title: Shiva3D vs Unity 3D vs other 3d engine for iPhone hi-res 3d model viewer
body: <p>I'm trying to port to the iPhone a realtime 3D visualization (be able to rotate and/or zoom in/out) of a 3d mesh with high-resolution textures (and hopefully materials, bump maps, shadows, and other degrees of realism). (The mesh itself has been optimized for lowpoly, but texture adds the details.)</p>
  
  <p>All I need is basically a model viewer on the iPhone, with support for high-resolution realistic textures. Which 3D engine is best for this (or, should a 3D engine even be used)? </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>I was originally considering just exporting discrete frame-by-frame renders for each of 360 degrees from a pivot at an angle to "simulate" being able to rotate the model in 3D, and then it's a matter of detecting user input (rotate left/right) to load the right frame image. Since I'd have the 3D model, it might make more sense to use the iPhone processor to render it. </li>
  </ul>