Game Engines

Hay guyz

I'm a third year cs student wanting to start my own (small) 3d game project. The trouble is I can't pick out what engine to choose. I skipped out on my graphics paper so I don't know much about 3d mathematics. I know how to program in C, JAVA, perl, python and (sigh) ActionScript. Don't know much about C++ but have written a few classes in it.

What 3D engine do you recommend?

I have tried some one the clunker ones, such as ORGE and Irrlicht(sp). I managed to write my own program in C that makes basic polygons, but looking at the math required to make it into a 3d model just confused me.

tl;tr

users are legally entitled to modify the 3D library at any time to do whatever they want (make walls transparent in FPS games, etc)
Because they'll totally not do it if it's distributed as binary, or if it's illegal to reverse-engineer and modify.

users are legally entitled to reverse engineer and modify your project, and you're legally required to treat them the same as "official" users (e.g. you're legally required to let them play on your servers with hacked clients)
Ok, this is one possible interpretation (I think there's room for argument but I won't argue anything to it) and it's indeed a problem, but it's not like people don't do it in other online services anyways. Just make the game properly, server-sided, indestructible. The user may look like he's Chuck Norris from his side but if he attacks the server says "NOW YOU DEAL 1 DMG OK" and subs 5 from the other fag. If the service is properly designed, it can't be cheated.

if you plan to keep your project closed source, you are legally required to make it work correctly with every new version of the engine released
I don't see how you are compelled to do this, but if you are, well, don't use open source for closed source! That's kinda bad. Keep it open source. Open source doesn't mean the server is free or it's going to be hacked (in fact, it means you'll be able to find and fix your exploits much sooner). Or at least use the work privately and you'll be fine; GNU licenses are about distribution, you're actually free to do anything with the software.