Hello all,
I am a new java developer. In the past, all I have ever done is utility applications for my workplace. I really enjoy gaming, and am very happy to have found jME, but my question is this:
Should I go ahead and jump into the 3d world and start trying to play with jME, or would it be more benificial to work with a 2d or even text based game first to get my feet wet?
Thank you for your thoughts and consideration!
– Lee
Some background 3D knowledge helps lots, more specifically OpenGL knowledge as jME uses that as it’s graphics API. Reading the jME wiki helps if you never did anything 3D as it mostly concentrates on “how to do this” rather than teach you the concepts.
In my humble opinion, go ahead and dive in to jME.
Linke Momoko_fan said there is a lot of surrounding knowledge and background knowledge that will help.
In my experience, you soak that up like a sponge when you are enjoying yourself and making progress.
Ifyou try to learn it all up front, it can be overwhelming - and often doesn't make sense until you have got under the covers.
I first started looking at Java 3D engines a few years ago now, and it didn't take me long to settle on jME. But I figured there were a lot of things I needed to learn first before I started writing 3D (like err… Java :-o ).
Basically I got nowhere fast ever since. The last few weeks I just thought right, I have some free time and I'm gonna write a game… now I'm proressing at a rate of knots.
I find jME to be for the most part very easy to get going with - and you learn much better when you're inspired.
Thanks to all… Im in the middle of the Flag Rush tut atm, and enjoying it alot
From your first post I would assume that you are already quite familiar with Java, so I don't think that learning JME (or any library for that matter) would be problematic. What I would recommend is to start of small, and don't try to create a MMORPG as your first game 
yes, the hardest part is thinking in 3d, and dealing with graphics, which i have never done.
One thing i noticed is that in the FlagRush tutorial, the code on the wiki pages doesnt always match up with what works, or is in the CVS version. I believe that (maybe?) some things in the wiki tut use V2.0 of jME?
I have 2 ideas currently for my first game, one is a PacMan clone which starts off looking like the classic 2d version, and then when you eat one of the "powerballs" it rotates the screen to the left, and puts you in 3rd person view behind pac-man, chasing 3d ghosts and eating 3d pellets until the effect of the power-up wears off…
the other is a simple tankwars game running around, and firing at enemy tanks.
hopefully one will turn out to be a decent starter project. I stink at artistry, so I am going to have to (at first) rely on online repositories for things such as textures and models.
– Lee
all of the flagrush code is also checked into cvs / svn: jmetest.flagrushtut.lessonX package. there you have always the most recent source.
the stuff in the wiki is likely to be outdated.
I think your second idea, the tank war game is easier for a start, because you can start with two boxes as tanks on a big flat quad and then work from there.
to fully utilize jme and java, good software engineering and architecture design knowledge is the most important i think. the second on the list would be 3d graphic knowledge specificly on openGL and GLSL.
some math skills could also help but u can always find references.
so heres my list:
- Software engineering + architecture deisgn knowledge.
- OpenGL + GLSL knowledge.
- 3D math.
linear algebra, linear algebra and linear algebra…and alot of trial and error
Any recommendations for reading material on "Software engineering + architecture deisgn knowledge."? I have read and just love "Head first design patterns" but I wonder what else is out there what people might advise?
Simple question I know, but how would one go about getting a quad to show up natively horizontal, and keep a 3 demensional Box from being centered in such a way that the Quad intersects the center of the box?
My thought was to simply rotate my camera angle, however in doing that, the references are all mixed up (I.E. x-axis becomes the y axis, etc.)
Thanks for the help here. Im really having fun with it!
Design knowledge, I have some of, math, not so much but with places like http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2151/math3d.html I can limp along
if you simply want to rotate a quad 90
Mindgamer said:
Any recommendations for reading material on "Software engineering + architecture deisgn knowledge."? I have read and just love "Head first design patterns" but I wonder what else is out there what people might advise?
component design is new. well theres always the old MVC design and a bunch of others i dont remember their names
Yeah…just dive right in.
I'm new to this whole thing and you'd be amazed on how far I've gotten with my current project.
I can also echo getting those Head First books…both on Java and Design patterns. Must reads IMHO.