OGRE vs MOGRE PROS and CONS ?

Hello,

I am a game enthusiast with basic C and some basic core Java background. I am poised between which way to go - OGRE or MOGRE ? Will MOGRE make my path easier than OGRE ? Or is it better to give time learning OGRE since more compatible add ons are and features are available ?

Well I know it is not up to you folks to make the decision for me but I am still asking - specially the creator -"Beauty"
who should know ins and outs of the both world.

One thing that is itching me is MOGRE 1.7.1 is still in beta (revision 72), I mean is it stable enough for use ?
Can I produce the same eye-candy effects using MOGRE as when using OGRE or are there any shortcomings that I must understand before proceeding on learning path ?

There has been commercial games released using OGRE (info in the OGRE main site), does MOGRE has the same kind of track record ?

Hope, you folks will care to answer and clarify.

I am poised between which way to go - OGRE or MOGRE ?
It really depends on what you need. Mogre lets you gain the benefits of C# which should decrease your development time. Like the difference between using C and Java as you should know. Using pure Ogre on the other hand means you get access to all of the plugins without any pain of wrapping them.

Will MOGRE make my path easier than OGRE ?
It really depends on what your trying to achieve. A lot of people use Mogre for building tools and such because it's easy to embed into WinForms applications. I'm developing a level editor with it. You can also make games and a few people have proven that too.. ponykart is an example.

Or is it better to give time learning OGRE since more compatible add ons are and features are available ?
Learning Ogre and Mogre is very similar. The main difference is between C# and C++. I'd go with whatever language you prefer out of those.

but I am still asking - specially the creator -"Beauty"
Beauty didn't create Mogre but spends a lot of time on the forums and updating the documentation.

One thing that is itching me is MOGRE 1.7.1 is still in beta (revision 72), I mean is it stable enough for use ?
Yes, Mogre is stable. The main new Ogre feature that hasn't had a lot of testing is the new terrain plugin. There is some effort going on to update Mogre to v1.8 as we speak.

Can I produce the same eye-candy effects using MOGRE as when using OGRE or are there any shortcomings that I must understand before proceeding on learning path ?
You should be able to do just about everything with Mogre that Ogre can do because of the way Mogre is autowrapped. However, there are some differences because of the way C# and C++ differ. Again, it really depends what your trying to achieve.

There has been commercial games released using OGRE (info in the OGRE main site), does MOGRE has the same kind of track record ?
Mogre doesn't have as many commercial games but it does have at least one that I know of called Dungeons. I know that's not a lot of proof but it's enough to show that it can be done.

Hello zarfius,

Thank you for clarifying everything. When I tried to install the MOGRE 1.7.1 SDK it installed without error and prompted me to build the sample examples which I did but when I try to run those samples from within Visual C# 2008 I am getting error -

"Bad Image Format Exception Was Unhandled"

Could not load file or assembly 'Mogre, Version=1.7.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format.


Hope you can give me a way to solve this.

That error is probably caused by not being able to find the Ogre DLL's in the same location as the Mogre DLL. Or, less likely, they are not the correct version.
Check the bin/Debug or bin/Release folder for the Mogre.dll and the OgreMain.dll. If they are both there you should be able to run one of the samples directly from that directory. If that works, it's probably just your settings in Visual Studio. There are a few ways to deal with it, the simplest is to set your working directory to the bin/Debug folder.

Also, keep an eye on your Ogre.log file. It can be very helpful.