Irrlicht Engine

Hello! I found Irrlicht three weeks ago, and Ogre one week ago.
I've also read many topics about both Irrlicht and Ogre engines, and I can say that in some time Irrlicht will be far better than Ogre...
Why?
a) Irrlicht is more young than Ogre but it's already some advantadges
b) The Irrlicht low-level architecture is better than Ogre's one
c) The lacking of features in Irrlicht is non definitive. Wait for v0.7
d) I'm a student, i don't have much time, i just know c++ basics, so Irrlicht is the best choice

It's my thought , however, so i'd like some replies...

a) Ogre has advantages, too. Defining what areas you are interested in helps here.
b) You have it reversed, Ogres low level architecture is better. Irrlicht's architecture is just way easier to understand and use.
c) This is a valid statement for any engine. 1.0 is gonna be the release to watch for.
d) Most likely, yes. Ogre is a great engine for people who know what they want exactly and have had experience with it.

Irrlicht:
+easier to understand, user friendly API
+great tutorials
+unpack&install
-some lack of features

Ogre3D:
+great features
+nice variety of plugins
+the documentation is great
-installation can be problematic
-not really for beginners

However, for both engines it's *good* to know C++ at a level... while you can learn it in the process, it's good to start with a more or less stiff C++ knowledge. Judging by you said you don't have much time and a basic knowledge of C++, I think Irrlicht would be better for you.

OGRE doesn't seem to convert .x and .3ds files into OGRE's mesh format without using a modeling program plugin. Furthermore, they don't have a plugin for gameSpace?

I could be wrong?

at the time when i first started messing with open source 3d engines, ogre was the first i found that looked useful enough to make anything, i hadne discovered irrlicht yet, as it was a young project at that time, (summer 2003). so, i got the latest ogre, and tried it out. the demos all worked nicely, but i couldnt understand the architecture. it just didnt LOOK like a c++ app like i was familiar with. it seemed like ogre was the app, not the library. i was used to how a library works in the sense of the STL for example, you link in what you need, and use it, and YOU write the void main(). ogre doesnt quite work that way...but after some frustration, i found irrlicht, which better supported programming from my sort of style/perspective. i think for somebody with a more pure OO or java background, ogre might have made more sense. but i started out with procedural c coding, and i was largely unfamiliar with things like event driven coding. so for me, irrlicht makes more sense.

Im not sure but if I were to try to sum it up I think OOGRE (yeah thats how it should be spelt really, hehe) tries to be the best renderer and IrrLicht tries to be easy to use, simple and fast.
Guess who gets my vote? I think OGRE has been developed 3 years longer than IrrLicht too but im not sure.

BTW isnt it funny how we refer to "engines" as though they are real people?

Then theres NeoEngine I/II but thats a whole new subject. Or how about Nebula?

1 thing they all have in common: They are FREE! Hurray!
We like free things

I love Irrlicht
Very cleanly OOP syntax, abstract and virtual classes, polymorphic invokes and many other things. For me Irrlicht is like textbook - thanks for Niko about this!

Ogre:
+) Good (Great) Graphics
+) Complex Material System (ya know what they were talking about in the UNreal3 video? Ogre has that )
+) Very Mature
+) 2 Releases away from 1.0
+) about 2-3x faster then irrlicht
-) More Complex
-) Requires more coding skill

Irrlicht:
+) Good to learn the concepts of 3d graphics and game creation on
+) Braindead easy api
+) Smaller, well documented
+) Good Tutorials
-) Slow
-) Renderer lacking some features
-) Still early in development

NeoI:
+) Its a game engine, it has all the goodies you need
+) No longer being officially developed by the creator, but by the users
+) Feature Rich
+) Integrated Col Det, Physics, Neworking, Scripting, etc
-) I personally didn't like its api overly much
-) Not as easy to use as Irrlicht
-) Small Community

Nebula:
+) Shader Driven Architecture
+) Extremely High level of scripting
-) Unique api can be difficult to learn

I haven't used Neo and Nebula as much as ogre and irrlicht, and my only suggestion would be to try them, and see which one you like best

+) Good (Great) Graphics
Pfft. And? They both offer scene management and matrix etc functions
+) Complex Material System
Shadap we're waiting for 0.70
+) about 2-3x faster then irrlicht
Excuse me? Your kidding right?!?!
-) Requires more coding skill
Yeah you got me there

+) Good to learn the concepts of 3d graphics and game creation on
+) Braindead easy api
Yeah I think so, too.

NeoEngine 1:
+) Its a game engine, it has all the goodies you need
+) No longer being officially developed by the creator, but by the users
+) Feature Rich
I like how he more-or-less forces people to use hungarian notation. IE
(g_bThisIsABool or m_bThisIsABool)
Arithon has done a runner

No offense robo, I just like arguing about these things

Nebula:
It looks nice but I dont have the time.

I like Arithons coding style, BTW but ive made my choice. NeoEngine is in flux and im sticking with the YOUNG (and still deveoping) IrrLicht.
Have faith!

My FPS Experience w/ Irrlicht:
Terrain, same heightmap and scale as ogre: 10 fps
Ogre: 200 fps

+) Complex Material System
Shadap we're waiting for 0.70

Shaders is not all what is missing

there is a lot of features that ogre have and that irrlicht don't and won't have in 0.7

-Anisotropic filtering
-fresnel reflection
-refraction
-bumpmaps
-paralax mapping
-cel shading
-a bunch of other advanced things

+) about 2-3x faster then irrlicht
Excuse me? Your kidding right?!?!

No he is not. Irrlicht is not very optimized (but it will be surely later)

Nitroman: all of those are acutally implemented using shaders

What i was really talking about was stuff like the complex material format, ansiotropic filtering (that one isn't a shader), more parameters, different transparency methods, cubic reflections, etc

Hmm. Well on those GFX things, it just doesnt matter to me. (ive a crappy video card lol)
The terrain, well thats one of the reasons im making my own quadtree (again) just because I like to learn these things
The terrainscenenode has LOD disabled so it will be slow. I worked around it by adding my terrain heightmap as an octreescenenode, if it helps.