Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
I'm working on learning C and C++, expanding my horizons, and graduating from simpler, pre-made languages like DarkBASIC to open source engines. As a part of this expanding I've installed Ubuntu on my laptop, and I've been shopping around for a decent, introductory yet expandable open source engine. After poking around, and using some info I got off the forums, I've started considering Irrlicht and Ogre for possibly inclusion in, as Sherlock Holmes puts it, the lumber room of my knowledge. However, I'm rather torn between the two, and still very open to the possibility that both may be rather over my head at this time. So far I've learned some basic in C and nothing in C++, but it's coming along, however I'll still be looking for something to use my skills on and expand them in in the near future (preferably in C, as it will probably take much longer to wrangle C++). If anyone has any suggestions as far as the two engines go, or possibly another option all together that might be wise for me to consider I'd very much appreciate your input. Sincerely, ------------------ Portia The Merchant of Venice |
Lazarus Member Posts: 1668 From: USA Registered: 06-06-2006 |
I have used Irrlicht a little - and looked at Ogre - and I'd advise you to go with Irrlicht. Comparing features, syntax, renderers, and the OS's they run on, Irrlicht sounds better. They are both C++ engines, you know. |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
Yeah, I knew that much, which is partially why I narrowed it down between the two. If you could Laz, what, in your experience, are the major differences, in more a line item approach that is. It would be more helpful if you could be a bit more detailed than the generic features, syntax, renderers, ect. ------------------ Portia The Merchant of Venice |
SSquared Member Posts: 654 From: Pacific Northwest Registered: 03-22-2005 |
Somewhere on here is a discussion between Steveth45 and someone else discussing the differences between the two. I'm sure they will speak up about it in this thread. My recommendation is to learn C++ first before attempting to learn a new language AND a game engine all at once. Ask questions when you don't understand something. While learning the language, also spend part time learning gaming engine concepts. Take any specific language out of the equation. Learn about lighting, shaders, collision detection, 3D rendering, game loops, etc. Perhaps you already know some of this, based on your experiences with other gaming tools. Once you have a solid background, you will have the basic understanding for using gaming engines. |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
*nod* Excellent advice. As I've been learning C I've also been digging into the basic of mainly 3D rendering for the moment. My goal is to get a good enough handle on the concept that I can code a small 3D display system in C without using any step by step tutorials. Do you know any good sites that have info in 3D theory in a decent, easy to understand move SS? ------------------ Portia The Merchant of Venice |
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Lazarus Member Posts: 1668 From: USA Registered: 06-06-2006 |
Well, I had a hard time deciding which was better, so I downloaded both engines and tried them out. That was about six months ago. I had leaned toward Ogre somewhat because of the screenshots on their site, and the games people have made with it, but after trying it, I came to the conclusion that it is best used by groups of at least three or four developers who are really experienced with C++, because Ogre is very complex, very object-oriented. - In my humble opinion. Irrlicht, on the other hand, was much easier to use. Easier to setup, easier to compile programs, easier to code with. If you would rather just learn the basics of Irrlicht without going through the complexity of C++, I'd recommend IrrLua. Lazarus |
GUMP Member Posts: 1335 From: Melbourne, FL USA Registered: 11-09-2002 |
Nebula Device 2 is supposed to be good enough that some pro Christian game developers are using it (and they have programmers who've worked with the DOOM3 engine source code). It's also multi-platform and supports Xbox360, Wii, etc. http://nebuladevice.cubik.org/ You will need the game framework called Mangalore: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=7192&package_id=192229&rel ease_id=420997 [This message has been edited by Gump (edited November 17, 2006).] |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
So is it free Gump? And have you used it enough to give any comments on it's ease of use/quality? edit/ Oh.....didn't see the screenshots.........narf......*Drool* ------------------ Portia The Merchant of Venice [This message has been edited by Ereon (edited November 17, 2006).] |
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SSquared Member Posts: 654 From: Pacific Northwest Registered: 03-22-2005 |
Sorry, I don't have any information regarding websites. I never even looked at game development until the recent contest we had. My first choices would be to look at Wiki sites and GameDev.net. But hopefully others can give some good recommendations. |
Faith_Warrior Member Posts: 490 From: So.Cal. Registered: 09-05-2006 |
Irrlicht, it's compact and easier to work with. This is actually the rendering engine which will be used for the game I'm working on. |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
Aight, now it's been narrowed down to Irrlicht and Nebula. I must admit, the potential beauty of Nebula is rather tempting. ------------------ Portia The Merchant of Venice |
fearless Member Posts: 91 From: Romania, Tg Mures Registered: 11-26-2005 |
While what Gump is saying is true the biggest problem with Nebula is the documentation, better said the lack of it. Besides putting your graphics in the game can be a challange, they do have a middleware package that works with MilkShape however it's quite pricey and you also need MilkShape. Irrlicht is nice but it's rather new and doesn't have all the functionality you might need. Ogre is the best engine IMO that you can get without paying a dime. It's been around for 10 years and has many extensions made by community that can give you a significant push in your project (i.e Paging Landscape Scene Manager ) If you're very shaky on C++ you might find Irrlicht easier. ------------------ |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
Hrm....man.....stuff like this always seems to get complicated. Might just be best to jump in and "take a swim" to find out what will work best.... They're all intriguing prospect, each with their own plusses and minusses.....agh, so hard. ------------------ Portia The Merchant of Venice |
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fearless Member Posts: 91 From: Romania, Tg Mures Registered: 11-26-2005 |
Irrlicht and Ogre are both good to get your feet wet. they're not great for commercial games but I doubt that's what you're concerned about at this point. ------------------ |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
Well, actually I try to push everything I make as far to the commercial side of things as possible, but I need something, like you said, to get my feet wet first before I start pushing the envelope too much. ------------------ Portia The Merchant of Venice |
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GUMP Member Posts: 1335 From: Melbourne, FL USA Registered: 11-09-2002 |
If the primary goal is to gain experience I'd agree it'd be best to go with whatever has the best documentation. |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
So is there any one of these engines that you would suggest for that purpose Gump? I'm not really interested in doing a full blown game really at this point, more in the concept of getting ahead for college. ------------------ Portia The Merchant of Venice |
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Faith_Warrior Member Posts: 490 From: So.Cal. Registered: 09-05-2006 |
quote:Hmm? Not everyone is focused on making a cutting-edge eye candy shooter. I don't see the problem with using them for commercial use, many have done so. If people can use Torque or B3D rendering engines, I don't see why Irrlicht or OGRE would be a bad choice when they are even more advanced than Torque or B3D.
quote: There is another choice then, since part of the reason you are selecting an engine is to learn, you may want to look into getting to know the Unreal engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_engine I mean if you are looking for an engine to use in an existing game project than the two mentioned are good choices, but if you want to build a portfolio with using a widely distributed engine than the Unreal engine may be worth looking into. |
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fearless Member Posts: 91 From: Romania, Tg Mures Registered: 11-26-2005 |
quote: It's not only about performance or advanced features. Commercially speaking, the thing that matters most is production time. A delay of 2 or 3 months costs the publisher big money (just imagine what goes on paying a team of 20 people for 2-3 months). ------------------ |
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Faith_Warrior Member Posts: 490 From: So.Cal. Registered: 09-05-2006 |
Yep, that's usually the thing that takes months/years to hammer out. That seems like the case for most anything though. Take for instance the case of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, they took Big World, stripped out the rendering engine and are adapting the Unreal engine to it. All that stuff generally takes place at the beginning of the development process though (as it did for CME), you don't hire on a dev team of 20 until they have work and if they have 18 developers standing around for three months than that in bad planning... and doubt that had ever been the case for any lead dev team manager with at least half a brain for project planning. |
dartsman Member Posts: 484 From: Queensland, Australia Registered: 03-16-2006 |
I honestly don't see why ppl compare the two. Irrlicht is a game engine. Ogre is a Rendering Engine. They both seem to do their jobs very well. I tend to lean towards Ogre, as I can write my own wrapper around a physics, audio and networking engine. ------------------ |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
I think I might have mis expressed myself. I wasn't meaning an engine to make a portfolio for college with Faith, I was meaning something that I could learn the guts of the game engine in. Something I could dig in to the deepest part of and tinker with and expand into a full blown game engine over a (probably rather large) period of time for the purpose of learning and exploration. I'm already in to the course, I just want to study game design at its grittiest levels so I can be a bit ahead of the game when I start classes. ------------------ Portia The Merchant of Venice [This message has been edited by Ereon (edited November 21, 2006).] [This message has been edited by Ereon (edited November 21, 2006).] [This message has been edited by Ereon (edited November 21, 2006).] |
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Lazarus Member Posts: 1668 From: USA Registered: 06-06-2006 |
Then Irrlicht is still what I'd advise.  |
steveth45 Member Posts: 536 From: Eugene, OR, USA Registered: 08-10-2005 |
quote: Actually, "The Irrlicht Engine is an open source high performance realtime 3D engine" according to the official webpage. Irrlicht is also open source, and allows one to write wrappers around physics/audio/networking engines--in fact people already have done this with Irrlicht and posted tutorials with working example code--the Irrlicht page links to most of them. Irrlicht and Ogre have both been used as pure rendering engines (which is pretty much what they are) and as the core rendering engine for games (which they are both decently suited for). There are plenty of reasons to compare them. For example, Ogre is old and bulky (5 or 6 times the size of Irrlicht) and the input (keyboard/mouse) is poorly written. Irrlicht is light and fast but immature and somewhat buggy--I've had to apply numerous bug fix patches to get my games to compile and run correctly. Also, bug fixes made in the community take some time to get into Irrlicht's main code base (read: months).
[This message has been edited by steveth45 (edited November 21, 2006).] |
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dartsman Member Posts: 484 From: Queensland, Australia Registered: 03-16-2006 |
"Ogre is old and bulky"... Dude... and? Did you mention that ogre's community is huge and that it's up-to-date with the latest graphics features? The Unreal Engine is 'old and bulky', does that mean it's crap, nope.. (I actually know this from current personal experience with UE3). You are also missing the picture. Ogre was designed and created as a rendering engine. You should if anything be comparing Ogre with Open Scene Graph or similar engines which concentrate on Rendering. Lets have a look at the Irrlicht 'Features': Collision detection... hmm... Looking at the Ogre Features, wait, there is one mention of 'Collision'... "ReferenceAppLayer provides an example of how to combine OGRE with other libraries, for example ODE for collision & physics". Hang on, thats only mentioning that they have an example of how to combine Ogre with another library... NO THE SAME THING... Do your homework, clearly Irrlicht is targeting towards a 'realtime 3D engine' (not specifically 'rendering engine', but also collision, audio, input, etc.) and Ogre is targeting towards 'Rendering Engine'. Comparing the two would be like comparing OpenGL and DirectX. It's unfar, stupid and yet they keep popping up. There are advantages for both, and are designed differently. Ereon, I think you won't want to use Irrlicht or Ogre. I didn't start out on either. It sounds like you want to start out on OpenGL or DirectX. OpenGL is pretty cool (easy to pick up) and DirectX has a lot more features (DirectInput, DirectSound, etc.). EDIT: btw, Direct3D is a component of DirectX, and so clearly there are more features in the DirectX then with OpenGL. ------------------ [This message has been edited by dartsman (edited November 21, 2006).] |
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Ereon Member Posts: 1018 From: Ohio, United States Registered: 04-12-2005 |
Dartsman: *nod* that might be a better course, learning DirectX or OpenGL from the ground up. I'll look into that. I think for now though it'd probably best to narrow my vision are work on mastering the language first. Thanks for all your help guys. ------------------ Portia The Merchant of Venice |
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dartsman Member Posts: 484 From: Queensland, Australia Registered: 03-16-2006 |
yeah, if you want PM me your MSN (if you have one). I can give you small projects (guessing game, tic-tac-toe, etc) and keep a tab on ya, provide some help and the like for you to learn. Move from Text into Graphics, and just general C++ projects. I'm pretty busy atm, but get the odd time to chat and the like (most lunches, and at my 2nd job). ------------------ |
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Matt Langley Member Posts: 247 From: Eugene, OR, USA Registered: 08-31-2006 |
Personally I would recommend Torque Game Engine (TGE) and if you are looking for more features and more "next gen" tech then Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA, formerly Torque Shader Engine - TSE). http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque/tge/ Of course I'm a little biased, but in truth aren't we all. ADD: I know you mentioned Open Source engines, though I think you would get a lot more benefit from looking at an engine that is consistently being updated, and utilized at a professional level as well. Open Source tech is great and a wonderful way to learn, though I personally would suggest something along the lines of my suggestion. ------------------ [This message has been edited by Matt Langley (edited November 29, 2006).] |
jestermax Member Posts: 1064 From: Ontario, Canada Registered: 06-21-2006 |
kudos to dartsman, if anyone knows about that stuff he does (no, i'm not saying there isn't anyone else that knows, but unlike most he has actually done the research on this) |
