   Easy to use game engine (or 3d engine + physics engine)
  Hello,i want to make some very very simple models of walking robots and an environment in 3d (just some cubes, spheres and cylinders put together), i also need some simple physics. I'm searching on the net, but there are sooo much engines, so my questions are:1) What would be the FREE game engine or combination of 3d and physics engine to achieve that goal very easy and fast ? (It should also be possible, later to make some "better" models, and the physics should then still be adequate)2) When i look at a tutorial of how to use Irrlicht with Newton Game Dynamics (http://gpwiki.org/index.php/Irrlicht:Physics), am i right when i thing that combining 3d-graphics and physics can be a various task, depending on the engines to be combined ? So, is it better to use a game engine, where this combination is already done ?I read a little bit about OGRE and Irrlicht - are that possible candidates, or are they too mighty and complex for my concern ?   
  Using Ogre or Irrlicht is like trying to get back at your neighbor by Bombing his house from space. Its overkill for small tasks. However, they are both frameworks that easily wrap up the API so its easy to use. Quote:What would be the FREE game engine or combination of 3d and physics engine to achieve that goal very easy and fast ? (It should also be possible, later to make some "better" models, and the physics should then still be adequate)A physics engine and a graphics engine are two completely different things. They are both abstract but have a unified way of dealing with objects. Matrices are the same, vectors are the same etc. And all a model is, is an accumulation of those math structures. So it does not matter which engine you choose, each one will support your models.Quote:When i look at a tutorial of how to use Irrlicht with Newton Game Dynamics (http://gpwiki.org/index.php/Irrlicht:Physics), am i right when i thing that combining 3d-graphics and physics can be a various task, depending on the engines to be combined ? So, is it better to use a game engine, where this combination is already done?For the most part, those two engines mentioned have a physics abstraction layer. What that is, is a unified way to use any physics engine you plug into it (be it ODE, PhysX, Newton, etc). Programming to an abstract interface will leave your code relatively change-free, when you switch to another physics engine. So, it is usually better to pick an engine and go with it because their goal is to provide an interface that will not change.   ;  Thank you for the answer.I see, i'm not familiar to the term 'engine', hence i don't understand parts of your post.Quote:For the most part, those two engines mentioned have a physics abstraction layer.With those two engines, you mean Irrlicht and Newton Game Dynamics (as you quote) or Irrlicht and OGRE (as it would be logical for me, because OGRE and Irrlicht are graphic engines?) ?Quote:So, it is usually better to pick an engine and go with it because their goal is to provide an interface that will not change.What do you mean with an engine - a physics engine ? I'm sorry, i have different sorts of engines in my mind and as i see i can't really classify them.   ;  To quickly develop a 3D game, I'd use Panda 3D and Python. This thread might be interesting to you.   