Irrlicht Engine

afecelis wrote:Too bad I did spend the 100 bucks and never used the engine

may i put it this way?
IRRLICHT IS:

- player of known formats which are still under licence because these formats are part of its engines (eg Quake2); commercially useless (but .X format is pretty good, I never ever use .X format )
- too much 3d formats for one engine makes a little rush in code; it's distracting somehow
- lot of features is in early stage of development this will have serious impact on architecture of engine
- those "pretty" videos I can generate with custom build engine made in 8 hours (or less), however API is

and
IRRLICHT will become something like OGRE soon, an over-engineered software. A lot of libraries from different people. This is not bad, but in stress scenes those engines losing performance.

A lot of guys in here have big plans, with big games. But I can assure even if you will not have playable prototype of the game with almost 50% of features working, you can't say you do this, because if you can't do this now, you can't do this ever.

With Cipher I had performace results I never had with any other engine. I know there should be some new updates within Cipher, it will help a lot, but I think stronger effort of all guys in community would help too.

cypher forum thread wrote:You must be a licensed developer to view this thread

I purchased Cipher and I think it's a great engine. It's definitely an engine for programmers (which I'm not), so I got a bit lost. I ran into Irrlicht and found its code easy to understand and apply; I was loading up my quake 3 levels in no time; but Irrlicht stopped being a Quake 3 loader or clone long time ago, its community has worked hard and has developed its own formats and loaders. Check this screenshot:
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/Giles/AA4x.jpg

It's completely modeled in 3dsmax and exported to an Irrlicht format called "My3d" by Russian programmer Zdimitor. I don't feel I've been ripped off with Cipher; I see it more as an investment for when my learning process with Irrlicht is mature enough to understand Cipher's code (perhaps I never will). I won't deny I tried to work with Cipher, set up 3dsmax, place the exporters...but everything was a bit complicated. I was never able to even load a box in the renderer, but that's me, and as I said, I'm no programmer. So in the end, Irrlicht is perhaps a little less agressive for us newbies, has a pretty curious and active community, and most important, is open to everyone who's willing to learn it and give something in return. I'm very fond of Irrlicht cause it has been my mentor in C++. Although I'm learning at my own pace, there are others who fly like a ray with it! Another important thing is Irrlicht adapts to any budget and any tools you got, form free to expensive ones. You can create in Blender, Milkshape, Wings3d, or 3dsmax, and get great results in the engine.
There are very professional projects being developed with it:
http://www.etvig.com/blaze/

I also got Torque, AMP2, Power Render, Reality Factory Pro, 3dgamestudio, and some others, and I don't see any of them as a waste of money. Everything is experience in life. Use what gives you results, work with what you guys feel comfortable.

here's a small vid of the same level.
http://www.danielpatton.com/afecelis/Gi ... _giles.zip
today Zdimitor added the possibility of importing billboard trees with properly generated lightmaps. so that's the next thing I'll learn these days. Then I'll try to learn something new... audio..physics? dunno. It's really up to you!

you guys could also share more of your stuff and take cipher to the next stage. Don't expect Rik to do everything.

cheers

afecelis
"Irrlicht Engine Moderator"
"Cipher licensee"

Originally posted by Niko:
This thread made me finally download the cipher demo. Quite nice thing. And their homepage design rocks.

toxinid wrote:Is there around something like "demo" showing IRRLICHT is what you gus saying? "A good engine" Need to see a good example.

hybrid wrote:

toxinid wrote:Is there around something like "demo" showing IRRLICHT is what you gus saying? "A good engine" Need to see a good example.

Maybe you should try the demo and examples included with the downloadable distribution of Irrlicht

Anonymous wrote:Nebula is the best example of what a Open Source Engine Lacks:

1) Tutorial of first step (how to make a hello world).
2) Good docs.
3) Functional game how shows engine working, with sourcecode that actually shows how to make it work, and learn engine way of do things.

Irrlicht lacks of 2 & 3. (dont think bad, Im not any kind of fanatic or antifanatic )