My Opinion (only open source 3D engine): - [Irrlicht][1]: - light 3D engine - clean C++ without dependencies and no STL. - Not very well documented but there are good tutorials. - Very small so you can customize it easily. - No OpenGL 3.X driver, Direct X 10.X or 11.X available in the official SDK. - Very good for mobile development; - good community - few extensions available - [Ogre3D][2]: - big 3D engine - It uses modern C++ as STL, exceptions and RTTI - Good documentation (There are published books). - many renderers (OpenGL, DirectX and OpenGL ES...). - Ogre3D have many extensions as CEGUI or Bullet integration, Tree nodes... - but more difficult to extend Ogre3D if you want something specifics. - big community - many extensions - [Crystal space][3]: old design and difficult to use. after few days, i quit this engine - [Horde3D][4] - small engine - modern design - light community - no extensions - [blendelf][5] - small engine with some dependencies - modern design with moderns effects as DOF or HDR ... - OpenGL only - light community - bullet integration for physics - you use lua to pilot this engine3D in few words: - for desktop game (or future commercial game): Ogre3D - for first game: irrlicht - for mobile development: irrlicht (Ogre3D is too big) - for sexy effects: blendelf [1]: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/ [2]: http://www.ogre3d.org/ [3]: http://www.crystalspace3d.org [4]: http://www.horde3d.org [5]: http://blendelf.com/