Hello, I have been having trouble getting into using jMonkey because text tutorials are not the best way for many to learn, including myself. Having someone in a video, explaining step by step not only what they are doing but why, is paramount in others picking up your engine and using it. Right now I use Unity because of its ease of use, component-based design flow and the plethora of video resources out there for me to learn from.
I think if the core developers stopped focusing on code for a while and spent a few months making some good jMonkey video tutorials that you would attract more to the engine.
JME is not Unity in any way and projects using it are meant to be code-based, not visual-stuffed. Could you learn how to code from video tutorials? For me it’s like learning how to write (using pen and paper) by just hearing about it.
I think if forum posters stopped focusing on complaining for a while and spent a few months making some good jMonkey video tutorials that you would attract more to the engine.
My day-to-day concerns are as follows in order of decreasing priority:
taking care of my family
earning a sufficient living to do (1) properly
spending time with my kids
working on open source technology the helps me write games.
writing games
answering questions of Java developers who want to know more about using JME and some of my other open source projects.
…about a hundred other things…
infinity) doing ugly slog work for free just to attract people who won’t be able to use the engine properly anyway…
Not high on my list. But if it is high on your list then by all means make some videos. (Never mind that there are already a bunch of videos.)
Yes, normen made some videos, and others too, but you heard the man:
The people here are all volunteers and for a classic open source project I find the community is communicating good and a lot and we also tolerate inexperienced people much more than others might do.
I still don’t get this - reading tutorials and learning by example and by doing is a very fast learning path already. So the only important thing must be the (interesting) “why” part.
There are already some texts here, explaining the meta “why” (like “Transparency for dummies” - which I already knew from OpenGL books, but others might find that very interesting).
Maybe some of the very experienced people could write some more of the meta “why”, just some things like “Best Practices using jME” or “Why you should separate graphics from logic” or “Entity System essentials with small jME example”. But remember, that this is always volunteer work and that noobs are asking for help which is essentially like a pro giving you gratis stuff. Also there are blog articles and books on general game development and 3 special jME books already and they all offer knowledge too. Unity videos that are good usually cost money. Also there is a whole teaching industry around it - not quite fair to compare that to jME. I looked into their forum and it’s like 500k top views there versus 2k top views here (per single topic).
All in all: reading and toying around is the fastest learning path and many people who ask questions here did not even take the time to go through the basic resources that the wiki has to offer to them. Some wiki pages are bad, but many are really good…
…while video tutorials are always good, in this particular case, i disagree … as prog mentioned, JME is code centric and video tutorial of watching someone types code, doesn’t really help much…current docs/tutorial form, far as i can tell, are very good as directly showing you what needs to be done and links to particular additional subjects of interest, if any needed…
am i missing something here, :), Normen Hansen has channel and has usecase for it
even I am not big fan to video tutorial, I prefer texts but there is many, it might be not as provided by unity for example,
but what attract me to jmonkey that it is code centric, so you can have a code and debug and trace it and mess with it and find what happen in your game, there is no magic checkbox inside a tab misplaced in some menu, forgetting checking it waste hours of your time
The thing is, there is a lot of videos of Jme, talking about everything, the problem is that they are hard to find…There is even videos for the plugins etc. After some time you get used to this, but I understand that it would be better if this kind information was a bit easier to find, mainly for new users…
Maybe, it would be an good idea to create an link for videos related into each page ( I know how hard is to do that ).
Or, to have an place in the wiki where people could upload videos as well talking about it, or even an youtube channel where people could send videos ? What I mean, is to have an centralized place where you can find videos easily.
Hi friends
I respect all comments from our experts . and I am agree that for an intermediate or advanced java programmer it is not a big challenge to learn JME because you know?! … it is Java after all also texts are even better than video in this case .
There are perfect text tutorials in wiki and books .
But I think it would be so good to consider the beginners too (whoever likes game making). I wish every body can use it .
For this reason I started with my own country . I am pretty sure so so less people use JME for games in my country . Most of them use engines like Unity and … .
Even though I myself am not an expert in java but I want to do it . Do What ?
Meanwhile I am creating a game for a commercial release I want to create a video tutorial for it from scratch (from where to start how to program it and anythings related to it like blender , makehuman and other free tools ) .
It will be in my own language not English. If it was successful I absolutely will also create an English one for beginners . As I said I am not a pro but really love to make JME and so Java popular for gaming in my country . I hope you like what I want to do .
Ali, the idea is not about Java Developer do not like the video tutorial, but the idea if someone find the video tutorial useful go make it, that is the idea of open source.
I would suggest that you should contribute to JME by learning an little bit, then making a video about what you learned, then learning a little bit more, then making a video about that as well, repeat ad infinitum until its all done because using jMonkeyEngine has saved you $1500 on a licence or a few years work making your own engine, but I am not arrogant enough to make demands on another human being who doesn’t work for me so I won’t suggest that.
Yeah i agree with pretty much everything already said here. Iv’e been toying with jme3 for about a week or two now and i only use text tutorials/examples. Mainly because my internet speed is abhorrent (Seriously i average like 50kb/s) and honestly, if you write out( or even cut and paste code), modify it and then make a little something something from it, you will remember how it works and how to use it. There is an example or documentation for nearly every feature in this engine, and best of all it can be accessed by simply pressing F1 !!! No internet needed
What exactly is the issue that you are presented with? The code that is shown in the examples will work out of the box, so I don’t understand why you have an issue?
What would be explained differently in a video, that isn’t already explained in text?
The core developers have 2 jobs
Making sure JME kicks ass
Answering my questions…
That’s all
There are videos out there, and I’m sure many users could make videos. If people really want videos, I could make some, but I don’t know what I could say, that hasn’t been said already, and I myself, am not an expert in this application, even after 2 years of using it.
It takes awhile to understand gaming. Unity might be easier because it might be attracting lower level of coders/people who don’t even have to code. I’m assuming Unity doesn’t have plug and play where you just slab crap together like in applications such as “GameMaker” and that Unity is code based mostly? Though you did mention “component-based design” so I guess it might be easier with a design base.
I believe we have SceneEditor and such which does similar things, but JME is mostly a coding platform, that requires you to understand what’s going on.
An video explains much better then words or even images, also there is some cases that just a video to gives you an general perception on what is going on, I recommend you to read a bit about communications differences and approaches. For example, for someone that never hear about isometric surfaces, an video of 10 secs will explain what would be impossible to explain in pages and pages of words or even in lots of images…
About videos, I already stated, my opinion is that the problem is not that there is not much videos, there is, the problem is there is no tool for an novice to find it easily, sure the guy could try to find in youtube jme videos, but some people here dont added the proper title ( I included ), maybe if everyone did what normen did it would be nice, to add an page here talking about his channel… Also, an sugestion could be adding an issue description to create topics like “jme videos”, so peaple could post there the link to his videos and it would fixed the find video issue, peaple log here in the forum, and find stuff on the “jme videos” topics.
If you’re building something and you need to show it’s building process, then a video is much better than pictures; however we are writing code… As in you take the code example, and plop that bad boy into your IDE, and run it…
It should explain what things do, but in either case it could be explained better or worse. The code is still there, and personally, watching code on video bores the hell out of me, because a lot of people type slow as crap…
Now what you’re talking about is features, so graphical features could be found in many videos, not just JME.
I’m not sure what you mean by “novice,” but do you mean a programming novice, or someone just new to JME?
When I first came here, I dove into JME, looked at tutorials for what I needed, and just coded. It was important for me to look through all of the basic tutorials, learn them, and understand them.
The docs can be somewhat limited, but there’s a ton of good information in them. I really appreciate what has been put into it, but it could definitely use an update/improvements.
In reality the best thing is to just post on the forums. I’ve learned so much from members like @pspeed who have spent time helping me (when he wasn’t telling me to search the forums for other similar posts ), and there is so much involved in JMonkey that unless you have something super specific it should already be posted, and easily understood.
Some people like to learn by being told verbally, as that is how we learned in school, but I learn better on my own, and by communicating with people and understanding it myself.
Maybe we should start a channel for videos, and people can contribute? I would contribute some videos for things, what do people want to know? I probably don’t know as much as others though
I'm not sure what you mean by "novice," but do you mean a programming novice, or someone just new to JME?
Novice in jme, I think peaple that are novice in programming will have hard time here, they need to know java to use jme.
Its possible to create an shared channel in youtube, but I dont know if the cores are willing to administrate it…
Maybe and new topic title would do ? Lets hear from they.
also texts are even better than video in this case .
. Do What ? 
), and there is so much involved in JMonkey that unless you have something super specific it should already be posted, and easily understood.