Horde3D

Hi! I am very newbie with graphics programming and I have recently discovered your Engine. It has a magnificent look!. I tune in completely with the philosophy that it is behind the project (Simple and light ). And I hope sincerely that Horde3D manage to consolidate just as the OGRE is doing it. .

Sadly, I suspect than on their most advanced phases of development all the graphic motors will tend to become converted in undrivable monsters. Perhaps be intrinsic to the very graphics and to the amock search of an absolute flexibility. But, I desire that Horde3D survive. It has the correct spirit.


Yes. I believe that Horde3d can be easily my favorite engine in the future. However I am going to choose OGRE like my first choice now (probably). And, in this post, I want to explain the reasons of my 'treason'.

The first reason is evident. OGRE community is much more numerous and robust. They take documenting the engine during years. The Wiki and forums are mastodontic. They are pioneer in the graphic engines open source scene. OGRE has been validated in tens of projects so Ogre has a tempting reputation. They have even a book!. There was a time in which OGRE was as HORDE3D is now. Sure! But... but... I am a Spaniard. A silly novice in graphic programming with bad English . I need to read a lot, and not to disturb too much.
Sigh! For example: There are only two demos and I am unable to run them because my graphic card/computer is too slow. (Pentium Northwood 3.2 GHZ/Asus ATI 9800XT -> Twenty frames per hour? Phew!)
At present, in spite of its simplicity, I believe that the younger Horde3D needs a certain initial background and better self-educated talent than OGRE. Sorry! But that's good. After all Horde3D is a "Pro" engine.

The second reason is more complex. Hmmm

Briefly. The project that I have in mind does not demand graphic spectacularity. And the Horde3D uses "advanced" characteristics that are indispensable requirement ( Shaders,... ).
Therefore to justify that only it works for a limited range of new generation graphic cards proves to be difficult (for my case).

Now. A thought:

Simple & Elegant. Light. Powerful. Flexible. I believe that there is a fifth characteristic that the utopian graphic perfect motor should have. Transparency. Today Horde3D gets it only partially. The operating system and the graphic hardware should be full transparent for the generic graphic programmer ( ideally ).

Horde3D is constructed on OpenGL Foundation. I understand the reasons. Even I believe that it is the only solution if simplicity is you want. And, personally I desire long life for OpenGL. But the fact remains that it reduces drastically its compatibility. And not only for the old cards. Just as I see (sorry!) an engine that says to be next-gen should offer support for the graphic cards next-gen (popular at least) . And (sigh!) Horde3D doesn't do it. Ok! The fault can be the manufacturers. But I think the perfect graphic engine should show the best behaviour/choice in any event/condition. Too ambitious?:

Perhaps a Render System selection (DirectX 9,0, DirectX 10,0, OpenGL 2,0, OpenGL 2,1, OpenGL 3,0, ... errr... ) such as OGRE or...

Architecture based in ports such to the wxWidgets manner (roughly) or...

A fork: Two twin graphic engines Horde3D-Direct3D and Horde3D-OpenGL. Symmetry where is available (or not) or...

...I don´t know...

After all, Windows (damn!) is the "favorite" Personal Computer platform for gamers. And in the next future this will not change. And... well... currently, the most extended use for engine graphics is...Games! I think... Why to be ignorant of it? The general purpose seems intact.

Horde3D would be independent of API wars and dictatorial manufacturers . And its future and abilities would not be conditioned. O not?

I desire the best of the lucks for Horde3D!
I' m sorry for my gruesome English!

DJuego


PD: In Spanish 'marciano' word means literally 'martian' he, he. I suppose you did know it Marciano.

Thank you for your wonderful initiative! Marciano

I disagree - OpenGL is the most compatible graphics foundation...

Every graphics card that can run DirectX can also run OpenGL!

What makes you think that new cards cannot run OpenGL?


As far as I know, every card since the NVidia GeForce 3 / Radeon 8500 support pixel shaders. However, NVidia and ATI cards didn't start using the same shader version until the GeForce 6 / Radeon x1300.

So yes, to use Horde3D easily, your minimum requirements would be a GeForce 6, however, with some work you could reduce the minimum requirements to a GeForce 3.

Thanks for your feedback! I agree with you that Horde is probably not the best option for real newbies since there is less documentation (tutorials, wikis, sample code) than for other more established engines. With Horde you have the power to create really advanced graphics but to use the full capabilities you need some knowledge of shader writing and graphics algorithms. But that is the case for any engine. As soon as you want to compete with something like Crysis you will need a lot of skills and experience

BTW, marciano is also the portuguese word for martian and used to be my Capoeira name