Is jMonkey right for me?

Hey guys, new here. I have a game idea in mind and I wanna pick your minds a bit to see if jMonkey is right for me. I’m no where near a professional level but I’m decent at java and have created a few 2D top view/platformer like games with basic 2D graphics using the Libgdx library. I could use this for my game idea, however the scope of the project is much larger and I would like the ability to create the game in 3D and also have a set of professional level tools to edit with other than straight hand coding everything.



My only concern is that it seems I am limited with jMonkey in the style of graphics that I can use. Every video I have found so far seems to have a Mario Kart-ish graphic style. I am wondering if this is as good as the graphics can get using jMonkey, or say I had the right graphic artists, would it be possible to create a beautiful world similar to the style of Guild Wars 2 or Prototype 2? My project would not be as prestigious obviously, but say it takes off, could version 2 or 3 of my game look as great as these games, still using jMonkey?

Well, making the next Guild Wars or Prototype is difficult (although not impossible), but apart from that, everything’s possible. The current problem with jME so far is that there are few games finished, and those which are don’t have very realistic graphics.



The problem, however, is not the engine, but the artists. If you have nice models and good textures, I don’t see any problem with graphics.



However, there are some games with good graphics which are under development: http://hub.jmonkeyengine.org/groups/user-code-projects/forum/topic/piratehell-alpha-version/

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Thanks for the swift reply. That’s great to hear, I am getting more and more excited about the engine as I read more about it. I will just have to find the right artists then someday! I am really picky when it comes to graphics, even though I can’t do them myself very well at all. Makes finishing projects rather annoying. But hey with the right amount of time and the right people this could be something. Thanks again.

Yes, yes and yes.



Visuals for a 3D game come down to three things:


  1. Your ability to create 3d models and animate them
  2. Your ability to create the textures these models are using
  3. Your ability to write the shaders necessary for rendering these the way you want them to appear.



    #3 probably being the most important.



    This thread has a bunch of screen shot of scenes rendered using custom shaders and filters… they don’t strike me as Mario Kart(ish)… and all the shaders/filters used to render these scenes are shared and accessible to anyone who wants to use them.



    The other thread
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Also take a look at some of the stuff by androlo (forested/rivers/biomonkey) and thetoucher (procedural terrain, makers tale)



It’s all about the assets. With the right models/textures/normal maps/etc/etc then any engine can look good. High quality game-ready assets are a hard thing to make right.

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@zarch said:
Also take a look at some of the stuff by androlo (forested/rivers/biomonkey) and thetoucher (procedural terrain, makers tale)

It's all about the assets. With the right models/textures/normal maps/etc/etc then any engine can look good. High quality game-ready assets are a hard thing to make right.


I still believe that modeling it's as critical as one might think. Fate was a GREAT looking game with really crappy models :)
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well, i am making “similar” game to Guild Wars 2. Im still far far away from final version, but i am sure i can do really good graphic.



it just take a lot of time.



the only condition is Experience, experience, experience. → 3d Modeling and Texturing Tools / Shaders / Programming / Server communication - good architecture(must be, if estimated number of players is a big number)

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I still believe that modeling it’s as critical as one might think. Fate was a GREAT looking game with really crappy models :)


Yea I think so, too. A good game must not have good graphics (We all have great imagination). It is more important to have good game logic and mechanics and some interesting and fluid gameplay. If you have that graphics are not that important as you can have a good game that really makes fun anyways without good graphics but no good game without the other things. For me it is always really disapointing when you have great graphics and environments but the gameplay really sucks and you cannot move proper or get stuck every 5min or always the same boring thing to do. Imagination is the only thing a player can add to the game to increase his personal game expierence while not changing the gameplay. But fixing bugs or control issues or even make more gamecontent often is impossible or at least hard to do for a player. So it is better to focus on that. And also if you make your game well structured you can replace graphics quite easy later whilst adding new features or game content is more difficult.

@AaronBlankenship
Anyways I think jMonkey is a good choice for you. I was in nearly the exact same situation 2 month ago like you are now. I looked at some different engines and scenegraphs. Had some expierence with small games like boardgame implementations, developing and game theory but I wanted to make a "game" this time. And jMonkey gives complete freedom, is well documented and still developed. Also you have a big centralized community which makes things more easy if you have some issues. Still it gives you great mechanisms and structures for your game so you dont need to start from the scratch, because many common problems are already solved. And with the lwjgl library it has an interface to a standard graphics layer that is not only used with jMonkey so if you have to switch engine or programming language in future projects or work or whatever you can still use your openGL knowledge.
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@t0neg0d said:
Yes, yes and yes.

Visuals for a 3D game come down to three things:

1) Your ability to create 3d models and animate them
2) Your ability to create the textures these models are using
3) Your ability to write the shaders necessary for rendering these the way you want them to appear.

#3 probably being the most important.

This thread has a bunch of screen shot of scenes rendered using custom shaders and filters... they don't strike me as Mario Kart(ish)... and all the shaders/filters used to render these scenes are shared and accessible to anyone who wants to use them.

The other thread


1 and 2 are the most important. A game with a great artist that only uses the normal lighting material and no other shaders or lights at all could already look killer. Its all about the assets really and in the case of models that diffuse, specular and normal maps. Unreal by default also doesn't use much more.
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@normen said:
1 and 2 are the most important. A game with a great artist that only uses the normal lighting material and no other shaders or lights at all could already look killer. Its all about the assets really and in the case of models that diffuse, specular and normal maps. Unreal by default also doesn't use much more.


Hmmm.. if this were the case. I doubt the OP would have said:

@aaronblankenship said:
Every video I have found so far seems to have a Mario Kart-ish graphic style.


I thought JME was switched being shader based for this very reason, no?

You need the Shaders to make the models really work - however the Shaders supplied with JME3 are perfectly good enough. They just need the right models to go with :slight_smile:



Really it’s not that any is more important - you need all three. However you need one shader, but you need many more than one model.

i think the built in shader stuff will probably meet about 90-95% of most peoples needs. You either need to write/tweak the other 5-10% yourself or just go without it. I for example stole thetouchers dissolve shader, a while ago, and tweaked it a bit :slight_smile: and had to change the glow shader from 1 blend mode to another to get the effect i wanted. But mostly I don’t touch it

@wezrule said:
i think the built in stuff will probably meet about 90-95% of most peoples needs. You either need to write/tweak the other 5-10% yourself or just go without it.


I do agree... very much so. I just think that after reading the OP, this user is very particular about the graphics style of their game. The standard shaders/filter are great, but were not necessarily written with congruency in mind. (i.e. does my water look like it belongs in the same game with the shadows... yep... this is an artistic approach to graphics... but hey... graphics are artistic in nature). Without mentioning the need to delve into shaders and the importance, someone as particular as the OP might end up disappointed and posting negative reviews, when in fact the problem wouldn't be with JME, but their effort :(
@t0neg0d said:
Hmmm.. if this were the case. I doubt the OP would have said:

I thought JME was switched being shader based for this very reason, no?

You can get mario-kartish graphics also with OpenGL4, its all in the assets like I said :) And jME is shader based so it can use the power of the GPU (and work like any modern engine for that matter). That you need a spiffy effect shader to get awesome graphics is a misconception. Again, AAA games use probably less "effects" that you might think. Doom3 for example is really all about the lighting and the maps.

The "graphic style" is in the assets, not in some algorithm.

You will notice many jME2 games look like jME3. That’s because its all in the art assets like Normen said. Lightmap baking, proper shadows and lighting setup, quality of textures, etc is crucial to a good looking game. jME3 can’t turn your garbage into gold. Garbage in → garbage out.

@Momoko_Fan said:
You will notice many jME2 games look like jME3.(...)

And the reason they look like that is because they are all, without exception, low- to mid-budget games. High poly models simply cost more money to make. And it just so happens that the "cartoony" look lends itself very well to low-poly models, so the game studios adapted their art style, lighting and shaders accordingly. And presto, "every game made with jME looks cartoony, ergo, jME must only be able to produce cartoony games!"

No offense intended to you @aaronblankenship , it's a natural and pretty fair assumption to make. It's up to us to change this perception, and we're quickly getting there.
@erlend_sh said:
No offense intended to you @aaronblankenship , it's a natural and pretty fair assumption to make. It's up to us to change this perception, and we're quickly getting there.


I suggest hobbling anyone who posts a video of their cartoony game. A broke foot is worth a thousand words.
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@t0neg0d said:
I suggest hobbling anyone who posts a video of their cartoony game. A broke foot is worth a thousand words.

LOL xD

Hah, thanks for all the replies guys. I’m really excited to get into development with jME. We shall see if I can find good artists and good shaders to go with that :slight_smile: