Someone on gamedev (swiftcoder) had pointed me in a good direction for my engine, irrlicht engine (http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/), which is a multi-platform, multi-rendering API compatible, open source engine!!
Taking a look at the demo’s, some things I could pull out that I need are .X model loading (+skeleton animation), loading levels(which I was going to use .X models, but am still open to others), FPS mouse movement, and probably loads of other things, since it is a fully working 3d engine.
Basically my final idea look pretty simple 😀 But I have to start somewhere… And I want to learn how to create my own engine from scratch before starting to make games, since in the future even if I don’t have to make my own, I might have to modify existing ones to add more features/updates features.
My engine right now has full keyboard movement, basic rendering, and texture loading (based on the SDL_IMAGE library).
Thing to do next are to get the model .X loading working and displaying, and FPS-style movement. From there I can start focusing more on what I need- a physics system (can start from scratch or start with NVIDIA’s free physics engine) and a networking system (basic networking and MMORPG type networking- at least a server for people to connect to and sync with each other)