In short, Qt 3D Studio is built on top of Qt 3D. The flexible architecture of Qt 3D makes it suitable to build 3D runtimes, or engines, such as Qt 3D Studio.
Qt 3D
Qt 3D is programmer-oriented engine building toolkit and great for both simple and complex scenes. Qt 3D simplifies the implementation of advanced rendering techniques.
Qt 3D Studio
Qt 3D Studio consists of both a 3D editor and a 3D runtime. Qt 3D Studio is designer-oriented and makes it easy to build complex 3D scenes with states and transitions that can be used in and controlled by Qt applications.
Use case comparison
Whether you should use Qt 3D or Qt 3D Studio for your project depends on your use case. Below, we list some common use cases and how they apply to the two:
Creating 3D scenes
| Use case
|
Qt 3D
|
Qt 3D Studio
|
| Graphically editing a 3D scene for use in a Qt application
|
No built-in editor. Support for importing common 3D formats.
|
Yes, use the Qt 3D Studio Editor
|
| Creating a 3D scene programmatically
|
Suitable
|
Not possible.
|
| Using existing materials and effects
|
Some available in Qt3D.Extras
|
Many available in the Qt 3D Studio Editor
|
| Combine existing materials and effects
|
May require rewriting some of the shaders from Qt3D.Extras to form custom combinations.
|
Suitable
|
Effects
| Use case
|
Qt 3D
|
Qt 3D Studio
|
| Creating a simple multi-pass rendering pipeline
|
Suitable
|
Suitable
|
| Using custom shaders
|
Suitable
|
Suitable
|
| Layer-based compositing
|
Suitable
|
Suitable
|
| Implementing custom rendering techniques such as volumetric rendering
|
Suitable
|
Not suitable
|
Formats
| Use case
|
Qt 3D
|
Qt 3D Studio
|
| Importing external formats
|
All formats supported by plugins such as Assimp. See SceneLoader for a full list.
|
A number of formats are supported.
TODO: List all formats.
|
Creating 3D engines and editors
| Use case
|
Qt 3D
|
Qt 3D Studio
|
| Creating a custom graphical 3D editor
|
Suitable
|
Not possible
|
| Creating a custom 3D engine
|
Suitable
|
Not possible
|