3D game programming

[Uk Marine]

You know speaking of modelling... You don't really have to do all the modelling by yourself, you can let's say, download some free 3D models made by certain people from this site right here:
http://www.blender-models.com/
It will save you a lot of time, and if you're looking to earn revenue out off that game you're making, then make sure the model isn't copyrighted, otherwise you should probably ask permission from its rightful owner before using it in your game, and since you're a good artist then animating those models to your liking should be a piece of cake to you, if you don't want to download free models for whatever reason you can download a character rig which generates models for you, so you don't have to start from scratch, and you can then modify them to your liking, here's a very helpful rig that will be useful to you:

http://cgcookie.com/blender/resource/cg-cookie-flex-rig-free-download/

Don't be foolish. Use it. MMORPGs typically has a LOT of NPCs, this rig will be your best friend along the way.

it's completely free to download and free to use, so you won't have to worry about copyrights, then again, i don't think you'll be able to make a 3D MMORPG by yourself, it's going to take a long time, find someone to help you out, trust me you won't regret it, there's a lot of smartasses on this forums, skype bunch of them they can be very helpful to you, they can give you bunch of codes that they had from their previous 3D game project, they can give you ideas and tips, good luck.

[CppVoidppC]

That is a question no one in the whole word can answer it for you... not even google can. you can use google and start sailing in the large oceans of opinions and flamewars and still you wont get a direct answer.

for me I have never used OpenGL, but graphics look the same for me as these video show, both produce pretty visuals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vk__hyOM2M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgwhfdoyTns

so for graphics beauty there will be no noticeable differences between them, at least from the players perspective. even thought some results from google says that OpenGl has more features such as Two-sided lighting, picking, ....etc.


however if you are a good programmer you are most likely to find ways around limitations. or implement them in your game (e.g. implementing a picking mechanism in a directx game).

so I think performance and ease of use now are the things that you should be concerned about.

performance depends on how the driver was made for OpenGL, since OpenGL drivers do the resource managing (e.g. moving texture data from VRAM to RAM when low on VRAM) so 2 games written using both directx and opengl might switch places when you run them on different systems.

Directx gives you the ability to choose what type of resource managing you want when you create the textures... you can use D3DPOOL_MANAGED to automate the process. or you can use other options listed here
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb172584(v=vs.85).aspx

for ease of use, for both Directx and openGL, you can view the code provided in the http://www.rastertek.com/tutindex.html tutorials that i linked earlier (link contain openGL tutorials too) and decide for yourself or maybe wait for someone who used both libraries and can tell you his opinion on which is easier.

look here... this might help you decide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenGL_and_Direct3D#Comparison

Edit: also as the guys before me said or pointed to platform support should also be one of you considerations.
Directx ==> only windows (other operating systems might be able to run your game using wine / not free)
OpenGL ==> multi-platform which means more audience