Free online 3D environment

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Hi all,



First of all, I’d like to say thank you for a wonderful 3d engine.  The jME community is also very helpful and active, which is important when choosing a platform.



For the past 8 years, I have been working on a 3D engine (Env3D - http://env3d.sourceforge.net) to be used in introductory programming courses (I teach primarily first year computer science).  I started coding my own engine using lwjgl, and while progress was good, I didn’t have enough resources to integrate some of the advanced 3D features.  A couple of months ago, I have decided to switch the underlying engine from lwjgl to jME version 2.  The transition was very painless as the jME engine is very well designed (the design was very similar to my own home grown engine!). 



Lately, I wanted to bring online multi-user 3D world into my courses, so I started putting a networking layer on top of Env3D.  After much playing around, I came up with Whalechat (http://whalechat.com).  It is a 3D chat environment that has a python scripting engine built-in.  Users can create their own environment, games, avatar, etc using python scripting.



The system is now fairly stable and can be accessed by going to http://whalechat.com.  It uses java webstart so no installation is necessary.  I have tested it on Windows and OS X.  The software is under GPL (any version). 



Under the tutorials section, you can find a few basic lessons on how to build your own environment.  I will be adding more lessons as time progresses.  If you have any questions in the mean time, feel free to drop me a line.



Thanks

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That's really cool!



I sometimes try to teach my gf to program, and I prefer to show her Python for simplicity.  This is a great learning tool!



Tried it out on my Linux and most things seemed to work just fine.  Avatar changing, room changing, picture loading from URL.  Only thing that didn't work was walking around.



Keep up the good work!





~GBreadMan

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Thanks GBreadMan.  I wondered why walking around doesn't work on Linux.  It could be a swing/awt issue as the 3d window is awt.  What version of Java are you using?

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batkid said:

Thanks GBreadMan.  I wondered why walking around doesn't work on Linux.  It could be a swing/awt issue as the 3d window is awt.  What version of Java are you using?


Using Java 1.6.  Not sure, but it seemed like the 3d window just wasn't receiving input from the mouse or keyboard.

On a side note, you may consider naming your file something more descriptive, like "WhaleChat.jnlp".  I went to my downloads folder to re-run it and had trouble finding it.  :)


~GBreadMan
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GBreadMan said:

On a side note, you may consider naming your file something more descriptive, like "WhaleChat.jnlp".  I went to my downloads folder to re-run it and had trouble finding it.  :)


Done!  :)
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For those of you interested, there is now a jython editor built-in to the environment.  Check out this video:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJqVksGbSlc



Cheers