Irrlicht Engine

Considering that others have posted introductory threads in this forum, and there seems no clear place for this kind of thread, I think this is appropriate, let me know if it isn't please.

I go by the handle C4Cypher, I'm young (24) and I'm getting back into programming as a hobby, somthing I used to love to do as a kid/teen (old BASIC, a little C/C++, VB5 ... all having been forgotten). I'm trying to get my coding fingers back, and as an avid gamer with an active imagination, game design and development would be much more of an engaging way of learning a framework, language sintax, common design patterns and conventions than simply running through the basic 'Hello World' baby steps that mark a virgin entry into the world of programming.

Why am I writing this? I realize that a forum is a medium for a community, not simply a means of getting required information. It's equal give and take, and if I'm not willing to at least contribute my presence to the atmosphere here, I might as well not bother. If I just wanted information, I'd use Google, Wikipedia and all the other impersonal methods of dregging up info from the net. (Which is what I've been doing since I started this personal programming journey) I've been in enough communities to have witnessed blind newbie entries into a forum with preconceived notions and demands for information without context. (Never, ever, say the word 'sniper' in the Tippmann.com forums) So, before I come to the plate with my problems, worries, requests for guidance, I felt it would be prudent, friendly, and overall better to make my presence known, and give a backround on what I was trying to accomplish.

My actual project will be saved for another time (to save the viewer from more of my verbose ramblings AND to wait until I have a better picture of what I'm making). I know that I won't get everything I need from this single community, this place is about a rendering engine, not game programming or general programming as a whole.

I know I'm not going about this the best way, I'm proud and stubborn, insisting on going it alone for now rather than joining a project already in development. (At this point, with my current programming skills, I'm not sure what I really have to offer) I'm using VB.NET, even when the vast majority of documentation and code availible is for C#, simply because I prefer the syntax, and I'm confident that everything I'm capable of doing with one, I can do with the other, if I spend enough time learning the language and API's. I will not argue VB over C#, or Microsoft over other development paradigms. (I bear an interesting and passionate love/hate relationship with the Microsoft monster, simply because my background leads me to be dependent on it.)

As to why I'm here at all, I want to focus on game mechanics, AI in paticular, rather than spending enormous amounts of time writing my own rendering engine. I've shopped around the various open source engines out there, and tinkered with the DirectX SDK, and I've realized that the rendering aspect of my journey would be much easier if I take advantage of the work that other people have done (like the Irrlicht engine) so I can focus on the aspects I want to focus on. I'm not saying that I'm going to avoid learning 3D rendering at all, that would be foolhardy, in this day and age I'm going to have learning some of it, but this seems a much better path than trying to dig somthing out of scratch with DX or somthing like that.

I've finally come to the descision to experiment with the Irrlicht engine for my project, admittedly, I haven't actually 'opened the box' yet, but I can't work in a vaccum forever, and despite my wish that I could completely abstract game logic from the rendering process, that would mean making my task impossibly more difficult. 3D graphics is not my strong point, hardly, but whether or not I ask for advice, I would have ended up trying to understand it on my own anyway. I'll still try, but I realize that if I make a footprint in this community first, the transistion from 'Hi! I'm new here!' to 'I need help! Waaaah!' will be much, much smoother.

As I've stated before, this is give and take, I'm not going to expect anything here, and I'd like to beleive that I'll exaust all other possibililties for solving my own problems on my own before I lay them here. I've said before that I'm stubborn and proud, I hate being the newbie, even when I have to accept it, I don't like having to ask for help when my gut tells me that 'I should have been able to figure this out on my own', but I'm not Gable Newell or John Romero, I'm inexperienced, and I have a knack for insisting on doing things 'the hard way around'.

If you're still reading at this point I salute you, my fingers and my brain are far faster than my congitive ability to translate my ideas onto paper (or the screen) in other forms (I can't draw, and stupidly, I haven't done an honest design paper for my project yet, and it's hurting me.)

This seems like a friendly community and it is an honor to be here, despite my pride, I try to keep an open mind. Please, if you have any comments, suggestions, or especially tips (not just about 3D rendering, but about the nature of this community), please, by all means let me know. I do not want to make the mistake of calling myself a sniper in a paintball community, if you get what I'm saying, but at the same time, I want to extend a friendly hand out there and say, 'Hi! Nice to meet you all, I'm a newbie, and I'm not afraid to admit it' without arising fears that I'm going to start flinging poop from my diaper and crying when I want to be fed. ^_^

Hi, nice to meet you too. Welcome to the community.

howdy mate!

thats actually incorrect for my heritage to say those to words together, but i don't care.

we're all fun in here! ('cept midnight, he has the uncanny ability to flame anything...)

('cept midnight, he has the uncanny ability to flame anything...)

Actually, that's his style. We shouldn't blame him.

we're all fun in here!

yep, but not with the increasing number of spam bots.

wow that was one long introduction..
welcome, and may your bug reports be as verbose as your first post

Holy Crap that is a big intro there maty, im not gonna bother reading it but mention that you will this place very friendly and open for the most part. Also, don't worry about your lack of c/c++ knowledge, just be creative and youll have nothing to worry about.. .

Umm ... yeah ... most of my posts aren't that long, I just ... when I have somthing I really want to say, I just type it ... and I forget when to stop. ^_^ got the vb example running and I'm starting to toy with the engine.

Welcome to the community.

I have to compliment Nick and all the guys who put this together. In order to go through the C++ code, I'm having to refrence through the API documentation AND the API.NET documentation, but it's all immaculately documented, and the actual engine itself is so simple to implement that it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure it out.

As far as running the vb.net sample, I've gotten it to work (I wish VS2K5 had better path file management, I've copied Irrlicht.dll into so many folders it makes my head spin ^_^, I've figured where it needs to go.), but for some reason the one ISceneNode cube I'm rendering refuses to texture. I know the textures are loading, so I'm guessing the problem is through the .net implementation. Considering that I haven't had time to really fool around with it to the point where I know what's wrong, I'm not asking for help. I just wanted to say that, even with the problems I'm having, I can see why you guys love this engine.

Thanks for the welcome ^_^

PS, the engine's use of single (floating point) variables over double is somthing I highly approve of, considering that I want a low poly mesh yet Massive world to render.

PPS, One quick question, as somone from the VB camp, am I to assume that with variable value declarations such as '0.25f', the 'f' signifies a floating point value in C++ syntax?

...but for some reason the one ISceneNode cube I'm rendering refuses to texture...

Is it black, or white? If black then it's down to lighting (add a light or turn lighting off in the material), if white then it could be driver problems, try in the other renderers and update your gfx drivers.

am I to assume that with variable value declarations such as '0.25f', the 'f' signifies a floating point value in C++ syntax?

Yes, this forces a number with a decimal point to be a float rather than a double. You'll get warnings about converting from doubles to floats if you remove them.

Much appriciated, I'm getting the black box, you probably just made figuring that one out much easier for me, thank you.

Just to make sure, talking about very basic 3D manipulation, with an (x,y,z) set of coordinates, the first and seccond values (x and y) represent displacement from (0,0,0) along the horizontal axes, while the third value (z) represents displacement along the vertical axis (in layman's terms, height or elevation). This is correct when thinking about IrrLicht spatially, right?

I'm also slightly puzzled by the Vector3D struct, I always belived that a three dimensional vector contained four values, while Vector3D contains three. The four I speak of are three for spatial orientation, and one for magnitude (in essence, the definition of a physics vector). Is the Vector3D structure used simply to define a three dimensional point, rather than direction or magnitude. In order to express direction or directional magnitude from a point, am I going to need two points defined? If Vector3D does not represent a directional line in three dimensional terms, how can it be normalized? (VB NS: Irrlicht.Core.Vector3D.Normalize() Cpp: irr::core::vector3d.normalize() ) The same questions could be applied to Vector2D.



** Edit ** I'm mistaken, a physics vector is represented by two points, thus six values, not four.

I found a snippet from smartwhiz's code that showed that I was turned around, I should be thinking of y as the vertical axis (to an FPS camera), this has helped with my initial disorientation, but I'm still confused over what the Vector structs are used for, exactly.
*sigh* I'm having to translate classes I've found here from C++ to VB ... and I'm running into the fact that VB structs don't inherit, thus I've got to go into the Irrlicht source code to find the original parent struct definitions. Not impassible, but it will keep my busy fingers occupied for a while.

I have gotten the texture working, note to self, set texture meshes to 0 unless you know what you're doing ^_^.

C4Cypher wrote:"I got a present for you" -Commando
"May the way of the Hero Lead to the Triforce" -If you have to ask, I'll beat you with a herring

Funny ones. I know the first one(some may not), the second I know what it is from but I can't remember who said it in what game.

Its good to meet you, haha sometimes I write posts that long when I introduce myself. Like you I have also been a member of many forums, and I have witnessed many who take all give nothing and they seem to feed of those that give all and take nothing. I agree you only get out what you put in. This is a very good forum I like the community.

kburkhart84 wrote:

C4Cypher wrote:"I got a present for you" -Commando
"May the way of the Hero Lead to the Triforce" -If you have to ask, I'll beat you with a herring

Funny ones. I know the first one(some may not), the second I know what it is from but I can't remember who said it in what game.

Triforce + Hero = Link from The Legend of Zelda?

Oh right but yeah I have no idea who said it or from what game either...