I'm new to games. Not a complete n00b in 3D graphics. I can code in C++, have worked on full fledged projects (non-CG), some individual but mostly for large companies like Yahoo! among others. I'v just finished an excellent course on Computer Graphics (mainly focused on Opengl) and am starting to love 3D development. I'v been through and implemented every article on Nehe and now looking at game engines to further whet my appetite for Graphics. I think game development is a good way to keep my interest going and learn deeper concepts about the subject like AI, physics, animation.. etc.

I looked at two options..
- ioquake3 engine (Quake3 based engine). what I liked is that the code base is nice and relatively small. It's a simple, oldschool game project which one can change a bit and immediately see the outcome. But it's very limited in features and is fairly outdated. By outdated I mean, the game doesn't even support newer screen resolutions. The game data format is a decade old.
- Ogre: a full fledged game engine. Has more than enough to build a game that can work on today's devices and has newer data formats. But I fear it's an overkill and might take many months before I can build an end to end game.

Does anyone have experience with either and can give me some pointers? If not can you suggest an engine that can serve my needs. I wanna be able to bootstrap the project quickly. I'm alone and would like to build something within 2 months and maybe keep adding later. Hopefully I can make something that becomes more than just a summer project :-)

Any help is much appreciated,
-G.

- Ogre: a full fledged game engine.

Ogre is a rendering engine only, not a game engine (AFAIK, at least). It can certainly be combined with other libraries though (e.g Bullet for physics, etc.) in order to create a framework for a game.

Based on what you've said though, it sounds like an integrated engine such as Unity or Shiva might be more appropriate for what you want to do. (You might have to pick up a new language, depending, but if you're comfortable with C++ that shouldn't be an obstacle.)

Ogre is a rendering engine only, not a game engine (AFAIK, at least). It can certainly be combined with other libraries though (e.g Bullet for physics, etc.) in order to create a framework for a game.

You'r right! Although, I'd like to stick to C++ to keep my skills framework-agnostic. Having said that, i'l check out your suggestions. What is your opinion on Quake engine development (Q3/Q4)?

What is your opinion on Quake engine development (Q3/Q4)?

I'm not sure how appropriate the Q3 engine would be for getting something up and running quickly (it might or might not be suitable, depending on what type of game you wanted to make). I'm not familiar with Q4, but my guess would be that the same would hold true for it as well.

If you're interested in looking at different systems under the hood, Ogre is definitely a good choice. Me and a few work buddies are currently using Ogre for our hobby project and were able to integrate input, physics, audio and a scripting layer in no time. The community is fairly active/helpful. However, since Ogre itself is only a rendering engine, you'll have to design the underlying game engine architecture yourself. We saw this as beneficial because it allowed us to understand the relationships between different engines and the various design issues that come up. This is something you won't be exposed to with full-fledged game engines as they'll likely abstract out those details. It all comes down to whether you want to code a game engine or a game.

This is something you won't be exposed to with full-fledged game engines as they'll likely abstract out those details. It all comes down to whether you want to code a game engine or a game.

Thanks for your reply.

Pardon my ignorance but where does a game engine end and a game begin? I'd imagine a game engine is just a platform for building games. This could be bulky or very light depending how much freedom one wants to offer a game programmer. So given my understanding of game engines and that I want to build a game, I am looking for the right platform that allows me to do enough while not having to reinvent the wheel (given the bandwidth constraint - as in I don't have a team, it's just me).

P.S. I have almost no experience or flair for artwork. So i'd want to focus on the programming and not have to build the models myself.

I am looking for the right platform that allows me to do enough while not having to reinvent the wheel

In that case, I would suggest staying away from Ogre for your first foray. There's an overhead to build yourself a proper architecture to support game development and to integrate all the different libraries that make up what Ogre itself lacks as a complete game engine.

Good luck with that!

If you're looking for C++, a solid architecture, OpenGL-based rendering, physics, and everything else found in a full-featured game engine, then C4 might be of interest to you:

http://www.terathon....ngine/index.php

Looks promising! Will give it a shot. are there any licensing issues with this that you'r aware of? Looks like a commercial product (which is prolly why it's full featured) :-)