Allegro, SDL , and OGRE

I don't know Allegro. But I know SDL. It is hard to compare SDL with OGRE. OGRE is a rendering engine.. SDL is a low level library to access hardware, OGRE is a high level rendering engine, for example you might build something like OGRE on top of SDL..

You might want to compare SDL+OpenGL to DirectX

OGRE to Irrlicht to the rendering aspect of Torque to the rendering aspects of other engines...

I didn't relieze that SDL was so low level; in the post below someone asked if anying could be easier than SDL (soemthing like that) so I was pretty much under the impression that it was a higher level API.

Is Allegro also a low level API? And how does OGRE compare to Irrlicht?

Yes, Allegro is low-level. It's higher level than SDL in that out-of-the-box (or zip file as it were) it can do sound, load and display images and has a set of functions for drawing primitives to the screen.

But neither of the two have built-in collision detection, scripting, or even anything to really ease 3D programming. They're meant more as cross-platform APIs for multimedia programming, not as game engines.

-Auron

Quote:

Original post by Auron Yes, Allegro is low-level. It's higher level than SDL in that out-of-the-box (or zip file as it were) it can do sound, load and display images and has a set of functions for drawing primitives to the screen. But neither of the two have built-in collision detection, scripting, or even anything to really ease 3D programming. They're meant more as cross-platform APIs for multimedia programming, not as game engines. -Auron

Thanks Auron,

I guess there not really what I would be looking for at this time. I have two much time already invested in DirectX to switch to a different low level API. I probably looking at something higher level if I am going to make the switch.

Be careful there. I would consider SDL as an analog to DirectX. Allegro on the other hand (or SDL after grabbin tons of supplementary libraries) is more like DirectX with all of the libraries like in D3DX.

But that all said, Allegro on its own is far better suited to 2D applications. Its own 3D capabilities are crap in my opinion and you need to rely on a 3rd party library to be able to use OpenGL with it.

Actually, both SDL and Allegro would require OpenGL (or a software engine) for any 3D stuff. I don't think either will let you directly interface with Direct3D (as that would defeat the purpose of them being multi-platform).

So if you're looking for something closer to a game engine then you would definitely want something like Ogre or Irrlicht.

I'd help out by comparing them, but I haven't used either of them yet, so I really couldn't if I tried.

-Auron

Auron,

Yes, I pretty interested in either Ogre or Irrlicht; at first glance this is my opinion of them:

Ogre looks to be a very full featured 3D Rendering Engine. It might be a little rigid as to the way your code needs to be implemented and it does not support collision detection.

Irrlicht looks to have less rendering features than OGRE (just a guess based on the feature from the web site). It doesn't look as rigid and it has some form of collision detection.

PLEASE NOTE:
This is only at a glance based on what I have done and what I have read from the web site and from other posters. I really do not know which is better suited to my needs at this point.

I am thinking of writing a couple versions of pong to see how I like them; also that might make for a cool comparison. Although, the OGRE version would be harder to play without the collision detection. hehe

If you're doing 3D and considering SDL or Allegro, you'll end up using OpenGL anyway. [smile] But neither are "engines"; you'll either have to write that stuff yourself or use OGRE, which is much higher level from the sound of it.

For collision detection I use ODE 0.5 + OPCODE 1.3 with Ogre which works well.

Have you tried our engine?
site | documentation

To be really honest, we're still pretty small, and the engine is not intended to be competitive with BSP leaf blower style engines (e.g Quake 4) until version 2.x (Which has BSP nodes). The Aurora engine was designed to generate games that look like pre rendered movies (in real time). It was loosely based on real life development experiences with the NetImmerse engine (Elder Scrolls of Morrowind) and the VTK engine (commercial and scientific tools development).

Its structure was completely altered/redesigned to solve certain API, performance, stability, graphics pipeline, and compiled code size issues. In other words, we designed Aurora from scratch to address design issues that arose during project development in both the game developer and scientific communities. It may not have every bell and whistle, but it does have almost everything one needs to write a competitive game. If it doesn't claim a particular feature, you can probably write one for it in a day or two.

The docs should give you a pretty good idea of what it looks like on the inside (both simple and powerful). Royalties were just discontinued, so there are only the simple up front costs associated with title development. The tutorials and demo are still a little weak, (still working on them) but they should be enough to get anyone with a basic understanding of 3d space started.

(As a side note, the demo on the site is "programmer art" and runs pretty light on the vertex pipeline). Aurora should do "A Bug's Life" quality real time rendering (minus the depth blur effects, which are planned for v2.x).

Let me know what you think.