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POWhat 3D graphics framework should I use for a real world game engine?
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copied!<p>I'm a C++ programmer with very extensive server programming experience. I'm however fairly bored at the moment and I decided to tackle a new area: 3D game programming, for learning purposes. Additionally I think this learning project may turn out to be good resume material in the future should I decide to work in this area.</p> <p>Instead of creating a 3D engine from scratch I decided to emulate as exactly as I'm able an existing one: World of Warcraft's. If you are curious as to why (feel free to skip this):</p> <ul> <li>It's a real world successful game</li> <li>All the map textures, models and what not are already done (I'm not interested in learning how to actually draw a texture with photoshop or whatever)</li> <li>Their file formats have been more or less completely reverse engineered</li> <li>There is already an identical open source project (wowmapview) that I can look at if I'm in trouble.</li> </ul> <p>ok, that was a long preface.. Now, my main question is the following: <strong>Should I use DirectX, OpenGL, wrapper libraries such as sdl, or what?</strong></p> <p>What's the most used one in the real world?</p> <p>And, something else that perplexes me: World of Warcraft appears to be using both! In fact, normally it uses DirectX, but you can use opengl by starting it with the "-opengl" switch via command line.</p> <p>Is this something common in games? Why did they do it? I imagine it's a lot of work and from my understanding nobody uses OpenGL anyway (very very few people know about the secret switch at all).</p> <p>If it's something usually done, do programmers usually create their own 3d engine "wrapper", something like SDL made in house, and based on switches / #defines / whatnot decide which API function to ultimately call (DirectX or OpenGL)? Or is this functionality already built in in sdl (you can switch between DirectX and OpenGL at will)?</p> <p>And, finally, do you have any books to suggest?</p> <p>Thanks!</p>

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