Irrlicht and what would maybe make me take another engine

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 10:44 am

Hi,
I´m watching the Irrlicht progress since its beginning and playing aroung with it for a couple of months. I really have to say that it is the best written, easiest to use and most logical build engine I have ever seen. I would use it right away, if there were not a few things either I do not exactly know about the engine or that do not exist in the engine.
I think I should be honest and give the reasons why I would change to another engine because I would be glad if I err or if the features I am missing would be implemented one day.
I am ogling with Ogre, mostly because it has fully DirectX9 support and great featurs like CellShading, CubeMapping, EnvironementMapping,... and a very nice looking water animation (demos http://www.ogre3d.org/modules.php?op=mo ... tit&lid=34).
Other features I am currently missing are fully BumpMapping (and BumpMaps with Shadows) and a few features shown in the DirectX9SDK.
Therefore my question:
Why is Irrlicht only supporting DirectX8.1 and is there any hope that in the feature there will be DirectX9 Support?
Are there planned any of the features I listed above or is there any hope that one day they will be planned?
I would like it very, very much if I could keep using the irrlicht engine and I do not really like Ogre, it would be really bad if I leave such a beautiful engine just because of missing features.

niko · Post by **niko** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 11:02 am

A lot of features are planned, including DX9 support and a lot more materials like bumpmapping etc. But it is a lot of work. Ogre is about three (!) years older than Irrlicht as far as I could tell from the registering date of the sourceforge project pages, and that's a lot. Don't expect Irrlicht to catch up Ogre's features within that short amount of time. And in addition: Irrlichts goals are not the same like Ogres.
Sorry for you that Irrlicht could not satisfy your needs, but nice that you have found another cool engine. Ogre really rocks. But I hope you'll visit Irrlicht's homepage from time to time, checking if the engine now fits your needs.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 4:22 pm

Thank you for your answer. When you say that in near or further future these features will be implemented or are planned to be implemented, it makes me very happy

I know that it is a lot of work and I dont request to do it in such a short time. The point was only that I am developing a smaller or bigger (who knows) game and until its finished, irrlicht will be much more better. I did only want to know, on which engine the game should be based (of course, I am writing it flexible and interchangable, but an engine change still would be a lot of work).
For example I am missing skinnable gui elements, but I know that they are planned, so its no problem for me.
I gather from your post that my "wanted" features are only a matter of time, and thats no problem for me (I think and hope).
So it looks like I could keep using irrlicht, and that makes me very glad

But even if I change the engine, I would visit Irrlicht´s Homepage from time to time for sure, after all I was watching your projects since the F&D times

niko · Post by **niko** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 5:50 pm

Anonymous wrote: For example I am missing skinnable gui elements, but I know that they are planned, so its no problem for me.

I am missing them too.

But it is not difficult to add them. Derive from an existing class and simplay overwrite the ::draw()-method.

Anonymous wrote: I would visit Irrlicht´s Homepage from time to time for sure, after all I was watching your projects since the F&D times

Wow! That's a long time.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 8:38 pm

I hate such decisions, but I was thinking a long time about it and I trust you, I will carry on using Irrlicht

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Feb 04, 2004 11:24 am

Anonymous wrote:I will carry on using Irrlicht

Hehe, ok