[ODE] 3D rendering library to use with ODE

[Megan Fox]

This is true, but if all you want a particularly simple / high-level rendering system for a project that has nothing to do with the development of rendering technology (say, evolving AI, as the case may be here - am I close?), there are many mature options that exist that'll do exactly what you need with a minimum of fuss.

OGRE (http://www.ogre3d.org/) comes to mind as a possible choice, as does Crystal Space 3D (http://crystal.sourceforge.net/tikiwiki/tiki-view_articles.php) - OGRE is more or less "just a simple rendering engine", which sounds like what you need, whereas Crystal Space is more of an all-around renderer + world files + editors + etc solution.  Crystal Space 3D might be a decent choice if you expect this project to extend beyond "a few robots rolling around on a flat plane hitting walls," otherwise, OGRE will probably do what you need.


(mind, of course, I am horribly biased against Crystal Space 3D, and find Nebula Device 2 http://nebuladevice.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Nebula/WebHome to be a far superior choice, but that's because I work with Neb2, and happen to really really like it - and it is -NOT- a better choice if you have no interest in learning what amounts to a very complex/powerful game engine with sparse documentation and no established world creation toolset)

-Megan Fox
Lead Developer, Elium Project (http://www.elium.tk) 

> Building a simple model loader, model renderer, and camera 
> control for OpenGL is a fun week-end project. It really isn't that hard.
> 
> An alternative would be to use DirectX with the D3DX library; it 
> has functions to load and render models, with textures you 
> specify, already. They also break the camera into a separate 
> matrix from model orientation, which makes the job easier on you.
> 
> Integration with ODE should be about the same no matter what the 
> library is, unless you can find a library that natively uses ODE 
> data types (I haven't found one).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 			/ h+