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I'm not really a graphics programmer, but I used to toy around with Truevision3D 6.5 a few years ago. It wasn't too bad, but TV3D was just going nowhere so my foray into 3d game dev ended there.

I know nothing of XNA. I think it's time to get up to date.

My goal is to be able to render chunks of terrain from heightmaps (big huge terrain a la Morrowind) and BSP-like indoor areas (think Quake, so moveable objects like doors included).

I googled for "xna engine", "best xna engine" but the quantity of results is a bit scary for a xna-impaired like me.

Can anyone recommend a xna engine (or a combination of libraries) to achieve the desired result? If you targeted similar features, can you share your experience?

(and for a laugh, has anyone tried TV3D 6.5 here?)

Edit: I'm looking for something xna-related.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ xna is an engine itself, what did you want from searching best xna engine? and i think UDK meets your needs the best \$\endgroup\$
    – Ali1S232
    May 24, 2011 at 22:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Gajet, xna an engine? lolwut? I also specified C#, so UDK is out of the question. \$\endgroup\$
    – raine
    May 25, 2011 at 0:23
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Gajet, XNA is not an engine. It is a framework over managed DirectX. And why the hell would UDK satisfy his requirements? It's not XNA, it's not even C#, and it doesn't even support scripting in a language he knows. \$\endgroup\$
    – PrettyPrincessKitty FS
    May 25, 2011 at 9:43

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One I have heard good things about is the Sunburn engine. (Site seems down currently)

Chances are you're not going to get all you want out the box. However, Riemer has a great tutorial about heightmaps here - in XNA!

EDIT: This is probably a little off what you want, but Sean James has a great (well, I'm not a fan of the architecture of gamescreen/component but other than that I love it) tutorial on writing a simple 3D engine in XNA - it's pretty concise. The advantage is it's free to do by yourself, and if your goal is learning it would be good.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Thanks Duck - I had a look at Sunburn and it seemed interesting. Funny the site went down shortly after I registered to download an evaluation version... \$\endgroup\$
    – raine
    May 25, 2011 at 9:54
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    \$\begingroup\$ oooh I just noticed your edit... interesting. I might be tempted to go back to shader programming too. thanks again duck. \$\endgroup\$
    – raine
    May 25, 2011 at 12:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ Turns out Sean James has written a book too, if I'm not mistaken. I'm picking this as the answer since a) there's no out of the box solution as it seems b) linked content has valuable info and saved me the effort to go through a bazillion of other xna sites. \$\endgroup\$
    – raine
    May 26, 2011 at 7:40
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Look into Unity3D. It's a nice engine that uses C#, and it has nice terrain engine and can work with "indoor" maps (no BSP though, as far as I know). Although you'd have to jump through a lot of hoops if you want to use them both simultaneously in the same scene.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks for your answer. I've been considering Unity but I'm looking for a xna solution. Both terrain and indoor level in the same scene is not a requirement. \$\endgroup\$
    – raine
    May 25, 2011 at 8:02

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