I could use some advice or linkage on bringing all the stuff I have learned together to make a 3D game. I've written 2D games in SDL & C++ & gone through the Ogre tutorials but I'm still left needing knowlegde of both (free)physics engines and a way to bring the three elements together to structure a 3D game (something dead simple like making a robot walk around and collide with boxes,etc) Any advice on where to look for a free physics engine and possibly a decent guide to building a very simple game from these elements? Cheers.

http://abattoir.wolfpaw.net/personal/gamelibs.php#maths
A link to that list is in the sticky in the Alternative Game Libs forum.

What you call "dead simple" isnt too simple. That would actually take a good amount of work especially considering its "simple." I dont know of any tutorials for bringing all "three elements" together but if you know how to use each one and you have experience making games, then I dont see why you need a tutorial.

Hope that helps

Thanks for the link... but a page full of free physics engines is not as useful as advice on which one people think is best/easiest/fastest/most accurate/etc.
And thats another reason why guides and tutorials are good (hence me being after some links to them).

I know nothing about physics engines so sending me to a page full of just links is pretty much the same as pointing me at a list of car engine parts... I'm equaly as lost except now I know what they're called.

Some more indepth help would be nice....

two things that would really be important,also, would be to know how well documented they are & how large the community surrounding them is, etc.

Thanks.

I do not know what your doing so how may I help you further?
You didnt tell me exactly what you needed so I tried to help with the info you gave me.
You asked for a free physics lib, I gave you a list of them. Which one you would like better is entirely up to you, I do not know which you would like better/would be better for you.
I dont think theres going to be many tutorials on making a game with those exact 3 elements. You learn each tool your using then put them together, you cant expect others to do things for you. Now, if you were to post for info besides saying you want a tutorial for making a 3d game, I may beable to help you.

EDIT: infact, why dont you, yourself, research those libs in that list and see which would fit your needs? Since I do not know your needs.

Quote:Original post by Fallen God
I do not know what your doing so how may I help you further?

Sorry i thought i made it clear...
Im after advice on what would be an easy to impliment physics engine (as i have no prior knowlegde of them) and how to structure a 3D game round graphics, input & physics.

I'm not after anything highly specific like tutorials on using those exact libs/engines together, nor am I looking for anything as highly ambiguous as "How to make 3D games".

Well, like I said, what physics engine is best for you, is entirely up to you to decide. Check out the sites of Newtons, Novodex, and ODE. See which you like best.

For physics you will want to use Newton Game Dynamics. There is a OgreNewt wrapper that is currently being updated and maintained. You can look at the Ogre's Wiki page for that library to get a good idea of what you have to do to get up and running with it.

Now there are a few things you have to understand before you can go on. First, if you want to add physics to a game, you must first understand what you want to do. Hence, you will have to learn Newton before you can use it in Ogre. This will take several weeks, if not months to get used to the API and learning how everything works. There are a dozen some working demos in the Newton SDK, so you will need to work though those front to back until you can fully understand how they work, and how to change them to do what you can envision.

Second, once you are familure with the Netwon SDK, then it'd be a good idea if you are comfortable with Ogre as well. Ogre is not the type of library you can just drag and drop code and have a game in no time, it takes lots of time and patience as well as research skills to find how to do something. If you aren't used to Ogre, and don't fully understand how it works, do not try and make a game with it, you will just frustrate yourself trying to get something to work. Spend some time on the Ogre forums and Wiki, looking at tutorials, advice, and anything else that can help you do what you want to do.

Third, now, when you are on good grounds with Ogre and Newton, you will have already found the tutorials on the Wiki for how to integrate the physics into the engine, and have your basic examples up and running. Once you have that, you can go and add in the SDL framework to use for your input and event handeling, since it's a lot better than Ogre's. For this, it'd be highly reccommended you make a few changes to the SDL soure code to allow you to easily attach SDL to Ogre's window. The main thing though, is that you fully understand how Ogre works, because you cannot simply do this using the tutorial format Ogre uses, you have to make your own simplified base code, which I also have code for.

Forth, once you have your basic engine, SDL input and events, Newton physics, and Ogre rendering, you can easily put together small demos to do what you have talked about, having a robot walk around an environment and collide with it etc... At this time, if you have honestly spent the time to learn Newton, SDL, and Ogre, you will have no problems with the demo and making it into a game, rather than a demo. If you have not spent the time, then you will not know where to go next or what to do.

So, I cannot urge you enough, spend the time to learn Newton and Ogre first! Sure, you want to have a simple demo to work with, but the thing I've learned is that once you have that, you try to do something else to make it better, but can't because of something else you do not understand with one of the libraries. This is coming first hand from someone who has tried this, and failed, so think about what I've said before ignoring it and asking for the work done for you. You could find everything you need in the Ogre wiki and forums, but if you use all of their work, as I've been saying, you won't be able to move on yourself.

Good luck! And always remember there is no *easy way*, at least with Ogre, SDL, and Newton [wink] If you want something that takes less 'participation' and 'effort', look into a game engine, such as Torque. You will have to get your hands dirty, so be prepared for lots of frustration.

I'm in the same situation as you, OP. I just decided to start implementing some physics, so since I had seen some good programs using Newton Physics Engine, I decided to give it a try. It seems pretty good, but its documentation is extremely limited. The (few)tutorials for it are straight-forward, but they make heavy use of things classes that aren't part of Newton, so it becomes quite dificult to use.

I can't recomend this or any other one seeing as this is the first one I have used.

I am also interested in replies to this topic, as I am strongly considering switching to a more beginer-friendly one.