JME splash screen

Site & Project
1

I had some fun last week creating a splash screen for JMonkeyEngine games.

comments are welcome :wink:

[edit] : Continuing the discussion from Alternate jME Logo

8 Likes
2

Nice, I like it :wink:

3

Isn’t the “counting bananas…” for extracting netbeans modules in the IDE?

:wink:

4

yes it is :wink:

5

Hi, for what background color did you design this splash screen?
The font is black and yellow which makes it impossible to use on a black screen (which is default for splash screens in games)

6

This splash screen was made to work on black or white and on most of colors, also on pictures. imo the only thing that didn’t work well is the “version 3.1”.

Can you tell me how it impossible ? what doesn’t work well ?

7

Tried with black and white. While it works and is readable, it probably work best if you use the forum’ background color:

Pasted image1470×640 91.5 KB

Pasted image1470×640 113 KB

Pasted image1470×640 111 KB

8

I see what your are pointing out, the fact that the grey “background” do not cover all the splash screen is a wanted feature. And this splash screen wasn’t mean to be used on the forum background.

9

new version, it is better ?
(it’s advised to take a look in full screen, since the background is the same color as the forum one)

2 Likes
10

Hey, sorry I didn’t have much time earlier to go into detail.
I really like the idea and the basic design, although I like the old layout much more.

I am looking at the splash screen from a usability and accessability background
and have the following feedback to the old version (most apply to the new version as well):

  • “serious monkeys, serious engine”: I have very good eyes (confirmed by an eye doctor) and I cannot read it without zooming. The N and E letters are melting to blocks.
  • Counting Bananas: I have slight trouble reading it on some notebooks (color temperature and screen brightness vary depending on the notebook)
  • Version 3.1 is hard to read because of the low contrast between the fill and border color. It blends together very easily and becomes harder to read.
  • I would omit the “3.1” detail, as you already have version 3 in “jMonkeyEngine 3”. Then we could actually see this splash screen in multiple games before it is replaced.

I would like to see the text in clearly distinguishable colors.
You can use a darker yellow or the forums text color (lightgrey) to still highlight jME and the monkey.

2 Likes
11

Which is the correct brand: “jMonkeyEngine” or “jMonkeyEngine 3”?

The splash implies the latter (jMonkeyEngine 3 version 3.1) which is not what I expected, because otherwise I would simply write “jMonkeyEngine 3.1”.

@erlend_sh ?

12

The brand is “jMonkeyEngine” and the current version of the said engine is 3.0 - with 3.1 being developed currently.

Version numbering follows the standard conventions.

  • Major number - new version. most probably largely or completely re-written.
  • Minor number - breaking changes. Most likely incompatible with previous versions.
  • Build number - optimizations, improvements or additions with no breaking changes.

Version 2 of the engine was written by a completely different team if my memory serves me correctly, and for all the future holds, version 4 will probably go down the same path.

1 Like
13

Then I think the splash should say “Powered by jMonkeyEngine 3.1”

14

Well, JME3 is the ‘brand’ and 3.1 is the specific version. JME4 would be a completely different brand and so “JME” on its own is not specific enough.

15

I like how everyone has their own standard conventions :smiley:

16

Well, it’s an EXTREMELY common convention… most projects seem to use it. Starting with Java and moving all the way through like 90% of the open source projects out there. Major.minor.bugFix really is pretty standard.

17

I’m not saying that the major.minor.patch version numbering is odd or strange in any way. However, maybe I should have mentioned this in my previous reply, I think that a MINOR build version should not have breaking changes but rather be backwards compatible.

I also think that the versioning mentioned by jayfella above is more in line with the slow release cycle of JME so maybe that’s fine. I’d personally try and follow semantic versioning.

Would there ever be a JME3 version 4.0 is the question.

18

Its like with OSX where 10 is the brand, 10.2 is a new (probably not backwards compatible) release and 10.2.4 is a compatible fix release. Anything unclear about that?

If there is ever a jME4 its probably not written by the current team - or its for a completely new 3d graphics technology like hardware-accelerated voxels or something.

19

new version with bigger text, i also tried with another color (orange) , what do you think ?
I also removed the “3.1” so this can be used with others versions.
The outline color of the monkey and the JME text is also darker.

1 Like
20

I like the orange one: it’s easy to read the “powered by” Anyway, i think it’s a good idea to keep the 3.1 on the logo becouse mostly users like to see “new versions” with “new things” so even changing it at splash screen show to users the engine is up-to-date.

Just my opnion of course.

Quick offtopic: Why the name of engine is jMonkey (j is Java)? There is some special reason or is just a fun fact?