I downloaded an open source race game, Super Racing about a year ago and finally had time to look it over. It is a little buggie but inspiring. I liked the Ogre graphics engine, the fact that it uses MESH instead of Direct X as I am using now. (I found out today there is code for a ASIMP library it can use and so import anything in the ASIMP library). That means 3ds, for me, no building, then doing the UV work, Exporting to something else. The 3DS format has a few drawbacks, but nothing I would be concerned with and the reduction in file size compared to Direct X is great.

When I found Super Racing I was dealing with an older version of Ogre and chasing it down took me to Sourceforge where the old project is hosted. I assumed that was all there was, somehow I missed that the new version had been moved to GitHub. Even so the old version was still impressive, I have been using RAD and lately Unreal 4 because it was obvious that none of these guys who say they are going to work on 3D RAD are, or they share results with a few guys. I like the RAD layout, I’ve used RAD for almost twenty years, that seems impossible but I have.

So I was going to jump to Unreal 4. I downloaded it in fact, set it up, even invested in a few blueprints to get rolling, but I didn’t really like the work flow, compared to RAD. Of course if I had quit RAD long ago I would be used to something else now, so that’s on me.

In any case I downloaded the new Ogre version, the source code, Rigs Of Rods. I have Crazy Eddies GUI system from the older game, I like that, and this version of Ogre is good. I downloaded the mesh viewer, all the source code, the modeler and the terrain generator which looks a lot like GMTE, and works a lot like GMTE. All in all, pretty impressive and there are more than a few game demos out there made with Ogre to give you direction, and plenty of documentation. So, I’m hooked in one day, the engine is nice, well documented and the code is right there, along with custom built editors as well…