Thinking about going for jME for our student project

Troubleshooting General Help
1

Hello,



We're thinking about choosing jME for a student project (bachelor's level, starting in 2009), but we have a couple of questions.


  1. Smoke, fire, explosions - How easy/difficult will it be to show stuff like that? Do we have make these effects of our own or are there thing we can use?
  2. Networking possibilites. I've seen talk about JGN and that it's a "work in progress". Is it stable and good enough for us to use in our project?
  3. How "noob-friendly" would you say jME is compared other alternatives?



    Thanks in advance.
2

jme has a particle system, with that you can create your own effects.

There is also a particle Editor which makes it easier to find the right settings for a certain effect.

-> http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/webstart/jmedemo.php?effects.RenParticleEditor

(might be a bit slow to load)



I think learning jme is not very hard if you can adapt from existing source.

There is a small test case for almost for every feature in the jmetest package.

3
nednull said:

2. Networking possibilites. I've seen talk about JGN and that it's a "work in progress". Is it stable and good enough for us to use in our project?

Yes, I think so. There are tests as well, that come with JGN which will show you how to use it. Couldn't get much easier.
4

For the third question…I've found jMonkey to be pretty good with the noob factor. If you're solid with java, and CS in general, you shouldn't have a problem. This past semester myself and another created a networked checkers game for a school project (networking was with RMI - but I was only responsible for the client). Originally it was only to be a swing app, but I wanted to get my feet wet with jMonkey and things worked out reasonably well (nothing terribly fancy). Though, now our professor is considering using jMonkey for next semester's class (its a software engineering course).



Though, I'd definitely say start small and build incrementally, rather than trying to create some ubertastic game right off the bat. Its the best way to learn in my opinion.