max & 3d graphics

I haven't bought max yet (still using blitz3d) but i've been really interested for ages because of what I've see of the language capabilities and the more OO feel.

However, I've been hesistant because of the ease of doing 3d with blitz3d and all of my experiments/projects involve 3d graphics.

I have a lot of programming experience in other languages and I am a fast learner, but I have little 3d graphics programming experience outside of blitz 3d and have no experience of opengl.

Bearing all this in mind, how quickly do you think I would adapt to max and programming with opengl for 3d?

Perhaps a better thing to ask is how does max's (including any freely available user dlls etc) 3d capabilities compare with blitz3d?

I guess many others have been through this experience already . . . any comments, reflections?

Max basic: no 3D

Currently there are 2 solutions:

MiniB3D: "B3D reconstruct" with some problems but generally not bad

Irrlicht Wrapper by GMan: Little harder to use but very powerfull.

So these are are essentially user libraries that provide similar 3d functionality to blitz3d then?

Are they both opengl or directx based?

I think that something like this might persuade me to get blitz max. . . :O)

Irrlicht has DX and OpenGL

MiniB3D is OpenGL only.

It is meant to be like Blitz3D but there are always a few things missing like 3D sound or in case of miniB3D the collision system and image/texture buffers if I remember correctly. But generally, yes they have similar 3D functionality.

Cool thanks. . . I think I'll put blitz max on my christmas wish list. . .

;O)

In case you are used to make your applications GUI with 2D drawing commands then you should know, that MiniB3D until now is NOT able to display 2D drawings in front of the 3D scene (like Blitz3D can).

.

Simonh posted related to the topic "2D with MiniB3D":

"I took it out as random issues kept appearing. I think if you want to use 2D with MiniB3D it's best just to use sprites. "

May be the problem is, that BlitzMax 2D drawing operations are "masked" 3D operations and this to transform back into a 3D world but still looking 2D under all conditions in front of the other 3D "background" is a bit difficult...but this is just a guess ;)