6 replies to this topic

[deSat]

Hi everyone. I'm new here and am currently looking for a good 3d engine for a machinima-like project. The reason it's "machinima-like" is that it actually isn't going to be rendered in real time, but instead it's going to be rendered out in individual frames that I can composite in a video editing program. I'm more of a 3d guy than a coder (though I do have some rudimentary coding background), so an engine with minimal coding would be nice. Since this is for an animation project, my main concern is graphics and how good I can get them to be. I'm basically looking for something that supports features that could possibly make consumer cards bleed (shader model 3.0 or 4.0 support, hlsl, glsl, robust lighting features, etc). Oh, and one that's hopefully free since paying for stuff online over here is a pain...:P

Could you guys point me in the right direction? Thanks.

[TMichael]

If you're just pre-rendering, why not use a 3D modeling program?

Since you need this to be free, have a look at the following:

http://www.ogre3d.org/ -- open source graphics engine extraordinaire
http://www.blender.org/ -- the ultimate free 3D modeling program

Cheers,
Tim

[onyxthedog]

Here is the list from this site, unfortunetly I don't know much about 3D.
http://www.devmaster.net/engines/

[SamuraiCrow]

Since you are going to prerender the images rather than have them render in realtime, you could just use a ray-tracer such as POVRay.

[deSat]

Hi guys. Thanks for the replies.

TMichael: I'm actually a blender user and am planning to use it as my main content delivery platform. The reason I'm looking for a real-time renderer is to see how far I can push real-time graphics and to see it's feasibility in a production setting. My first go-to engine was Ogre since I'm aware of it's quality and it's apparently possible to render out single frames using "Root::renderOneFrame" and force specific frame rates with "timeSinceLastFrame," but the thing is it's pure programming which, as I said, I'm not too good at. I will learn Ogre if I must, but I'd rather focus on concept, production and animation than coding and that's why I'm looking for one with a user interface. Thanks.

onyxthedog: Thanks, but I've actually been looking through that list for 5 hours and I'm pretty lost. So voila. New account.

This is a little something for school by the way, but no one's doing any real-time graphics here, so no help from them. Thanks guys.

[fireside]

You could try 3d game studio. There is a free version, but you'd need the world editor, I think. Irrlicht is a little easier than Ogre, but it's still c++ and there's work to it. You'd probably be best off doing a mod with Unreal or something. Reality Factory might work for you. There's also an engine called Sauerbraten you might want to look at.

[deSat]

fireside said:

You could try 3d game studio. There is a free version, but you'd need the world editor, I think. Irrlicht is a little easier than Ogre, but it's still c++ and there's work to it. You'd probably be best off doing a mod with Unreal or something. Reality Factory might work for you. There's also an engine called Sauerbraten you might want to look at.

I'm also considering Irrlicht now after reading it's feature list and the fact that there's Irredit. I've also come across neoaxis which uses Ogre as its rendering engine. It's looking pretty nice, but it's in C#, which I've never even touched before... I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it render out single frames. I'll check out that sauerbraten engine. Thanks.

Unreal mod... silly me, why didn't I think of modding in the first place?