Horde3D

Hello,

I am a game enthusiast who is trying to find the right engine (free/opensource) - either 3D engine or full game engine for my need to create games. I am not a pro in C/C++ but do understand C/C++ code. I am very much interested to know how much horde3d differs from ogre3D feature wise ( not architecturally ) - since both are 3D rendering engine. I want to know what features compared to OGRE3D is lacking in HORDE3D in its current beta5 release. Can any body give straight point wise feature list that is lacking in HORDE3D as compared to OGRE3D ?
It will help me choose which one to use. I personally feel very comfortable with the C style API of HORDE3D but I need to know if I will be sacrificing anything for the sake of "simplicity".

Thanks,

Hi Juggernaut

I personally don't know Ogre3D completely, but when compared to Horde3D I'd say the obvious difference is that Ogre focuses on having every feature and every backend supported, whereas Horde3D focuses on using the most appropriate features relevant to modern hardware without getting too complex or bloated. 'Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler' would be a good explanation of Horde3D.

For instance, Ogre supports GL1, GL2, (I guess GL3?), DX9, DX10/11, GL ES 2.0 (and Cg shaders for the most part and GLSL on ES2.0 platforms) whereas Horde3D just supports GL2.1 and GLSL with a focus on using non-deprecated parts of the API which is roughly DX9-era hardware with a focus on shader model 2.0 and 3.0. Ogre I think also supports many many culling approaches like portals, BSP trees, PVS, hardware occlusion culling? and frustum culling (but I think a few of these are addons) Horde3D just focuses on hardware occlusion and frustum culling because they're more or less the most 'bang for buck' for modern hardware. Ogre supports more shadowmap algorithms while Horde only supports PSSM shadowmaps, but with the use of shaders/materials and pipelines you can achieve other techniques.

Horde3D's codebase is very small and straight to the point and you could understand it completely whereas I'm not sure if Ogre is just too big to fully understand it all, I could be wrong though.

I hope this helps.

_________________
-Alex
Website

@MistaED: Thank you for your descent explanation. Another thing that I am worried about how much I will be able to fully utilize the rendering power of HORDE. HORDE and HORDE ENGINE - both are university projects run by degree/post graduate degree (master/doctorate) level students who are adept in mathematics and elementary graphics API (OPENGL or DIRECTX) programming.
I do not have such a background. I am a game enthusiast who is passionate in making games. I am not adept in graphics API programming and have mathematical background only upto high school level. Does HORDE make life of a person like me easier or harder for making a complete game ?
I know OGRE is much more complex but there two things in OGRE that is good - 1. Books available based on the current version 2. Plenty of example code - 37 examples all together that comes with the OGRE SDK.
Plus there is online wiki and cookbook available and sets of community libraries to get advanced effects like - post processing effects, HDR, bllom, God Rays etc. - to name a few.

I have seen videos on youtube about HORDE depicting the advanced effects but when I go through the documentation of HORDE - it just makes me cry - looks very barren and sparse - seems like the creators are not willing to divulge the true power of HORDE.

Without documentation with examples of how to implement those advanced effects using HORDE or HORDE Engine - people like me feel very helpless. Please let me know if there is such documentation available for HORDE or HORDE Engine.

Thanks,

You have Horde3D wiki, but i think, there is no-sense to use horde3d if you'll not be able to write your own shaders, and eventually do some modification into 3d engine.
I think, that was one of horde3d goals, is to be easily readable and understandable, instead of making a tons of code, and then even more documentation.
So, if you'd like to dive into GLSL and graphics programming as well, you should try horde3d. If you just want to make a game, without entirely knowing how does it work, you probably should look for ogre, or even more high-level engine.

You wont find any books on horde3d, but you don't need that. All you need is to learn GLSL, C++ and yes, some maths.
That's if you want to do graphics programming as well. You'll learn a lot by it, and you'll be able to make better game. Even if you're not targeting graphics programming, you'll become a better programmer generally as well (or you'll give up .

If you expect graphics engine to be a tool, to be working most preferably out of box, you probably should better choose ogre, because neverthless that horde3d is indeed working out of box, i guess you'll be needing more features for your game someday, and Ogre will provide them more easily to you from out of the box.

So, Horde will help you learn ( == make better game) faster, and Ogre will help you to make your game without caring as much about graphics engine.

That's just my humble opinion,
Have fun

Thank you for your advice - I am trying to take the learning curve rather than learning tons of OGRE classes. But I am stuck dead end at the beginning. I installed tortoise svn client and downloaded the HORDE game engine. But when I try to build the Horde3D_2010.sln with either VC++ 2008 or VC++ 2010 it gives me error. I guess there are some project settings - like include file directories, include libraries to be set. But I cannot find the steps anywhere written in the docs. Can you please give me a pointer on that ?

Thanks,

Another option for you may be the Blender game engine. I never tried it myself but I guess you can concentrate more on content than on programming with it.

Regarding your build problems, what error did you receive exactly? Have you already tried cmake for creating project files?

No I have not tried CMake. After downloading the files from svn repository using tortoise SVN, I tried to build the Horde3D_2010.sln ( shown in the horde2.png screenshot ) by opening it in Visual Studio 2010. The error that is shown is -


Error 1 error MSB3073: The command "xcopy "E:\GAME_DEVELOPMENT\HORDE 3D\HORDE 3D GAME ENGINE\Horde3D\..\..\Horde3D\Samples\glfw\glfw.h" "E:\GAME_DEVELOPMENT\HORDE 3D\HORDE 3D GAME ENGINE\Horde3D\Include\GLFW\" /y
:VCEnd" exited with code 4. C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Microsoft.CppCommon.targets 113 6 glfw


Error 2 error MSB6006: "cmd.exe" exited with code 3. C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\Microsoft.CppCommon.targets 151 6 Horde3D_Qt

That seems to be a problem with Visual Studio 2010. See also this thread.

The glfw project properties are set to work with the GameEngine samples. If you want to build a horde3d sample like the chicago demo, right click on the glfw project in your solution explorer, go to "Properties", navigate to "Build Events" -> "Post-Build Event" and toggle the "Use in Build" property to "No".

If you want to build the GameEngine Samples (Tools\GameEngine\GameEngine_2010.sln) you have to enable it again.

The point is - I am still confused whether I am doing everything the right way or not.

Do I go inside the root directory and load one of these solutions as shown in the horde1.png screenshot -

1. Horde3D .NET wrapper CS.sln
2. Horde3D .NET wrapper CS_2008.sln
3. Horde3D_Ext.sln
4. Horde3D_Ext_2008.sln

I thought these solutions do not relate to the Horde3D engine and so I went inside the sub-directory - "Horde3D" and loaded the solution available there - (as shown in horde2.png screenshot) -

1. Horde3D_2008.sln
2. Horde3D_2010.sln

I loaded the first one in Visual Studio 2008 and the second one in Visual Studio 2010. Both the solutions gave build errors.

Apart from this I also tried to install OPEN AL as directed in the Horde Engine installation documentation by downloading oalinst.exe and running it. It gave me a message that OpenAL got installed. But when I went to the "C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenAL" directory on my hard drive I only found this file - oalinst.exe inside and no dlls as depicted in the documentation. So I do not know what is going on actually. I even tried running that exe one more time but ended up having the same result.

Can you folks please guide me on this. I am unable to understand how to use the engine to start writing code.

Thanks,

Since you are having a "Tools" folder in your screenshots, am I right to assume you checked out the GameEngine SVN?

https://hcm-lab.de/public/Horde3D/trunk/

If that is the case, you should follow these instructions:

http://mm-werkstatt.informatik.uni-augs ... stallation

http://mm-werkstatt.informatik.uni-augs ... firststeps

Use the GameEngine_2010.sln file under Tools/GameEngine

Yes I have checked out of svn (using tortoise svn) from the link - https://hcm-lab.de/public/Horde3D/trunk/

I will follow the instructions on your given link and give a go. Hope it works this time