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Engines

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This is a list of engines available to .net, it is not complete, and represents both facts and opinions as an overview to evaluation. (This list will probably be partly out of date by the time you come to read it, and only relates to the version reviewed and not any subsequent releases. Your experience will differ, as your project is different to mine)

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IMPORTANT

Please do not take this as exhaustive research or the final word, each of the engines listed has its own advantages and uses. It really depends on what you want to do with the engine on how usable it is. One drawback many of the engines here share - they do not follow .net guidelines for libraries and have strange or legacy naming conventions. In the end, it is not necessarily the features of the engine you should look at, but pick one with the fewest drawbacks to your kind of project.

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Overview and Personal Opinion

  • Opinion for May-Aug 2006

Irrlicht.Net is the most complete, Truevision6.5 seems to be the most powerful. Keep an eye on JAD E (Formerly Haddd), odds are it'll be killer in a few months when it gets animation.

Contents


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Artificial Engines

A new one to me, designed in VB for .net1.1. It looks quite powerful and seems to have a lot of extra features most of the others do not. Also, due to the way it is designed, it seems to have a high amount of self dependance and tricky to just use the good bits. Probably worth looking into deeper when there is time. Very little documentation, and examples are all in VB.

  • Further evaluation required.
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Axiom

C# Port of Ogre. Incomplete. No animation, suffers from the same problems as ogre. Project was absorbed by Realmforge. Well written, but not trivial to extend. Uses multiple drivers.

  • Good
    • Has a lot of good features, is solidly written
  • Bad
    • Uses Ogre art path
    • Dead, I think. Has died and been reborn a few times, might be alive again by now, who knows.
    • Uses a lot of dependancies and puts a lot of junk in the directory
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Brume

French entrant into the list, check the CVS for latest version. (Opinon)This one needs a bit of work doing to it to make it usable, but is very promising. (DirectX)

  • Good
    • Dead easy to use
    • Supports animation through .X files (decent implementation)
    • Integrated with ODE physics
    • Has intriguing gui system
    • Pretty water.
  • Bad
    • It isn't particularly fast, though on todays machines you probably won't care
    • ODE does not support sliding collision detection
    • Incomplete - however, it is usuable for certain types of projects.
    • No mipmapping, though it should be fairly easy to add it.
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Cs3D

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Elric 6

Written to compensate for the lack of good .Net engines out there. (DirectX)

  • Good
    • Supports animation through .X files (good implementation)
    • Full ellipsoid sliding collision detection
    • Highly extensible through directX
    • Compatable with engines that supply a directX pointer
    • Skinnable gui system
    • Can convert several kinds of static mesh object
    • Supports objects with custom projections (3D HUD for example)
    • Complete control over pretty much anything, multiple worlds, instancing, etc.
    • Loaded objects can be used without sending them to the graphics card (for servers and totally invisible objects) similar to other engines Null driver.
  • Bad
    • No shaders (adding them would not be difficult though)
    • The animation system is not as powerful as it used to be(upgrade is planned)
    • Non trivial to setup
    • Lack of documentation.
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Eteractions

Source code is available, usable for certain kinds of projects. Lack of documentation. Incomplete, further evaluation needed. (DirectX)

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Facilis Engine

(website quote)"Facilis is an up and coming graphics engine written entirely in managed code. It is capable of rendering with both DirectX9 and OpenGL. The engine functions in both Windows and Linux, and soon Mac OS X..

Currently the project is pre-alpha. Many features are either not implemented, or early in planning. Constant interface changes are to be expected. And of course, bugs galore."

  • MD2 animation
  • Other 3D stuff
  • Different renderers, including XNA in the SVN.
  • Further evaluation needed.
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Haddd

Spanish entrant into the engine page. Version 2.0 has some good examples. Further evaluation needed after the animation system is released. This is becoming a serious contender. (opinion)If you speak Spanish, or have a love of shaders, and don't need animation - this is the one you want. Otherwise, keep a close eye on it.(DirectX)

  • Good
    • Shaders, shaders and more shaders.
    • Built in shader effects, so you don't even need to know much about shaders
    • Comes with physics system examples
    • Shadows, special effects
    • Inregrated sound system using ogg vorbis
    • Really cool ability to highlight lights, objects, physics and pretty much everything else for debugging purposes.
  • Bad
    • Lead developer no longer has time to work on the project
    • (opinion)Shader heavy demos could be a little faster - though buying a new gfx card removes any speed problems.
    • No animation - NOTE: They are working on MD5 animation, aparantly it is going to be good.
    • Language: I don't speak, read, or even recognise Spanish words in any way shape, or form. Never even encountered the language before the Haddd website, and Babelfish struggles translating it. Examples and communication is avalable in English, but Spanish is their primary.
    • No Gui ?
    • I've personally had problems with the current exporter for 3DStudioMax - my standard test scene did not export properly. The exporter threw up a script error. Might be my config, might be my scene, might be the script. (Nothing particularly special about the scene)
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Irrlicht#

Status: Currently not easily usable in projects, but undergoing development. You are here. (Multiple Drivers.)

  • Good
    • In active development
    • Open Source
    • Friendly team
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Irrlicht.Net

Irrlicht.Net(v1.0) is a .Net wrapper for Irrlicht written by the original author. (Multiple Drivers)

  • Good
    • Probably the most complete and mature engine out there.
    • Supports animation through .X files, fairly good implementation.
    • Supports many types of static object loading
    • Integrated sliding ellipsoid collision detection
    • Easy to use for the most part
    • Interesting water implementation
    • Has an implementation for almost everything you are likely to use
  • Bad
    • Impossible to extend (no access to object data, no custom objects)
    • Uses mixed mode assembly to wrap the original Irrlicht libraries
    • Difficult to compile and get working with vs2005 (source requires modification to compile) and also requires the DirectX8 devkit installed
    • Serious bugs in terrain
    • Several features missing from .Net version compared to C++ version
    • GUI system was not designed for .Net, and suffers from it, though it is usable. Also has some only partially working controls.
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Irrlicht.Net CP

Cross platform .Net wrapper for Irrlicht, to enhance, complete and replace the original .net wrapper. For details and more information please check the website.

  • Modified and extended version of Irrlicht.Net
  • Adds several missing features to Irrlicht.Net
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Irrlite

Incomplete, under active development.

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JAD Engine

Now with a new team, a new website (in English) and a new name for Haddd. Since the departure of Haddd(the lead developer of the self named engine) from the project, the engine has now moved to open ource, and it's own new website. I'm expecting good things to come.

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Ogre.Net

Ogre.Net is a generated wrapper for Ogre. It was created to remove the perceived problems from Axiom and Realmforge

  • Good
    • A fairly complete wrapper for Ogre
    • Seems to contain almost all features of Ogre, though this has not been confirmed.
    • Active development
  • Bad
    • (opinion)Total pain in the arse.
    • Ogre art path
    • Getting it working is far from trivial
    • Getting it to compile is far from trivial
    • Getting binaries is far from trivial
    • No collision detection
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Purple#

Incomplete, further evaluation required. Not checked it in some time. (opinon)Had an alarming amount of interfaces instead of real classes last I looked.

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Realmforge

Includes and absorbed Axiom. Has a world editor, suffers from lack of animation. Also development is slow, and importing systems for graphics are limited. Recently, all web links for Realmforge have been changed to a new commercial project - the SourceForge archives have an older version available. (opinon)You'll almost certainly be better off with Ogre.Net

  • Dead project
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Suva-3D

From the people who brought you Realmforge, this is now part of Visual 3D architect, and a commercial product, possibly expensive due to speedtree though recently it seems they have a special licencing deal to reduce the cost to developers.

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Visual3D Architect

From the people who brought you Realmforge. To be released commercially for a price not less than $200, a watermarked or spash screen version is planned to be made freely available. Aparantly this is not a new version of Realmforge (but is it's sucessor) though it shares many of the same people. They have a lot of "partner" logos on the website and are targetting release for 3rd quarter 2006 (forum posts state september) Personally and judging from the screenshots, I have a feeling it is a much improved and reimagined/rewritten "version" of Realmforge.

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RetinaX

  • http://sourceforge.net/projects/retinax
  • Managed DirectX
  • Scene graph, sound API and UI framework listed on the website
  • Status unknown (Not tested) no information website, limited forums on sourceforge, just the download.
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Truevision3D

Comes in two flavours, very designed for use in Visual Basic, so it's friendly and seemingly easy to use. Has an impressive feature list on the website.

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Version 6.2

(COM interface, totally compatable with .Net, DirectX8.1)

  • Good
    • FREE downloadable demo(no registration), complete with watermark. You can even choose where the watermark goes.
    • Has a lot of good features including terrain and animation
    • Animation features are VERY good - one of the best animation systems available. It is possible Truevision has the best animation system in any of the .net engines.
    • Has a decent material system, and loads up most kinds of objects
    • Plenty of examples, mostly in VB, easily converted to VB.Net, and several C# examples
    • Can give you access to a DX8.1 COM object, easy to play with
    • Appears to have pretty decent custom object support.
    • Built in keyboard/mouse/joystick input
    • Sound and video playing with media library - Note: You can almost certainly use the media library seperatly in your own projects for engines that don't have one, though I've not tested this.
    • Uses billboards or point-sprites for particles, take your pick
    • Works in radians AND degrees. I like this idea.
    • Looks very impressive at first glance.
  • Bad
    • As with most engines, limited to 2 texture stages
    • Kinda whacky naming system - I'm assuming this is related to the VB design
    • Only supports collision detection through line picking - this appears to be the main downside.
    • Has no gui system. It does, however contain a range of 2D classes.
    • Seems like all the real power is hidden in the 6.5 version (including physics)
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Version 6.5

Uses DirectX9 through managed library (real .Net support instead of using COM interop) This is probably the best engine available to .net out there at the moment. It's more than worth the money to get on the beta if it's features are what you need. It is both powerful and extensible through directX.

  • Good
    • People who purchase 6.2 are automatically allowed to "test" this version.
    • Integrated Newton physics system does the real collision detection, sliding ellipsoid is not trivial though as it is not "real" physics.
    • The advocates of Truevision state that you really should be purchasing to get the power of 6.5 - it has been said that 6.2 is a toy and 6.5 is an engine
    • Rumour has it a public watermark/demo version of 6.5 will be released shortly. Of course, this is a particularly long development cycle, which is why they say buy now to get the power now.. They are gearing up for release, my personal estimate is at least several weeks.
    • 4 Texture stages
    • Full shaders
    • Easy to extend with managed DirectX, though almost everything can be done in Truevision.
    • Truevision is selling (presumably) quite well, it is in active devlopment, and the developers often respond directly on the forums.
  • Bad
    • Costs money to get on the beta, and it's only available on beta test
    • It has been on beta for some considerable time, and due to its commercial nature, you are not allowed to release commercial products developed on the beta until the beta period ends. This has meant a very long wait for long-term beta testers.
    • No docs at all - though docs are promised for the public release
    • BSP & 3DS support has been removed for 6.5 for some reason, however tools are available to convert to the used internal format.
    • Kinda whacky naming system - I'm assuming this is related to the VB design
    • Still no built in gui.
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Torque Shader Engine

"GarageGames, in collaboration with the Microsoft XNA group, recently ported its full-featured game engine to managed code for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Xbox 360. In this session, Josh Williams and the GarageGames XNA engineering team dive into the technical issues encountered while successfully porting a complex suite of game technologies from C++ to C#, .NET, and the XNA Framework. Attendees will walk away with a good understanding of what architectural and low-level code changes are required to create large, full-featured, high-performance managed code bases. The GarageGames team will discuss lessons from the trenches, technical design strategies and their trade-offs, performance statistics, and more."

  • Not currently in the wild
  • Unmanaged C++ version is an established engine, with large user base and large amount of features
  • Completion status unknown
  • Estimated price: $295 (indie), $995 commercial.
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XNA Game Studio Express

"By providing an integrated, seamless development environment based on Visual Studio® Express and .NET that simplifies the integration and use of game content, XNA Game Studio Express makes game development easier to accomplish for smaller projects, strongly increasing the chance for great game ideas to make it out of the concept stage and into the hands of gamers everywhere."

...dunno about you guys, but this is very exciting...

  • Good
    • All the low level stuff is in there..
    • Everyone is converting to it
    • Hey, Xbox 360..
    • Input, sound, graphics..
    • Fairly easy if you've used managed DirectX
    • Proper .net design
  • Bad
    • No high level stuff like mesh loaders - it's still in beta.
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