrlicht should be in the Graphical engine with Ogre and not in the Game SDK with Fly3d and NeoEngine.
but here is what he'll probably say: just give me .3ds files, and .bsp files
he needs to write code that will actually open and display those files himself. As a designer, you should be asking him these things directly to see what he will support, and how he wants you to hand him the resources.
Irrlicht does not have its own proprietary model format. However, the best greatest hope will be .X which will be incorperated in the next version (0.5) which supports skeletal and weighted animations, and which most modelers can export to easily. So if he is not already aware of this, make sure he is.
