Irrlicht Engine

Seeing as you never seem to take any advice from us, I'd say go for it and see how far you get

wahagn wrote:So I think that I will start and make some basic and advanced things with SP and then when I'm more feamiliar with it I will move to Irrlicht. And the good thing is that irrlicht and SP look a bit the same so it will be easier to switch from SP to Irrlicht but I will just start with SP and learn basic things then I will see how things work out ... so no more planning for now....

Why losing your time? start with Irrlicht directly Besides, it becomes a bit dificult when you want to switch from one engine to another, because their traits aren't the same and you get used to some customs of an engine which, suddenly, aren't present on other.

Now I really don't know wich engine to choose any more right now.. I mean I wanted to switch to SP cause I thought it's easier. But everybody on this forum is saying use irrlicht, use irrlicht, use irrlicht .....

It's not that I don't like irrlicht because of the features or community it's the fact that learning a 3d engine is quite hard but jou just read the documentation and tutorials make mistakes but learn from them, now the thing is that this engine has some good tutorials with comments but it doesn't have a good manual because the wiki manual is not finished and the manual is a better help for a newbie than tuts with comment. I mean when you have an advanced engine but with a very easy manual for beginners it easier than a more beginners engine with almost no manual.

So I would like to use this engine but then with a lot of help from docs so I can understand things so I'm actaully asking for more beginner docs (free)...

My question is does somebody know a site with docs on Irrlicht other than the irrlicht wiki? Or did anybody make a manual he could give me?

And I know some people will say that irrlicht already has good docs.. yeah I've seen them and there not bad but I need something more beginners style to start with irrlicht then when I'm more experienced I can just look up classes and think for my self how and where to use them.

BTW: I saw that a book on irrLicht is published but books are not free

wahagn wrote:Now I really don't know wich engine to choose any more right now.. I mean I wanted to switch to SP cause I thought it's easier. But everybody on this forum is saying use irrlicht, use irrlicht, use irrlicht .....

It's not that I don't like irrlicht because of the features or community it's the fact that learning a 3d engine is quite hard but jou just read the documentation and tutorials make mistakes but learn from them, now the thing is that this engine has some good tutorials with comments but it doesn't have a good manual because the wiki manual is not finished and the manual is a better help for a newbie than tuts with comment. I mean when you have an advanced engine but with a very easy manual for beginners it easier than a more beginners engine with almost no manual.

So I would like to use this engine but then with a lot of help from docs so I can understand things so I'm actaully asking for more beginner docs (free)...

My question is does somebody know a site with docs on Irrlicht other than the irrlicht wiki? Or did anybody make a manual he could give me?

And I know some people will say that irrlicht already has good docs.. yeah I've seen them and there not bad but I need something more beginners style to start with irrlicht then when I'm more experienced I can just look up classes and think for my self how and where to use them.

BTW: I saw that a book on irrLicht is published but books are not free

Well actually to start, you should play around with tutorials, when you get comfortable with them and you know you understand them, then you should think what you need and look at the docs for it.
Docs are easy to understand if you know c++ and the basics of irrlicht.
And if theres something really confusing you can always ask.

I don't think you can get any easier documentation than the tutorials/examples

Irrlicht is not exceptional as a library, it's the same learning process as with any other library, so the problem (as stated a lot of times before) probably lies with your knowledge of C++ and the understanding of object oriented programming

Learn C++ thoroughly, get an understanding of the principles of object oriented programming, and then try to tackle irrlicht again, because staring at examples, tutorials and documentation will not get you anywhere

I agree, i learnt Irrlicht reading the tutorials. Those are the best source for documentation of every aspect of the engine, because all of them are covered.

In fact, there is no easy way to start with an engine because they are complex on their own, but it only matters the time you want to invert on learning it.

Start by the basics, creating and destroying the irrlicht device, then move on to the usage of the scene manager, the gui manager, the input interface, the video driver, the creation of custom scene nodes, and the shaders, and you are pretty much done, as the other aspects (data structures and such) will come along on their own, as they are, right called, the core of the engine.

Thanks for the quick replies...

Yeah I'm learning c++ and am aslo going to mess with the irrlicht tutorials, So I know sites wher I can learn c++ but can someone mention a good site on what Object Oriënted Programming is and how I can use it(ofcoarse I can google it but I want some advice on wich site is the best etc. ) ??

wahagn wrote:Yeah I'm learning c++ and am aslo going to mess with the irrlicht tutorials, So I know sites wher I can learn c++ but can someone mention a good site on what Object Oriënted Programming is and how I can use it(ofcoarse I can google it but I want some advice on wich site is the best etc. ) ??

Object Oriented Programming (OOP) is a programming principle used throughout a wide variety of languages (C++, Java, C#, etc.)

The main goal of an object oriented design is to structure a program to use re-usable, inheritable, and independently functioning 'objects' (these being classes, structs, etc.) to reach its goal, whereas for example procedural programming uses pre-defined subroutines (functions) to do this

Understanding the concepts of C++ also means you understand the concepts of OOP, since C++ is an Object-oriented language, so I'd suggest you learn from C++ tutorials/books

wahagn wrote:Thanks for the quick replies...

Yeah I'm learning c++ and am aslo going to mess with the irrlicht tutorials, So I know sites wher I can learn c++ but can someone mention a good site on what Object Oriënted Programming is and how I can use it(ofcoarse I can google it but I want some advice on wich site is the best etc. ) ??

The only sites that I am using to learn c++. (yes I'm still learning stuff about c++, It makes surprises to me every day I work with it )
http://www.learncpp.com
http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html

Also you could read "Sam’s Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours", It is a good book for an easy start with c++.
Tough the name of the book is a little wrong I think, because it would be hard to learn everything that c++ is capable of in just 24 hours.

Thanks for the sites ( btw I like learncpp.com better than cprogramming.com but lerancpp. com it's teribbely slow )

btw I can learn irrlicht by messing with the tutorials.... but I would like to ask wheter anyone does know any specific tutrorials? cause that would help a lot too... ( when I say specific I mean something like a tutorial on how to mak a working car (using phisix) that can drive?)

Btw : ^^ This not nessecary but I like such tuts wich explain a specific thing

BTW2: I already found a car tutorial but it was for irrL v 1.4.2

One of the great aspects of programming is learning how to use certain libraries, and designing frameworks to let these libraries work together efficiently

If we were to write tutorials for using every little aspect of every library which could be useful in combination with irrlicht, we'd be writing tutorials until the end of our days

I do not have any experience with nvidia's physx library, but if you want to integrate it with irrlicht you should try to master both irrlicht and physx (or physx wrapper built for use with irrlicht) and use the knowledge you've gained to achieve the result you want

btw I can learn irrlicht by messing with the tutorials.... but I would like to ask wheter anyone does know any specific tutrorials? cause that would help a lot too... ( when I say specific I mean something like a tutorial on how to mak a working car (using phisix) that can drive?)

You should really try to program more simpler things with irrlicht first, even those who have some experience with c++ and 3d find it difficult to write a functional and fast physical car implementation.

Moreover you have to have some knowledge of basic physics even before trying to implement some moving 3d rigid bodies in physics world.

Play around with basics stuff first, and try not to climb five steps at a time as you may fall hard.

I was working on pawn (embeddable scripting language) abstract machine ( just a thing that loads and runs scripts when you tell it so).
It took me about a week to make simple script functions executed in c++ app, just because I read the manual by skipping some parts and copying code from the manual to my project. It crashed a lot, and didn't do what I wanted it to do. I was very upset that I couldn't get it working, but then I said to myself that I should read the manual again more carefully, and then after a couple of more tries I got It working. I was so happy tough I only made c++ call script function that outputs integer value into screen, but the best thing is that It worked and I got a starting point for evolving it.

Man, as a lot f ppl said, learn to program and them you should worry with specific stuff.
When you learn programming right, you can abstract things like moving cars and physics and transform it into code naturally, without needing a specific tutorial (most of the times).
The problem is not learning how to program, but is to abstract situations and solutions to problems and dividing your problem into pieces to solve it step by step....
Choose any engine you like, but learn to program/think/abstract things

Okay, once again thanx for all the replies I just have on last simple question.
(last question for this topic ... ( I think ...) ...)

I'm still learning c++ on websites but many people say that books are better for doing this... now, I know a lot of good books about c++ but in the local libraries the only book on c++ I can find is: C++ for dummies ... now my question : is C++ for Dummies a good book

wahagn wrote: I'm still learning c++ on websites but many people say that books are better for doing this...

From my experience I can tell that c++ tutorials on the web only give you minimal information(lots of stuff in just a few words) so it may be hard to understand (tough I learnt most of c++ stuff from these websites and googling), but later on you will have to get some books on game/app designing that will help you to understand how to design apps.

I think that that book is Ok to start with, since It is written for those who have minimal or no programming knowledge in past.