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Free graphics framework

Started by redeemer91 Jan 23, 2008 at 3:43 AM 4 replies 1.2k views

Original Post

Jan 23, 2008 at 3:43 AM

Hi, I am looking for a free/cheap graphics framework, that I can use to test my techniques, shaders and the likes. This is what I am looking for. Built around OpenGL/DirectX or both Small learning curve Basic camera movement Support for some basic animations Source code *must be available* Should be easy to add new materials & shaders Support to easily load and place models and apply materials on them Support for most texture formats etc Preferably free SOund, networking, ai, physics, gameplay, scripting etc are NOT REQUIRED. Not interested in the regular OGRE and the likes. They seem to be targeted at full fledged games. Taken a look at hyperion, but it seems to work around XML. I'd prefer writing everything in .cpp and generate a .exe in the end. Anyone know anything?

redeemer91

Author

redeemer91

Jan 23, 2008 at 3:52 AM

Oh yeah, and sorry forgot this
- Support for some basic text output

NewBreed

Jan 23, 2008 at 4:28 AM

While I personally can't recommend an engine, your best bet at finding what you want is at devmaster

spek

147

spek

Jan 23, 2008 at 5:21 PM

I had a nice time with glScene for Delphi (and there is a version for Borland C++ and Lazarus/free Pascal too, I believe). A OpenGL framework, that also includes support for several shader languages, physics, and sound. It's free, has alot of demo's, and I believe there is still an active newsgroup that can help you.

Also nice about this framework is that you can easily combine it with your own engine. In the beginning, 95% of my stuff used glScene code. Later on, as I tried more advanced stuff written by myself, I only use the basic stuff such as a viewer window, camera, file loaders, and vector math functions.

Greetings,
Rick

smitty1276

117

smitty1276

Jan 23, 2008 at 5:29 PM

Quote:
Original post by redeemer91
Not interested in the regular OGRE and the likes. They seem to be targeted at full fledged games.

OGRE is a rendering engine, and is not at all targeted at games. It's actually one of the few "regular" engines out there that isn't targeted at games. If you are interested in rendering only, you probably won't find a more mature, robust rendering engine that is free.

That said, you may also want to take a look at OpenSceneGraph, and some things like that.

Billr17

Jan 23, 2008 at 6:07 PM

I personally think Ogre would be fine for what you want to do.

Another option if you are not opposed to using managed C++ would be Microsofts XNA Framework. You should be able to spit out something for rigging shaders fairly rapidly. The framework takes care of alot of the mandane tasks you normally have to handle with with OpenGL and DirectX apps. XNA does not include animation support by default, but there is some great tutorials and libraries for doing this already floating around online. The only other issue is that most of the tutorials are C# based. So you may need to do some conversion between the two languages. But it shouldn't be too bad.

- Bill

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