   Simple 3D Engine
  Well, for a science fair project, I'm writing a genetic algorithm.  What I want to do is simulate the eaters and things like that in a small 3D enviroment.  Is there any good engines that are simple to use/learn that you would recomend?Thanks.   
  We need some details about your level of skill.  What can you do as of now? Do you know any programming, if so what languages??  I'll be glad to suggest what little I know, but I need to know what you know.   ;  Well right now I'm taking a C++ class in high school and understand the very basic concepts of C++.  I looked at NeHe's OpenGL tutorials and they are a little confusing at first, but I can comprehend what it's doing.  Overall, I don't have any experience at all in 3D programming (other than trying some things based on NeHe's tutorials).   ;  I don't know much about actual genetic algorithms, but it might be much easier to make it 2d instead.  3d is pretty complex to get into, and since this is for a school project, you might not have the time to get into it enough to make it into such a project.  I think most beginners that do this type of project just use text modes or very simple 2d sprite graphics.  3d has too much math.  I'm not an expert making 3d sims and I have been learning for about 3 years.  If you can find a make a game kind of system, you might could do OK 2d graphics, but a 3d engine, such as Torque, Ogre, Irrlicht, etc... I don't want to touch yet because the concepts are too complex for me at this time, and I'm not just starting out either.  I recommend you rethink the final goal.  Does it matter how it looks so much or does it matter if it does what you want, even if eaters or a letter 'E' instead of a pretty graphic.Also, don't take the above information wrongly, but it is probably the best advice I can give and I'm sure most on the forums here will agree with me.  If anyone wants to correct me, feel free to do so.   ;  Yeah, I've been thinking about just scrapping the 3D idea.  I'm gonna see if my Computer Science teacher knows some pretty simple things first before I totally write it off.  Hell, I really don't even want to win unless there's some $$ involved...   ;Quote:Original post by gaminlegend38Yeah, I've been thinking about just scrapping the 3D idea.  I'm gonna see if my Computer Science teacher knows some pretty simple things first before I totally write it off.  Hell, I really don't even want to win unless there's some $$ involved...Good, I didn't want to make you feel bad with my above post, and you appear not to.  I don't know of any, but I have heard of sorts of "Make a game" programs that might help you.  Also, have a look at SDL, I think it has support for sprites and since you know some C++, you could code them to do your genetic stuff.  If you like programming, I would say to learn how to do so, and advance farther, you might make a career out of it.  If that is what you want to do though.   ;  Why not draw it in a 2D display? It will be pretty simple, and if you have a whole lot of them, and the behavior is interesting, it can look cool with all the particles swarming around. It's real easy to setup OpenGL for 2D drawing by setting the projection to orthographic using gluOrtho2D(0,screen_width,0,screen_height). And than you can draw on the screen like it was 2D using lines and such (simple vector graphics).   ;Quote:Original post by gaminlegend38Well, for a science fair project, I'm writing a genetic algorithm.  What I want to do is simulate the eaters and things like that in a small 3D enviroment.  Is there any good engines that are simple to use/learn that you would recomend?There are 3D environments built specifically to make it easy to simulate what you want to do.BREVE (breve: a 3d Simulation Environment for Multi-Agent Simulations and Artificial Life) is one of them. Take a look at the screenshots.It will probably be easier using BREVE to do what you want rather than trying to knock something up in 2D yourself.BREVE also runs under MacOS X, Linux and Windows.;SDL is something I used in grade 12 to create an OpenGL-Like graphics library from the pixel up.  It only did coloured wireframe quads, triangles, and boxes and kind of sucked, but it worked.  Where I only used it for the pixel function, it does have a lot of possibility for outputting 2d graphics (loaded from bitmaps, jpg, png, or other formats) without dealing with OpenGL's complexity (which might be a little much for someone who is still learning C++ nevermind working on an interesting algorithm.)Just a friendly warning: you can spend all your time on the graphics and not get a project done if you bite off more than you can chew.  I'd suggest getting your actual algorithm working before you implement graphics stuff.  Just give your eaters and such integer coordinates that might map to screen coordinates and you can easily create a disply function that just takes all their coordinates and displays images at those locations.  Throw in a textbox with a status output and you are set.   ;  Yeah, I'm definately going to get the algorithm working first, because if I find that it's going to be too tough to do it in 2D/3D, at least I'll have something to turn in.   