Ok, I'm going to be working on a (3d or sprite based; I'm not sure yet) free-form game, somewhat akin to GTA 2/Payback. Top-down, and whatnot.

Now, what I'm wondering is: what should I use for a engine? This is mostly going to be -learning-, so what to use? Write my own? Cocoablitz? RB3D, or the Sprite-Surface dealy? pyGame? iGame3D? Or another engine?

Also, what dev environment do you suggest for this concept? I've got Codewarrior 7, RealBASIC 4.5.2 (I'm hoping to upgrade once I get the cash), and, of course, ProjectBuilder.

Any help is appreciated!

well cocoablitz being 2D would be good for GTA 1/2. No 3D unless you want to subclass CBCell though.

I would recommend CocoaBlitz if you are just doing 2D.

Yea, I want to do top-down; not necessarily 2D, however.

I would also like whatever will make life easiest for me...

Thanks for the help so far!

Maybe add dim3 to the tools you are looking at... and kick ChrisD to get Band3D! in gear.

Dim3 looks great; too bad I can't download anything, so it's useless right now...

Anyone have any experience with iGame3D? It looks like it could be veddy useful... (Wait...can't download that either! )

Thanks for the help so far!

(Oh...and what's Band3D?)

That'd be Bang3D. Probably the best source of information would be the developer diaries... I don't think it's anywhere near usable yet (nor do I really think Dim3 is anywhere near usable yet; though I'm sure Brian Barnes would take issue with that ).