How does the program flow look

Question

Hi there,

I am used to XNA like structures:

1. LoadContent
2. Update
3. Draw

Now based on these 3 main methods my game objects inherit from them. In XNA I as non-professional and non-game-programmer was badly forced to think in these blocks. Well add a Sprite baseClass, inherit from DrawableGameComponent. Now create the WarriorSprite class for the gameobject Warrior.

etc. etc.

I totally get lost in this structures, but I simply want to program a game, not an engine. I do not want to deal with extra ordinary rendering code each time I want to add an entity to my game. In addition to that, I never got used to in any tutorial how to let 2 objects to interact.... My focus should lie on porting the game mechanism from game design to code.

Now I found Ogre(3D), and I hoped this engine offers this functionality. The wiki could not answer my question really.

regards,

Answer 1

Yes, Ogre is a complete game engine that will let you build a game, while with XNA you need to create much of the engine-type functionality.

Ogre supports both OpenGL and Direct3D, and is coded in C++. If you want to code in C# you'll need to look elsewhere (or see if anyone has done some sort of C# wrapper for Ogre). If you want to deploy to the Xbox you'll have to use XNA unless you have a contract with Microsoft.

Answer 2

If you're getting lost with game-object classes based off other classes, I wouldn't recommend moving to OGRE. It's very object-oriented, by design. It does simplify some of the low level stuff, like working with DirectX or OpenGL, but you still have a lot of classes that inherit from quite a few others and have plenty of methods. If you're confused with that, you may want to read up on classes and see if you can get the hang of those.

If you're looking for an engine that you can just make a game in, though, there are a few different ways you can go.

One of the more common starting placing is modifying existing games, especially creating "total conversions." You have a complete engine, which you already have a copy of, and plenty of game resources, so that can be a good place to start.

You can go looking for an engine, but finding an easy-to-use, cheap and powerful engine isn't terribly easy. There are a lot of varied engines, all at different levels of completeness and different prices. Some that come to mind are Irrlicht, CrystalSpace, Quest3D, DarkBASIC (if you want to sacrifice your sanity and use BASIC ;)). There are plenty of others, though.

You may try checking out these for engines (I know DevMaster has a nice, detailed search): http://www.devmaster.net/engines/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines

And here for general tips:

http://www.gamedev.net/