irrlicht for no-budget movie effects?

[Easee]

we are currently planing on doing some no-budget movie-making
when i was told about irrlicht i looked through it and was quite impressed
i wonder if it could be used for movie effect
-animated titles/credit-sequences
-animated laser beams coming of "real"-weapons (=toys/props)
-sparks
-completely animated sequences (starships for example)

anyone ever did something similar? any combining of irrlich and camera-footage?

i'll write a simple blue-screen-like plug-in for avisynth and combine it with existings plug-ins to get a nice freeware compositing software-set

i hope some peopel here are interested in this topic

CU
Easee

[saigumi]

All of the below seems possible, but using Irrlicht wouldn't be the same as say using a 3D modeler, scripting, and animating it to perform the same effects.

You would have to code everything and code all the scripting for your scenes. Also, you would have to create a way to save off your animations so that you can post-edit it.

I would think you'd have an easier time just using a 3D modeller/renderer like MilkShape, trueSpace, Blender, etc... as you wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel to achieve what your trying to do.

[Easee]

i haven't done much research yet i have to admit
which of the programs you mentioned (or similar ones) are free and about as easy to learn as irrlicht?

thx
Easy

[bal]

Blender is free but very hard to learn. I don't know about the other programs.

[Christian]

appears you have no experience...so i recommend blender, free, and i think that you wont have problems learning from it. Blender also has a realtime game engine wich i think will be most usefull to you (if i understood you correctly...).

[Electron]

milkshape is about $25 (free trial though). Does a lot but none of it wondefully, from what I hear. TrueSpace has lots of versions, soem of the oldest ones free. Newer version a couple hundred i think.

[Easee]

thx
blender might just be what i was looking for