Chosing a game engine for use with GoogleSketch .objs

[JackR]

Hello all,

I am in need of some advice from experienced game developers.

I am a student programmer who is familiar with C++, but with no experience with graphics or game engines. I am looking for a game engine that is stable, cross-platform, has the source code available, has thorough documentation and support, and is ideally (but not necessarily) free.

I will need to incorporate graphics to show materials bending and breaking, and would like to be able to import .objs from Google SketchUp. I also need on-line multi-player capabilities. Obviously, ease of use is important for me as a beginner, but I do not want to sacrifice too much functionality down the line for the sake of a slightly easier start.

Right now, I am looking at Crystal Space, Blender, G3D, Torque, and Irrlicht. Right now, I am leaning towards G3D because it appears to have users with similar goals as me, but I am concerned that even the web site does not seem to be highly advanced. On the other hand, both Torque and Crystal Space seem popular, but have received the criticism of being bloated and hard to use.

What do you think might be the best fit for me? Is there something else I should be looking for?

Thank you for your assistance,
JackR

[sjoerd222]

Perhaps you can have a look at the Quake3 engine, cause it's free. Don't now if this is whar your looking for. For your format, cannot recall how it's actually built, learned it once I think, but if an engine cannot import them, you could use a converter and import another file or write an importer by yourself.

In the last time I saw lts of books of programming as a beginner with the torque engine. Maybe you should if you can find a good book, or good tutorials to an engine before you start, so you're lost. Take the easiest way you can find, it will become difficult enough.

succes
sjoerd222