3D rendering of a pool table

[Israa]

Anyone one know of a software that's easy to use in rendering a 3D pool table?

[Brandybuck]

Is there something wrong with OpenGL?

[fullmetalcoder]

Is there something wrong with OpenGL?

Well, as Israa wants an "easy" solution I think there's definitely something wrong with raw OpenGL ...

You should take a look at a 3d engine. Among the leading open source ones there are :

• Irrlicht
• Ogre
• Crystal Space
• G3D

All these have a C++ API (and sometimes wrapper in other languages such as Java, Python, ...)

[Israa]

There's nothing wrong with OpenGL, infact thats what I'm using for my project. I just wanted to know if there was some software out there like MilkShape or Blender that I can use to create the pool table and then import it into my program. I haven't used Milkshape but I had a hard time getting used to Blender so I wanted something easier to learn.

[fullmetalcoder]

There's nothing wrong with OpenGL, infact thats what I'm using for my project. I just wanted to know if there was some software out there like MilkShape or Blender that I can use to create the pool table and then import it into my program. I haven't used Milkshape but I had a hard time getting used to Blender so I wanted something easier to learn.

Raw OpenGL is not able to load any kind of 3d models. For this you need a 3d engine or a dedicated OpenGL loading library... Blender has the big advantages of being complete, open source and to have a big community but I agree that it's quite complicated... If you don't want to spend time learning how to use it you can take a look at these (not necessarily easier ):

• 3DS Max : Considered by many as THE must-have for 3d modelling.
• Lighwave : another leading commercial product
• Maya : Yet another commercial tool
• Milkshape 3d : A (commerical) outsider
• Sketchup : The Google offer (who said Google is invading our desktops just like M$ ??? )
• Anim8or : A free (but not open-source) modeler for windows (in the resources you will find a (very basic) SDK to use created files in raw OpenGL programs.
• Wings 3d : An open source modeler that can import and export 3DS and Wavefront files

P.S. : this list is not exhaustive... Googling around can lead you to other software I've never heard of but the one listed above (plus Blender) make up more than 90% of the 3d modeling world...

[wysota]

You can also use OpenInventor API, for instance Coin3D.

As for Blender and OpenGL - in Blender you can save an object in a format (sorry, don't remember its name) which you can then easily handle from a raw OpenGL application as the format is textual and contains information about vertex positions of items. There is also a class to read in 3ds files available in the net.