Game engine advice

[The Dog]

Hi

I've written a small demo showing off a bulletml script... The game will basically be a typical shmup with a few gameplay twists (haven't figured them all out yet...).

What I want is a 3d background like in the game Ikaruga... Question is should I make the game 3D from the start, or continue using accelerated 2D and try and utilize 3D only for the background?

If I go 3D all the way, which cross-platform engine would you suggest?

Also, where's a good place to host my files/project?

Thanks

[GReaper]

If I go 3D all the way, which cross-platform engine would you suggest?

Use SDL for easy cross-platform-ness. If you want advanced features and the total control of it, use OpenGL.

EDIT: But i don't know what this script is or if it supports either.

[The Dog]

I'm currently using gosu, which is cross platform and object oriented. I'm not keen on using something like SDL or the newly released allegro.

Also, I'm looking for an sdk that abstracts lower level API's from the developer ie. I don't want to implement code to load 3d models etc... It should be simple ie. only basic 3d functions as i probably won't be using HLSL or anything like that... I'm not too keen on Unity or UDK, as they seem too heavyweight for my needs...

Thanks

[GReaper]

Then i suggest: Irrlicht SDK

[The Dog]

Thanks. Managed to convert my project in an hour or two... Some rendering issues, but I'll figure them out...

[phantomotap]

Awesome. I love "shmups". Any snaps yet?

Soma

[The Dog]

don't have anything close to a game yet... just the ability to render the bullet patterns...

[JohnLeeroy]

Looks very nice. Reminds me of the "bullet hell" genre of side scrolling shooters. Which rendering API are you using?

[The Dog]

Thanks, those screenshots are using Gosu, which uses OpenGL. I've updated my code to use Irrlicht, but I'm experiencing issues and I'm now questioning the value of using 3d as opposed to accelerated 2d...

[GReaper]

You mean you're experiencing framerate drops? Maybe you're not using the right device. Are you sure that you aren't using the software renderer?

[The Dog]

No not those kinds of issues. Some of the bullets that are supposed to vanish, just stay at the edge of the screen. It's weird because not all of the bullets do it. I'm assuming the screen is cleared when I issue a "driver->beginScene(true, true, video::SColor(255,120,102,136));
" in Irrlicht?

Perhaps something I don't understand about 3d rendering...

[phantomotap]

Sweet Blossom!

Double check all the mathematics related to screen coordinates, velocity, and the bullet horizon. If you've switched from a classic two dimensional API (integer pixels) to OpenGL (using floating point projection) you may be getting some small errors that seemingly cause bullets to hover. I've seen it before.

Soma

[The Dog]

Thanks, i'll check it out..

[The Dog]

Okay, so I've sorted out all the niggling issues... Now onto 3d rendering.

How would I go about using IBillboardSceneNode for my 2d objects?
I don't want to resort to using draw2dImage()...

[GReaper]

I think something like "AddBillboardSceneNode(...)". I haven't programmed with Irrlicht for a long time.