I want to make a game that has 3d graphics. The quality can be anywhere from doom/daggerfall style to what ever is the latest and greatest.
It’s a survival type game. Not unlike WURM online (but singleplayer). You need to hunt for food and find a water source to survive. You can gather materials like wood, plants etc. and build things like houses and axes etc.
Where do I start? Could anyone give me an idea on how to make a basic 3d level with terrain and a movable camera? I know how to get the terrain and use inputs from the tutorials, but how do I put it all together? How do I use the terrain with simplegame, controls, water, etc? Do I make new classes for each one? Do I put them all in the main class? I’m kind of confused as to how to put them together. It hasn’t “clicked” for me yet.
Try one or more of the concepts you have in mind. Eventually some things will start to “click” and then just build off your experiences. there is no one direct way imo to create your game. A lot has to do with what you would like to convey to your audience, and then try to set the scene for such a scene.
Go with @lwsquad 's advice. Judging by your post you haven’t dabbled much in 3D programming at all yet, let alone game programming, so you have to approach this in small steps.
How difficult your game is to make comes down to how you choose to implement these individual components, like hunting, distributed water sources, material gathering and construction. If it’s the sum of all these parts that make up the fun of your game, not so much the individual action, then you could make a prototype for it with relative ease. Maybe within a couple of weeks, or possibly months depending on your past experience. If it’s the other way around, focus on the most essential component of them all and see if you can make it work just like you imagined within a reasonable timeframe.
Rereading your post I see that you’re also wondering about structure. There’s no single answer to this. Playing with the great amount of Tests jME3 provides and understanding these well will help you out a lot. Fortunately though, we also have a much more comprehensive example for a game coming up soon.
Thanks for the advice. I’m probably jumping ahead a little, bu that’s how I like to do it.