Horde3D

I'm just wondering what everyone things would be the most useful contribution to Horde in terms of general use?

I'm thinking a gui would be useful at least. But anything else?

I see Horde development as a layered approach. We have the core which contains all the basics like the resource and scene node interfaces and the rendering backend abstraction. The core should always remain manageable in its size. For additional features like terrain, ocean, vegetation, clouds, etc. extensions can be implemented that are linked directly against the core code and can hence use the internal classes. The next layer that we have is the utility or convenience layer which implements game-engine related functionality on top of the external Horde C-interface. Horde3DUtils is a basic implementation of that layer. Finally, we have all the tools around Horde like the Horde Editor and sample implementations of different shader based effects.

In all areas there are many things that can be contributed by the community, especially extensions and additional utility functionality to speed up the development of game engines based on Horde.

The one thing I've learnt from using torque over the last few years, is that usability in terms of pipelines and content flow is far more important than specific features.

Having an easy workflow means that artists and programmers can be productive quickly, which IMHO is the most important part of any engine.