iPhone?

[geoegroeg]

Hi TheDoctor,

Thank you for replying. The thing I am interested in is to make a game on the iPhone. I need to be able to load a 3D character , play some skeletal animations and make the character fatter.
Using your method, would I be able to do this?
And if so, could you please upload it and post a link or something?

Also, would that only work with OpenGLES 2.0? If so , that means it won't work on devices < 4 right?

Regards,
George

[TheDoktor]

Hi George

I've not investigated any of the animation system as the project I've working on doesn't require character animation but if Irrlicht supports what you want to do then it will work on the iPhone version.
The GLES2 iPhones are the 3GS and above, Irrlicht for GLES2 is the same as GLES1 as far as I know except it supports shaders, based on your requirements I don't think this will be an issue but bare in mind that the iOS devices that don't support GLES2 are far inferior in terms of polygon throughput.
Base on you description it sounds like you're working on a iOS version of the hit documentary "Super Size Me", I hope it all goes well for you.

Cheers,
Mark.

[geoegroeg]

Hello Mark,

I currently have , what I think it is a pretty good idea of a game.
I only need to do what I described earlier and I know that irrlicht can do that.
But I'm not that good with compiler flags and settings and I can't get started.
Also, patience is not one of my strong points - too bad I'm a programmer, I know...

Bottom line it would be great if there was a template for iPhone available or if someone could upload a basic project that does nothing but load irrlicht and compiles on the device.

So if anyone has any references about that please drop a line.

Regards,
George

[fmx]

Guys I hate to say this, but no way is irrlicht ready for rendering complex 3d scenes on iOS devices
Well, not at acceptable framerates at the very least (unless you happen to be a guru at batching and optimising assets for mobile platforms)

Ignoring everything else, irrlicht's current (default) animation system handles skinning in software which can become a major bottleneck on mobile platforms particularly, since they usually have very lowpowered CPUs.
Matrix palette skinning (on GPU) is actually quite simple to implement with GLES1.x, IMO much simpler than by using shaders on PC even, but until flexible vertex formats get implemented that wont be possible to achieve easily at all

I know how you feel George, but you will only run into a spiral of frustration if you try to do too much too quickly.
Start with smaller experimental games or tech demos and see what mileage you get

But if speed is the most important thing for you, then I would look into using another engine and not wait for irrlicht
Good luck

[geoegroeg]

Hi everybody,

This is my first time with irrlicht. And I see more people saying that it can't be used to do 3D stuff on the iPhone.
I hope it's not true. I am aiming 3GS and higher.
Maybe even 4 and higher, cause soon iPhone 5 will launch and A LOT of people will camp outside of Apple shops in order to get it.

I have successfully compiled irrlicht for iphone using this thread:
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=34035&p=255300&hilit=iphone#p255300

I am not trying to do much - load a 3D model , play some animations, using 2D background. Very similar to Talking Tom.
I hope it will be ok. I would like to know before starting coding , if anyone has any ideas.

Thank you,

Regards,
George

[hybrid]

Well, for first tests you don't need to do much. At least no real coding. Just take one of the examples, maybe example 4 (having a skinned mesh) and let it run on your iPhone. Once you have set up the infrastructure to get the binary, you should have no problems to test the example on the device and see if it's good enough to start real coding.

[JamesMoon]

Hello geoegroeg

I am doing almost exactly what you want to do. I envy you that you compiled already.

I will do my homework after reading the thread.

Actually, I am comparing Ogre and Irrlicht. I am considering to study both.

Currently, Ogre is supporting iOS formally, but I didn't succeed compile first project.

And Irrlicht has smaller and faster structure, I guess. And it's quite attractive to the starters.

I hope you describe in Wiki or this forum about your job.

I will wait your work.

Good luck..

[digijohnny]

True if you are looking for a drag and drop game engine, you should look elsewhere,
but if your the type of programmer that wants/needs a full featured full accsess development lib, STL to D3D this is the lib for you
yes it's a lib not a 'GameEngine', it is the perfect lib for Multi platform game engine development
With a little ingenuity you can make it do anything, my latest app was just a test to see how much I could throw into a 2nd gen iPod, and it blossomed into a virtual F18
I looked at unity, but programming with a mouse is not my thing, the over head is enormous, look at f18 carrier lander , unity app, 70 meg download, 2 models 1 skybox , my app 20 Meg download, full working cockpit and 4 RTT console displays, I don't think unity has a button for that.


yes the world needs more software underpants gnomes
step 1) killer game premise
step 2) TBA
Step 3) reap in the profits