I am really struggling to learn how to use jMonkeyEngine. I have read the tutorials on the documentation page, but they just don’t work for me; I can’t really understand them. Are there any other good tutorials to learn jMonkeyEngine that I should check out? I’d really appreciate anyone’s suggestions. Thanks!
Do you already know Java? If not then you should find some good Java tutorials first.
If you already know Java well then it would help others to know what didn’t work for you about the existing tutorials. They are some of the most basic and simple (too simple sometimes) examples of JME. If you are struggling with those then it’s likely other tutorials would be worse.
I already know Java. I think that the problem for me with the tutorials is actually that they are too simple. For me to understand something well, I need a full, and extensive explanation that goes into every single detail. I think that the documentation tutorials are too broad.
Are you reading the online tutorials or the ones in the SDK?
Beside the beginners tutorials there are also intermediate articles and advanced documentation.
I personally found the beginners tutorials very useful and I sometimes come back and read them again. The online ones are IMO very detailed.
The jme official tuts are great, but jme lacks the variety of tutorials unity or unreal have. I started a series to hopefully fill the gap a little, but its still early and not very complete. feedback is always appreciated mrugames.blogspot.com
Indeed the wiki pages leave out a lot of the advanced features, but you should be able to find the rest of the more specific stuff by searching right here on this very forum. If it happens to be an old thread with a broken googlecode link just bump it up or ask anew and a team of highly trained monkeys will be able to assist you.
And of course not forgetting just running and reading actual code.
Like the javadoc and source code?
Why not try to make extremely simple games? Like a 2.5D Pong? It will ask of you much more than the basics, so you will practice your skills with jMonkey.
The javadoc isn’t very descriptive. I find myself searching more often in the source code than in the javadoc.
here is a full example of an asteroids game:
Originally post about it:
…the googlecode links are broken but they were moved to the github link at the top.
This example uses an Entity System.
That’s going to be the problem with any real game is that it’s bound to have some additional add on code to make it work. JME is lower level than that… which is flexible… but you will likely add stuff to make a game (or use additional libraries). (I highly recommend Lemur, Zay-ES, SiO2, etc… but then I would because I wrote them. A lot of people use them, too, I guess.)
If you don’t want to use an ES then there are other game examples out there. Just search the forum.
Edit: note that there were also two books published on JME.
So you know the first thing you can contribute when you get into the engine.
First of, I need to deal with the source of my self-hatred, which is not finishing a god damn game. Then, I’ll make some efforts into improving jMonkey.
You know normen you say this every time, but it’s kinda like this:
New guy: “I wish there were any schools I could go to.”
You: “Well when you finish college feel free to become a fucking teacher.”
Can’t have the egg without the chicken first.
So all the debate concerning what came first, i.e. the chicken or the egg, is now solved?
Yes, you heard it here first folks.
Corrected that for you.
…which would be true if no one was figuring it out from the current documentation. So apparently there is a whole group of chickens and they aren’t laying any eggs.
Sounds like you need to start collecting taxes then
Yeah, as Paul said, either nobody is getting the engine at all or nobody is contributing the things they complain are missing. I think it’s the latter.
Money can’t write documentation either, it can do surprisingly few things.