Which game engine is for me?

well, i've made my own engine, so i don't use any of the others, but from what i've heard Irrlicht is insanely easy to use. from other's comments it a) allows you to put something on the screen almost immediately b) is worthwhile, in the sense that for all its ease of use it actually delivers excellent graphics quality. apparently its only a graphics engine, though. others include the Torque 3D engine, Crystal Space, and Ogre (is that graphics only too ?). just what i've heard, someone please correct me if i'm wrong.

Thanks Stormrunner, the Irrlicht seems to be the answer, totaly C++ (as a java programmer I prefer OO programming), its scenegraph based like Java3D and Xith3D and it seems to be full of great features

Cheers
PinZip

I've been looking through engine's myself and was impressed with Irrlicht. The only thing that bothers me about is this from the FAQ:

Quote:

I am very sorry, it sounds a little bit egoistic, but until version 1.0 of the Engine I have not planned to involve more developers in the project than one, me. This is because I think the engine will be modified a lot until this version. I have a some experience working in development teams with projects wich change their specification during development, and hence, to be able to be very flexible and to minimize bugs in the engine, I do not want to let anybody else make changes to the internal engine until version 1.0.

I would much prefer a group collaboration (unstability and all). It scares me that only one person has sole control over the project because I don't want to pick an engine and spend hours and hours implementing it and then have the guy drop the project or get greedy (not that I'm opposed to paying-- I just don't want to be forced to).

Am I being too cautious?

Having said that, I probably will go with Irrlicht. I'm going to be careful to decouple it from my project as much as possible.

Even if the one person does drop the project, you still have the source to do as you please...

Well my point of view on the matter is that because there is only one person on the project, the releases should be more stable so once your game does not rely on a future features then if the project is shutdown or if the licence is changed it wont realy effect you because the earlier releases are still on the original licence.

Having said that I have seen plenty of group projects shutdown because the developers start disagreeing and decide they are nolonger enjoying the project and shut it down.

I *think* Irrlicht is pretty new, so it isn't up to the standards of Ogre or more developed engines yet. Torque is probably the best, with the new Shader Engine giving extremely good graphics quality, but of course you have to pay for it.

Ok thanks for all the info guys, looks like I have 2 make a decision now :)

Quote:

Even if the one person does drop the project, you still have the source to do as you please...

True, depending on the type of license, you may be able to continue using the engine, but who wants to be stuck w/ a stagnant graphics engine. Someone else may pickup the project (if the author allows it), but then again, they may not. Of course, I could continue development myself, but then I would be defeating the purpose of choosing a 3rd party API. Any way I look at it, I just feel like the momentum of a group project is more desirable from a risk perspective (assuming it's managed correctly).

I agree re: Torque. It is a really impressive engine. I strongly urge game programmers to spend the $100 to peruse the source. It's worth every penny. The source code is amazing-- some of the best I've seen. My only heartache there is the license. It's improved dramatically over the years, but you'd always be tied to a semi-commercial license and would never really be able to go open-source.