• gman
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  • Registered: 2006-01-04
  • Posts: 764

Topic: How are you using Irrlicht?

a question here on the forum made me wonder how others are building a game framework around Irrlicht.  i struggled mightly at first to figure out how to practically integrate Irrlicht into a game.  i originally tried to use the Irrlicht scene nodes as my game objects, but realized that without the ability to customize the built-in nodes that i could not accomplish what i wanted.  then it dawned on me that the Irrlicht nodes are simply the display part of something greater and thus my (in the scope of my framework) concept of the game object was born.  the game object is the basis of the game framework ive been working on.  i plan to release my game state based framework at some point.  i started it with RetroTank3D, refined it a bit on RetroBoxing3D (even though i switched the renderer to MiniB3D which because of the design of the framework could be easily swapped in), and am again refining it with my latest project Super Keys.

so before i go into great detail and release the source of RetroTank3D, how are you using Irrlicht in your games?

  • Registered: 2009-03-02
  • Posts: 8

Re: How are you using Irrlicht?

I have only just begun really looking into Irrlicht, so I am not fully familiar with it yet.

In theory I'd like to keep game logic totally separate from the actual display of graphics, but I don't know how practical it will turn out to be. In theory I'd like to have a framework in which I have one Type for a tank that is a game logic object, dealing with hitpoints, AI and such, and then whole another Type for the 3D display of the tank. The display Type object would utilize some global central Types that try to handle and keep track of engine resources like textures. Then there would need to be Types for handling game flow and user input elements.

But like said I am not yet fully familiar with Irrlich so I am just talking pure theory, possibly wasting readers' time. smile

  • Registered: 2007-03-30
  • Posts: 58

Re: How are you using Irrlicht?

I always copy the include directory with the irrlicht header files to my project folder that I can easily add stuff which aren't
available in BlitzMax like some addons from the irrlicht forum. And so it's easier to use other stuff like physics engines too.
(I use Newton via Tumle from the Irrlicht forum for physics.)

  • Registered: 2009-03-02
  • Posts: 8

Re: How are you using Irrlicht?

porcus,

Could you describe a bit about the header files and adding addons from Irrlicht forum?

While I am still new to Irrlicht and learning basic of the engine itself, I have noticed all the cool addons from the Irrlicht forum. I thought there was no way to utilize them with the BlitzMax wrapper, that I would need to use C++ to use the addons, and thus have never really looked at them.

  • Registered: 2007-03-30
  • Posts: 58

Re: How are you using Irrlicht?

Just copy the include directory from the Irrlicht SDK to your project folder and import the appropriate cpp file.
In the most cases you would have to change #include <irrlicht.h> to #include "include/irrlicht.h" in the imported cpp file.
Then you have to create a new function in c++ for every method you want to call and import it in bmx via extern.
It would be very useful if you would be able to program in c++ so I would learn this first.

  • Registered: 2009-03-02
  • Posts: 8

Re: How are you using Irrlicht?

I have never really programmed in C++, but I can read most of the code.

I will look into this when I have some extra time.