How to start with Irrlicht

If you are a new Irrlicht Engine user, and have a newbie-question, this is the forum for you. You may also post general programming questions here.
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desijays
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:06 am

How to start with Irrlicht

Post by desijays »

hi, i just downloaded the Irrlicht engine. I'm a beginner and pretty good with 'C'. I haven't done any game programming before. I want to make a clone of tetris using irrlicht engine so that i can learn the API as well as game programming in general.

could someone tell me the path i should take. cos right now, i'm pretty confused about where to start or look. The engine has many files and since im new to game programming, i don't know how to begin. Just a generic overview of how someone in my shoes would/should normally proceed would be helpful.
Robert Y.
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Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 11:23 pm

Post by Robert Y. »

Welcome desijays!

It's simple: just compile the examples, starting with the first one. There are project files/makefiles for several compilers, so they should compile without problems. If you examined them all, you should have a pretty good idea how irrlicht works. And of course the search function of this forum is really useful (at least, most of the time it solves my problems).

It mainly comes to this: you initialize the engine, you define a camera and define objects (nodes) you want to show. After those definitions you run a render loop, that puts everything on the screen. In that loop you can change positions/rotation etc. of your objects.

The beauty of irrlicht is its compatibility, its documentation and its great community.
desijays
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Joined: Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:06 am

Post by desijays »

thanks you for the heads up.
Luben
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Post by Luben »

If you've only programmed C before, i'd recomend reading a little about classes and inheritance.
Check trough the functions of IUnknon, ISceneManager, IVideoDriver, ISceneNode and IGUIEnvironment. They are all defined in the include direcory in header files of the same name, and are vital to irrlicht, sortof. It'll give you some knowledge of what functions that are avialable. If you'r only doing 2d, then ISceneManager and ISceneNode probably wont be of as much interest for you though.
Also check out the header files that start with irr* and S*.
And of course scan trough the forums and the wiki and the tutorials every now and then.
Good luck!
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Acki
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Re: How to start with Irrlicht

Post by Acki »

desijays wrote:I want to make a clone of tetris using irrlicht engine so that i can learn the API as well as game programming in general.
And if you stuck with Tetris, have a look at my site, I also did a Tetris clone you can download (incl. source)... ;)
while(!asleep) sheep++;
IrrExtensions:Image
http://abusoft.g0dsoft.com
try Stendhal a MORPG written in Java
FlyingIsFun1217
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Post by FlyingIsFun1217 »

Robert Y. wrote: It mainly comes to this: you initialize the engine, you define a camera and define objects (nodes) you want to show. After those definitions you run a render loop, that puts everything on the screen. In that loop you can change positions/rotation etc. of your objects.
Thanks for saying that. I'm going to be starting soon too ;)

FlyingIsFun1217
desijays
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:06 am

Re: How to start with Irrlicht

Post by desijays »

Acki wrote:
desijays wrote:I want to make a clone of tetris using irrlicht engine so that i can learn the API as well as game programming in general.
And if you stuck with Tetris, have a look at my site, I also did a Tetris clone you can download (incl. source)... ;)
thanks mate. i downloaded and am looking thru the source. Though it would have been helpful if you had the source seperately. I had to install the program to get to the source. :)
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