I'm barely toes to knee deep with jme2 so far and I really like what I've been able to accomplish in the very little spare time I have, but seeing all the latest buzz with jme3 has been making me want to switch before I get too far into jme2. - Four things I'm interested in (omg started with 2, question creeeeep!):
- I'm working with Sprites for characters (artistic preference) and with jme2 I was planning on just doing cheeky shadows with the surrounding world geometry and just a simple round shadow quad or projected shadow below the sprites. However, with jme3 would I be able to project a shadow through the sprite to accomplish a sudo-shadow? IE. shadows on transparent textures (white/black alpha).
- Dealing moreso with the lights - Is there support in jme3 for lights that pass through semi-transparent objects. For example, sunlight passing through a stained glass/colored glass window? I assume using the raytracing in jme3 this would be possible, but even if that's the only way, that's pretty neat!
- BillboardNodes are still in jme3 right? Right? (Crosses fingers) =p
- I've been playing with spotlight in jme2 a lot lately and I understand a lot of it's pitfalls in comparison with the mere plethora of things you can pull off with a pointlight instead. Will support for non-pointlight light sources be better in jme3? For example, for the life of me I can't seem to get shadows working with a spotlight in jme2. - It just seems to me the pointlight can, and has to be, adapted a lot in jme2 to get the light you want, because it's sooooo much easier to get a good effect out of.
Thank you for all your hard work on these engines!
tehflah said:
I'm barely toes to knee deep with jme2 so far and I really like what I've been able to accomplish in the very little spare time I have, but seeing all the latest buzz with jme3 has been making me want to switch before I get too far into jme2. - Four things I'm interested in (omg started with 2, question creeeeep!):
1. I'm working with Sprites for characters (artistic preference) and with jme2 I was planning on just doing cheeky shadows with the surrounding world geometry and just a simple round shadow quad or projected shadow below the sprites. However, with jme3 would I be able to project a shadow through the sprite to accomplish a sudo-shadow? IE. shadows on transparent textures (white/black alpha).
I am not sure what you're making here, so it would be good to have more details. Are you making a primarily 2D game or is the game mostly 3D with just sprites for characters?
To do blob shadows in 3D, all you have to do is to place a quad representing the blob shadow at the character's feet, which would be the bottom of the sprite.
tehflah said:
2. Dealing moreso with the lights - Is there support in jme3 for lights that pass through semi-transparent objects. For example, sunlight passing through a stained glass/colored glass window? I assume using the raytracing in jme3 this would be possible, but even if that's the only way, that's pretty neat!
Effects like this require heavy usage of shaders, ray-tracing requires supercomputers to do in real time. I think I am starting to lose you here, since you said you wanted sprites for characters- is this supposed to be a photorealistic world or a pseudo-3D-with-2D-elements world? Because it certainly can't be both.
tehflah said:
3. BillboardNodes are still in jme3 right? Right? (Crosses fingers) =p
The question is phrased wrongly :P It's not whether they are still here, but whether they were added into the new and shiny jME3, the answer is no. It is quite easy to do that though. I added this as an issue to the issue tracker so it will get done at some point.
tehflah said:
4. I've been playing with spotlight in jme2 a lot lately and I understand a lot of it's pitfalls in comparison with the mere plethora of things you can pull off with a pointlight instead. Will support for non-pointlight light sources be better in jme3? For example, for the life of me I can't seem to get shadows working with a spotlight in jme2. - It just seems to me the pointlight can, and has to be, adapted a lot in jme2 to get the light you want, because it's sooooo much easier to get a good effect out of.
Spot lights are actually quite difficult to implement completely in shaders, however with the move to fully multipass lighting it might be possible. Once again I don't understand how the sprites come into the equation here, since lighting will look quite terrible on them, regardless of point or spot light.
tehflah said:
Thank you for all your hard work on these engines!
And thank you for checking the engine :)