Hello everyone!

[Monterato]

Hey everyone,

I’m new to the jMonkeyEngine Community and wanted to say hi :)!

I found the jMonkeyEngine some days ago and lurked around the forums, reading guides, discussion and other things.

About Myself
There is not much to say about myself. My name is Oskar, I’m 23 y/o and doing an apprenticeship as a developer for about 1.5 - 2 years now. I’m mainly working with Java as programming language and I guess my programming skills could be described as intermediate. I often find it hard to learn things in programming and I wouldn’t say that IT is my “natural habitat”, but I think one of my best characteristics is, that I like to learn new stuff and I don’t give up before I didn’t achieve what I wanted.

What do I want here?
I always enjoyed playing video games and for sure I always dreamed of creating my own game. Who didn’t :P?

Nevertheless, I know that creating your own game is associated with lots of work, time, efforts, money and so on. I don’t have in mind to create a super fancy and functional game. I rather want to improve my skills as a programmer and get to know some 3D game programming concepts.

I’d like to create a voxel-based game where the terrain can be created/modified/destroyed at any time. So far I’ve read several articles on the internet about the voxel concept and I think I’ve read every voxel-related thread on the forums here. The most important thing that came to my attention is that creating/starting with voxel-based games is really hard and not a good idea to start with.

Well, I thought it is a good idea to start with the very basic tutorials, since I have absolutetly 0 experience in game development.

What did I do so far?

Well, there are some things I have done so far.

• Downloaded jMonkeyEngine SDK
• Set-up a SimpleApplication following this guide
• Read the guide “Math for Dummies” to get a basic understanding of vectors
• Read the guide “Scenegraph for Dummies”
• Read tons of threads about voxel-based game (engines)

What would I like to know?

My plan is basically, to go further through the guides and tutorials. But it would be really cool, if someone could push me in the right direction, in due consideration of where I want to end (voxel-based game).

Does it make sense what I did so far?
What should I do next?
Are there some recommended guides/best practices?

I think you know what I mean

I’m really excited about some replies and thank you for taking the time to read my post.

Best regards!

[Dgames_Crew]

Once you learn the tutorials, I recommend to get a basic understanding of 3D models and how to create them (using blender), because knowing how to make them is really helpful. Also, try and learn the features of jME3, like the SceneComposer, TerrainEditor and more. I find them really helpful to know.

[aegroto]

Have you given a look at https://jmonkeyengine.github.io/wiki/jme3/contributions/cubes.html ?

[pspeed]

@Monterato

I don’t have in mind to create a super fancy and functional game.

@Monterato

I’d like to create a voxel-based game where the terrain can be created/modified/destroyed at any time.

Yes, as you say… those two goals are incompatible. Voxel games are the hardest place to start. Not just being thrown into the deep end of the pool but the middle of the ocean. You will have to do nearly everything from scratch in the end, mesh construction, physics, etc… A game engine won’t give you much for free.

@Monterato

But it would be really cool, if someone could push me in the right direction, in due consideration of where I want to end (voxel-based game).

As others have pointed out… if you are new, start with a prebuilt library. If that doesn’t work for you then go back to simpler game concepts like an FPS or something until you’ve dipped your feet very deep into the pool.

[The_Leo]

@Monterato

The most important thing that came to my attention is that creating/starting with voxel-based games is really hard and not a good idea to start with.

Is that so. And some beginners start with a goal of making a MMO.

What about this:
Considering your goals, you could make a quick prototype by using a box geometry for each voxel.

This will get you started fast, but of course will not scale up to huge worlds.
As you go on, you can try 3rd party voxel libraries(search the forum for “voxel”), or optimize your prototype.

Eg. Render only boxes which are at the edge, do not render the ones that are definitely not visible.

As you get more used to the engine and are still interested, you can do whatever you want, eg create custom meshes, shaders etc.

[robi_combi]

Hi, Oskar!