3D Engine

Discuss about anything related to the Irrlicht Engine, or read announcements about any significant features or usage changes.
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dragonboy

3D Engine

Post by dragonboy »

Hello there,

As a newbie, I was overwhelmed by the amount of open-source 3d engines out there. I have a hard time trying to choose a suitable one.

Questions:
1) How does Irrlicht compare to other 3d engines like NeoEngine, PLIB, OSG, OGRE?

2) Can Irrlicht be used in scientific visualization?

3) Audio support?

Thanks and appreciate your help! :P
cyberbobjr
Posts: 64
Joined: Mon Sep 08, 2003 8:21 am
Location: Paris, France

Post by cyberbobjr »

Hi DragonBoy,
many arguments in favor of irrlicht :
- Collision detection is the best i ever seen in a free product.
- Node picking
- many features for visual representation (BSP/Particles/etc.).
- An excellent documentation.

Feel free to try it !
I have tested many engine : Crystal Space, Auran Jet, PowerRender, NeoEngine, Revolution3D, Genesis3D(another good engine but unsupported now), and irrlicht was really great and i hope that somes great features will be added in the future ! :)
Cyber_Sneak
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 4:48 pm
Location: USA - All your base are belong to us

Post by Cyber_Sneak »

i've also been checking out many engines. i found irrlicht accidentally on flipcode.com. so far i've been very impressed. its fast, open-source (zlib not GPL), cross-platform, and can do lots of stuff. here's what i think of the other engines u mentioned:

neo - really getting to be a pretty good engine can do basically everything that irrlicht can. disadvantages: LGPL (u have to distribute your modifications). also, IMHO u can get things done quicker with irrlicht.

plib - dont really know. never really checked it out. doesnt seem to have as many graphical features as irrlicht. its also LGPL.

osg - like plib i've never really checked it out. doesnt seem to have as many graphical features as irrlicht, but i dont really know.

ogre - ogre is really coming along nicely. the version of ogre in CVS can probably do more than the current irrlicht version (it can do DOT3 bumpmapping and stuff) but i believe that irrlicht is faster and more efficient. and methinks all of ogre's features will be in irrlicht soon.

Check out the irrlicht tutorials and u will see how simple it is to get a great app up and running!
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the buffer's interupted and the interupt's not caught,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.....
Cyber_Sneak
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 4:48 pm
Location: USA - All your base are belong to us

Post by Cyber_Sneak »

and MHO on sum of the other engines cyberbob mentioned:

crystal - the feature list is getting really sweet looking.....but crystal is getting bigger and bigger and more and more unorganized or so i feel. now simply initializing the engine takes hundreds of lines of code. IMO the difficulty that comes with this is not worth the few extra features at all.

auran jet - looks kinda impressive.......but not worth $30,000!

revolution3d - this is a VB engine if i remember right. i wouldnt touch VB with a 107 foot pole.


to me irrlicht seems better than any of these engines. plus if there are any features u want u can easily code them in using custom scene nodes. check out NeHe if u want sum great tutorials on OpenGL.
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the buffer's interupted and the interupt's not caught,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.....
dragonboy

Game engine

Post by dragonboy »

WOW! Thanks a million for your comments, guys. That helps alot. :lol:
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