Irrlicht is the first library I’ve ever used where
1. I feel all features are useful
2. I’m able to mod it without a headache
3. I can use the library directly, without feeling like I need to make my own wrappers.
With no other graphics library would I ever consider using their input library. Originally I was going to find something cross platform too. But for the heck of it I took a look at what Irrlicht does and it’s actually quite simple, sensible, yet does everything I need. It doesn’t force me to use strange design architecture and ties in well with their whole system of gui elements, cross platform capabilities, and event notification.
I was able to mod the file loader quite easily. Everything I needed was straightforward, in a single file. When I was looking at Torque before there were so many files that did so many things I got depressed just thinking about it.
Lastly, all the functions I’ve seen so far are powerful and simple. I remember when I used Ogre one of the first things I did out of the tutorial was to make a wrapper for the camera, since the camera was too low level, with many unnecessary functions that still somehow forced you to use a certain design paradigm. Sort of like MFC…
The author’s code is readable, clean, and well-documented. No Hungarian notation at all 🙂
Good job!