They already have a scene graph you can try to extend the scene graph yourself and extend its capabilities to include the features you were referring too.
Wellā¦ why not make a campaign or something? I mean I would love to see JME get improvement on the file, importing portion, and well, I donāt have time cause I got a job, but I do have money cause it: stuck_out_tongue: Not tones (am still a little interns x) but yet, am pretty sure that whit some stretch goal and some good communication, you could raise enough money to get some stuff done at the very less.
pspeed already does that. He is in the āJME developersā 
He was just asking to be paid 
Well Iām not sure you realize how much money that woudl represent. If we want several core developpers work on the engine for sayā¦one year (like leave their job somehow and work on JME for one year), weād need amout of money to compensate their current salary. I make around 50k$ a year for myself and I know that salaries in the US are way over this, so weād need around 200k$ to have like 2 to 3 developpers.
Last campain we did for jmesoc 2014 we got around 750$. Iām not complaining , thatās already great actually. But weāre not a community that can raise the kind of money that can pay a developper for a sufficient amount of time.
Not counting the considerable effort Iād have to do to convince my wife that thatās a reasonable course of action.
So weāll have to stick with micro enhancements and anarchic schedules and release
That said I have hope, I think that we never had as much contribution in the engine than this year. Maybe the github switch and the PRs inspired people.
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I guess Unreal and Unity is famous even they cost $$$ because they have games that has been played by several gamers
Talking from experience.
Jmonkey is a low level 3D library letting you design any game style, thatās great to make your own games and your own needed tools, and great for people that like to code a lot.
On the ther handyou will only see JME3 small mobile games or small desktop stylized games as all 3D artists just wonāt use it as they are not coders.
So youāll never see big games in JME3 or games competing with Unity games like āThe Forestā ,āOriā, āRepubliqueā ,āMevius Final Fantasyā.
Or JME3 games competing with some Crysis engine big Mmos or Fps games.
The goal of an indie lonewolf or small tea dev , is to make and finish a game , and have great tools already available , that he can customize also instead of spending all itās time creating the tools and perhaps fails making the tools, and he donāt like and donāt want to re invent the wheel , and i assume he likes to code but gameplay only, he donāt like to code tools or some complete editor.
This is where Unity comes, because it is still āopenā as you can add plugins for yor own purpose editing needs or create plugins, at least you donāt start from 0.
There is hundred of successfull Unity games (Ori, Republique , etc ā¦ ) check Unity showcase page.
These games would not have been possible for 3D artists and creators if Unity would not have existed simply as they are not able to code some entire editor and tools and they donāt want to learn that.
Scripting language is a valid system, Playmaker within Unity allowed hundred of mobile games and some PC games to appear , without it, pure 3D artists that even donāt know C# , would had never made and sold a game 
JME3 is a niche for coders , not the tool for 3D artists itās simple as that, so youāll see mainly coders 3D art in JME3 games, while youāll see great artists 3D art in other 3D engines with high level editor and tools.
Some concrete exemple , i want to make a game with these features and i need also these tools , i just want to code gameplay :
- A complete and friendly level editor to edit any objects and itās properties
-Advanced Particle with particle collision also
-Physically Based Rendering
-Complete terrain editor : grass, trees, easy to add textures and paint , and easy to paint grass and trees with parameters to adjust density and colors variations
-Shader editor to tweak and make some custom effects
-Cinmatic tool to make some simple cinematics - TPS template i can just plugin and customize in the editor and customize some C# code also
- Basic Inventory manager thta i can customize
- Simple easy to use navigation baking and simple use in C#
- Some good full screen effects laready existing i just plug into the scene
- complete FBX support with IK and Blendshapes
This is my game objectives , i want all that in a package , nothing to code ā¦ Unity has all that requirements, while JEM3 itās simply not available out of the box ready to use features and tools today.
Making a realistic (to some degree) looking game is lot of good 3D art, making good textures, good animations, making deep and good 3D levels , good characters well animated, good gameplay , a good GUI ā¦ only that is tons and tons of work and takes already months or years depending on your project scale.
So having a complete toolset and features is the base for a small team or 3D artists before engaging on making such game.
While small stylized indie games can be made by coders or with a minimal 3D framework as JME3 or some others.
JME3 goal is not to try to be as complete as Unity or Crysis , some people will argue, JME3 is Open and Crysis engine features and tools could be made ā¦ yes but it would take 5 or 10 years , but this will never happen, we all know it 
It is just a matter of taking the right tool for the right job.
Unity is not Crysis , we choose one or other depending on the game needs, like JME3 is not Unity and people will choose one or other depending on their game scale and needs.
So the discussion is pretty useless at some point 
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Sure, but how about one guy that would simply act as a central managin and coding entity. A guy that could take plugins, check the code, put them in JME, work the rest of the time to organise you guys code and code some more. While you can still do contribution part time he can take on the big and long work to improve the whole engine.
As far as i know entry lvl job for programmers are pay like 30-35k for both in France and canada, so i would say someone mid lvl would cost around 40k-50k (and less then 12k euro for interns x). This is still a lot of money, but its already more fessable xD
But ya maybie am just day dreaming. This is still an free opensoure project after all, but i fell like it could be so much more then what it is right now.
Yes this is just a dream.
One guy , is this one gets demotivated, if he flyes to other horizons, he some personnal life change happends ā¦ itās simply a big fail.
Itās open source like so many open source projects, without a big structure behind or some super motivated teams with some real money goals for the engine , nothing incredible will happen.
Even Ogre 3D lost lot of itās interested with new Unity 5 free offer.
Itās like many community projects , just failing because each member at some point will get demotivated or will find new personnal goals, or will just simply leave.
And i donāt understand people asking JME3 to be Unity or Crysis ? really ? Why you just donāt learn Unity and start making games ? If you like to code a lot then stay with JME3 , otherwise you can just learn to adapt yourself and learn a new 3D software.
Well given that nobody ever got any money from it (except the people making games with it) I think jME is already pretty incredible 
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Yes, this is open source side of things with no money involved.
And once you will need bigger results , bigger tools , itās like anything you need to take some risks and make some money investments. So you will go for something like Unity5 and some plugins you will buy, itās small investments that will come back later.
JME3 could add some plugin store with tools and plugins , i think it would help a lot growing the engine features, while core JME3 would stay free and open source.
Anyway, i think itās clear JME3 is not intended to challenge Crysis engine for example, it is a core 3D engine only, for coders, and full free and open source,
This could be stated in FAQ to make it more clear to people asking such questions about JME3 features
Sure but there has to be someone who codes and maintains the store as well 
Its not like we didnāt ever think about such a possibility. Then again, even if we took a certain percentage off of each sale, who would keep people from selling their stuff elsewhere or even selling their own version of the engine with the tools included. Some people do great things with jME and a handful of these even contribute back some of their code. That is actually the initial reason why we make our engine open - we get people finding bugs and adding features - everybody gets a great free engine to use - everybody wins
And actually most of the things you listed exist in one form or the other in jME - albeit not as complete as in other engines because as said jME doesnāt force any concepts about what a player, NPC or level is on you.
This is the harderst thing. I know this feelling.
No, I donāt agree. JME3 is a working in progress, and is very activily for itās team size, so it may get 5 or 10 years to happen, but I have sure itāll.
But I think raising founds from donation is very difficut. jME will truly raise founds when someone make a great game, earn some money, and invest on jME: by hiring developers to work on it, because isnāt like whole core team hate their job and like to quit to work fully on jME, I think this is a hobby for them (like me).
jME got difficuty to raise itās popularity, among another things, because the Java was known as bad for gaming development (just check many threads on internet). When I was starting on GameDev I read one of those threads and quit Java development for gamming. But day-by-day Java is showing to the whole world that it can be very performatic, you just need to know it! (see sun.misc.Unsafe )
No, itās some escuse you give here.
The purcentage on sales is how it works.
What it is ? Selfish people that donāt want to give a small percentage to the management of the store that allowed them to make money ? What a shame
Are not JME3 people , selfish people that donāt want to give even some money to support the engine that allowed them to make some money ?
Yes there is some cool projects , but JME3 will not show big projects like we can see in Unity or Crysis. JME3 will not attract 3D artists and we know why.
But i agree everybody that are hardcore coders wins from JME3 staying open source.
Actually we had some very big contribution form companies using our engine. And considering we donāt spend a lot of money a year for JME, we are quite richā¦
Also in all your points you seem to consider everyone has your profile. I agree that from your artist stand point, JME isnāt the best tool for you. But you fail to see that some people consider what you depict as hindrance to be the strength of JME.
Iām biased toward JME of course, so my opinion doesnāt really count, but as a developer, Iād hate to be dictated how I should make my game. As an artist (I guess I can call me that too now), Iād really like to see more artist friendly tools in JME, and thatās why Iām trying to make someā¦ when ever I find the time for.
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No, I donāt agree. JME3 is a working in progress, and is very activily for itās team size, so it may get 5 or 10 years to happen, but I have sure itāll.
You are still dreaming while JME3 try to progress , it is too too much slow.
No complete 3D editor, no complete terrain editor, no PBR shaders and tools , no shader editor, no advanced particles ā¦
While Unity is running at full speed, delivering mre and more features eahc time leaving JME3 even more behind 
Stop dreaming, see things today as it is.
And language is not what helps 3D artists , C# is incredibly easy to code gameplay, itās ok for 3D artists.
You have Java, and what ? 3D artists will just code gameplay calling 
MyCharacter.AddForce(10,10,10) ;
What is the big difference in Java ?
Without complete toolset, JME3 will never grow outside of hobbyst and a coder niche.
To make a game you need strong tools , in Unity we spend a good amount of money for tools plugins and editor plugins, because even as great as UT5 is, it is lacking better graphics features and better tools for 3D artists.
So i can imagine JME3 is lacking even more things for 3D artists.
You wonāt see 3D artist using JME3 until it proposes big tools and a complete core game framework like Unity.
Even GODOT engine is a better choice that attracts 2D and 3D artists.
Hey, this is open - if youāre so convinced this all works out, have at it. You say youāre no coder and I canāt exactly decipher if youāre a 3D artist or not as youāre making mixed comments on that but whatever you can do, do it. Theres no difference between you and the core team there so effectively you seem to have some āexcuseā as well.
As for your other comments, the best open source model editor, Blender is directly included in the SDK, you can edit models by just opening them and editing away. You can edit jME specific things like materials, model properties, particles, terrain, full screen filters, shaders, even navigation meshes and vehicles visually - even attach code snippets in the visual editor. The only thing you have to know is how to tie it together in an actual game because yes, there is not FPS, RTS etc. templates.
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Iād hate to be dictated how I should make my game. As an artist (I guess I can call me that too now), Iād really like to see more artist friendly tools in JME, and thatās why Iām trying to make someā¦ when ever I find the time for.
Thatās good if some companies made money with JME3 and given back some.
And you are not dictated on making some game with Unity, you are free of making any style of game, the physics, the models etc ā¦ itās the same base as JME3 or any other 3D engine and you can manipulate them in any way.
I donāt see any JME3 game very different from Minecraft or some other RPG or other game styles we see in Unity ?
There is no rule with Unity you make any style game you wan and use the editor or make things at runtime.
But Unity people will get faster and better results as they can concentrate on gameplay and content.
As an artist (I guess I can call me that too now), Iād really like to see more artist friendly tools in JME, and thatās why Iām trying to make someā¦ when ever I find the time for
If you have a goal to make a medium scale game this year using JME3 and targetting today Unity 5 features (PBR, Full Screen Effects, advanced terrain and vegetation, IK and softbodies, cloth physics , advanced particles etc ā¦) you will just fail.
While you will get it with UT5 and putting all your efforts in 3D assetsn effects, characters ā¦ all that is tons of work.
(i meaa if you make detailled and appealing world instead of stylized or cartoon).
There is just a matter of choice about the right tool and what you like to do: more coding or more 3D art, and what are your needs (language and open source, or high level game framework and big toolset with advanced graphics).
As for your other comments, the best open source model editor, Blender is directly included in the SDK
It is not working as Unity where you bind components, or physics or other graphics features, that has tons of premade options specific to game, not modeler.
Anyway, you are right , JME3 is not comparale to Crysis , they are two different sofwtare even if they are called 3D engine at the base.
So comparing them is useless once again 
Me and my team actually like the ānon-artistā approach of JME.
All the unnecessary UIs in Unity hide too many details from us.
Also it limits your coding possibilities (major refactorings break immediately 
).
We enjoy the code-only approach in JME and use it in a different IDE without any drawbacks during development.
We have a working setup with JME 3.0 and the blender importer (incl. bone animations).
Sure, Unity is awesome when it comes to tuning graphical and physics settings, but thatās it.
If jMonkey was editor-based like Unity, we would not be using it right now 
2 Likes
After reading those comments, I can think only one thing:
I dināt know jME3 was trying to take place of Unity3D and Unreal Engine. As far as I know, jME3 Comunity donāt care what they do.
You are coding and some hobbyst.
I make 3D art and i make games.
This is why we will never understand each other
And why iām not at my place in such 3D engine for coders forum.
Have a good day.