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JMonkeyEngine 3.0 Cookbook

By : Rickard Eden
Book Image

JMonkeyEngine 3.0 Cookbook

By: Rickard Eden

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JMonkeyEngine 3.0 Cookbook
Rickard Eden
Aug, 2014 | 298 pages
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Table of Contents (17 chapters)
jMonkeyEngine 3.0 Cookbook
jMonkeyEngine 3.0 Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
SDK Game Development Hub
SDK Game Development Hub
Introduction
Setting up a project
Importing a model
Using Scene Composer
Modifying heightmaps with Terrain Editor
Adding a sky box and lighting
Adding water using a filter
Adding some ambient audio
Creating bitmap fonts with Font Creator
Retrieving an attachment node
Using ParticleEmitter – Soaring Birds
An advanced ParticleEmitter class
2
Cameras and Game Controls
Cameras and Game Controls
Introduction
Creating a reusable character control
Attaching an input AppState object
Firing in FPS
Firing non-instant bullets
Creating an RTS camera AppState object
Selecting units in RTS
Making the camera follow units
Following a character with ChaseCamera
Adding a game controller or joystick input
Leaning around corners
Detecting cover automatically in a third-person game
3
World Building
World Building
Introduction
Using noise to generate a terrain
Lighting your world and providing it with dynamic lights
Deforming a terrain in real time
Automating trees' distribution
Endless worlds and infinite space
Flowing water with cellular automata
The essentials of a cube-based world
4
Mastering Character Animations
Mastering Character Animations
Introduction
Previewing animations in SDK
Creating an animation manager control
Extending the animation control
Handling jump animations
Creating a custom animation - leaning
Creating a subanimation
Lip syncing and facial expressions
Eye movement
Location-dependent animation – edge check
Aligning feet with ground – inverse kinematics
5
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence
Introduction
Creating a reusable AI control class
Sensing – vision
Sensing – hearing
Decision making – Finite State Machine
Creating the AI using cover
Generating NavMesh in SDK
Pathfinding – using NavMesh
Controlling groups of AI
Pathfinding – our own A* pathfinder
6
GUI with Nifty GUI
GUI with Nifty GUI
Introduction
Initializing Nifty and managing an options menu
Loading the screen
Creating an RPG dialog screen
Implementing a game console
Handling a game message queue
Creating an inventory screen
Customizing the input and settings page
Using offscreen rendering for a minimap
7
Networking with SpiderMonkey
Networking with SpiderMonkey
Introduction
Setting up a server and client
Handling basic messaging
Making a networked game – Battleships
Implementing a network code for FPS
Loading a level
Interpolating between player positions
Firing over a network
Optimizing the bandwidth and avoiding cheating
8
Physics with Bullet
Physics with Bullet
Introduction
Creating a pushable door
Building a rocket engine
Ballistic projectiles and arrows
Handling multiple gravity sources
Self-balancing using RotationalLimitMotors
The principles of a bridge-building game
Networked physics
9
Taking Our Game to the Next Level
Taking Our Game to the Next Level
Introduction
Creating a muzzle flash using ParticleEmitter
Creating a trigger system
Creating a timer trigger
Adding an interaction trigger
Controlling AI with triggers
Creating a dynamic skybox with a moving sun
Improving a scene with postprocessing filters
Performing complex movements with MotionPaths
Cutscenes using cinematics
Using a positional audio and environmental effects
Information Fragments
Information Fragments
Introduction
Downloading the plugins
Enabling nightly builds
Adding Bullet physics to the application
Jaime animation frames for phonemes
The AnimationEvent patch
The ImageGenerator class
The CellUtil class
Index
Index

Making the camera follow units

This recipe will cover some principles on how to make the camera follow something in the game world. While it might seem like an easy task at first, there are some tricky bits too.

Getting ready

The recipe will build upon the Creating an RTS camera AppState object recipe of this chapter. All of the steps described in this recipe will be applied to AppState.

How to do it...

To make the camera follow units, perform the following steps:

  1. We start by adding two new variables, which we'll use for the new functionality. A Vector3f variable, called targetLocation, will be used to track the target, and a Boolean variable called follow, will be used to declare whether the camera should track the target or not. These are set from external classes.

  2. Out of convenience, we also define a final Vector3f variable, called UNIT_XZ, which we set to(1f, 0, 1f). We'll use this to convert 3D positions to 2D.

  3. Then, we need to add some functionality in the update method just before cam.setLocation...

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