Java noob working up to jME - SWT or Swing?


I am a relative java newbie.  I am working through some tutorials and just finished learning how to implement awt classes, next up is threading.  So, I plan on making a 3d game in jME eventually.  In this 3d game, I plan on having some 2d java 'mini-games' that can open up inside this 3d game.  These mini games should be able to run alone in a browser as well.  I had anticipated developing these 2d games first as I figure they'd be easier and help me become for familiar with java.

My question is, what should I spend my time learning in order to achieve these results the fastest?  SWT, Swing, or forget them both and start now on jME, because it can do this by itself?

Thank you very kindly,

-Tz
Tzvier said:

My question is, what should I spend my time learning in order to achieve these results the fastest?  SWT, Swing, or forget them both and start now on jME, because it can do this by itself?


If you're new to anything 3d like I am, I would start on jME now.  There are terms and concepts that you should learn to understand the jME classes.  Stuff that you probably won't learn in your regular Java learning.  Exposure now will lessen any shock later.  XD  As far as dropping Swing and anything else altogether, I would say still learn them.

Thanks,



I am new to 3d, but as explained I want do 2d stuff now/first.  Is jME a legitimate avenue for developing 2d games?  If not which is better to pursue, as far as developing 2d games that are compatible with jME, SWT or Swing?



-Tz

Slick is a 2D game library based on LWJGL, like jME, but being 2D-only it is much more focused than jME, which is more general and in the end centered on 3D. It’s probably a good place to start, but don’t go and forget all about us now :smiley:



Also keep in mind that maybe in 6 months or a years time, JME3 aims to feature Android support, which would naturally involve a lot of 2D features.



Edit: My apologies, I did not consider the greater ease of integration of your 2D games into the larger 3D one if you made it all in JME, as explained here.



I still think starting off with an engine that uses a strictly 2D approach could do your mindset well though. Maybe you could just use Slick for some prototyping, then see which of those same principles can be applied to JME. Might lead you to some feature proposals for our next generation engine :slight_smile:

So after looking around at the JMEDesktop situation, it looks basically it creates a frame in the 3d space to which swing items can placed, therefore it seems that I should focus some energy on learning swing?  Or do I have this completely wrong?