I need some advice…
What are, in your opinions,
the best 3D engines based on ease of use and quality that are in C++ and are free??
For someone who is just medling with 3D Programming on his own???
Thanks, i’ll look at it…
I just hope it is easier to use than Crystal Space… 
Panda 3D is a great one, works with Python if you like the language, and has the most amazing mesh viewer. You will be able to export X files from Blender to it to use, and it has an x->egg converter. site: www.panda3d.org .
Then there’s Irrlicht. Easier than OGRE or CrystalSpace, C+±compatible along with other language bindings. Accepts X-files, 3ds’s, and some other formats. site: irrlicht.sourceforge.net, or just Google it. Also has a meshviewer.
I’m experimenting with both engines and have gotten very good results from either one of them. Hope this helps
panda is cool, I wish there was something like it for ruby.
irrlicht is cool, but i have some strange problems with compiling it through Visual C++ 6.0…
But otherwise i really like it… Might try it with some other IDE…
Thanks for your help, and i’ll look at Panda.
I think you are right guys! 
they all suck…know one ever from the blender community ever makes games…with these engines trhey just stick with the limited blender game engine…
give up…dont waste ur time…
In the world of computers, complexity is often the cost of power so if he find himself limited by blender engine he can just look elsewere but he ll have to pay the price.
That said games are not the most simple apps you can code and when you add 3d and networking it become really complexe, c++ is not the easiest/foolproof language on the earth and then when peoples have to face complexes 3d calculs with it they’ll usually just give up.
Games can be quite difficult to do and most peoples underestimate the effort, and then even the engine is not the bigest problem, the real issue is art, you need a truely huge amount of models and texture to make a game and >75% of the effort will go into this, i mean when games looks good it has usually very few to do with the engine itslef, but witht he artists who use it,just the very same thing than blender vs 3dmax no need for this or that modeler you need the artist behind. Same for the time required, alone chances are than you ll never finish anything and you can account for 3months for a puzzle bubble like game and even with a teamof like 5 peoples you can count on one year to make an fps of any kind.
My suggestion on this would be to either:
Join a project because there are already a lot going on which truely need help and in the mass you should find at least one wich is 90% the same thing that what you want to do and even if at a time you give up, if you produced a significant work it wont be lost
or
Make a simple mod of an already existing game.
simple mods…xDD
yea right…mods aren’t simple…quake 3 modelling for instance…rofl
whats wrong with trying? game coding is good programming practice as well.
There are tons of game engines out there, but one that I’m keeping my eye on is Delta3D ( http://www.delta3d.org/ - the site was down the last time I checked, but should only be temporary). What’s got me interested in this engine is that it:
- allows for huge terrains
- has a number of pre-built tools (like a level editor)
- funded by the US military (for military sim research, so it’s not likely to go away due to lack of funds)
- has bindings for Python (but you’ll like it’s C++ bindings).
It’s a bit over my head right now (I’m developing a ship’s sim in Blender’s Game Engine) but I’m considering it for my next project.
I’v downloaded Panda…but I have no clue how to start it…or even how to use it…can any one help me ?..any help will be much appreciated.
Power Render : http://www.powerrender.com/
My display name at the forums over there is Beer (It’s Dutch for bear, and has nothing to do with the drink.)
Panda is kind of confusing…I’m very new at this kind of stuff…but I’m hopeing to one day be alot better…the instructions tell me to make a text file…so I did…with notepad…and I saved it as all files…but nothing seems to be different…I clikced on the Python icon and a black screen pops up…I type in what they told me to…but it says invalid Syntax…
Irrlicht so far seems the best…
Going to try it…
don’t know about Delta3D, but looks interesting…
For the professional developer it’s clearly OGRE 3D. Some people think Irrlicht is easier for the beginner. Although I don’t share this opinion, you might want to have a look on your own. OGRE has full support for blender: meshes, materials (including textures and normal maps), shape animations, armature animations, scenes (cameras, lights, meshes, scene object hierarchy, empties, logic properties). See the OGRE Wiki and the exporter documentations.
Delta3D looks the best to me, after that maybe PowerRender, then Ogre3D and last Panda… I think I’m going to download Delta3D.
If in the future you’re willing to look beyond c++ I use jme from http://www.jmonkeyengine.com it’s a very easy open source and has great community backing, its feature filled, my favorite is the realtime cloth and in the future will possiblely have a projected grid water simulator and other sweet stuff. check it out if you like.