Book Image

jMonkeyEngine 3.0 : Beginner's Guide

Book Image

jMonkeyEngine 3.0 : Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

jMonkeyEngine 3.0 is a powerful set of free Java libraries that allows you to unlock your imagination, create 3D games and stunning graphics. Using jMonkeyEngine's library of time-tested methods, this book will allow you to unlock its potential and make the creation of beautiful interactive 3D environments a breeze."jMonkeyEngine 3.0 Beginner's Guide" teaches aspiring game developers how to build modern 3D games with Java. This primer on 3D programming is packed with best practices, tips and tricks and loads of example code. Progressing from elementary concepts to advanced effects, budding game developers will have their first game up and running by the end of this book.From basic concepts and project creation to building a complex 3D Game, you will learn to layout 3D scenes, make them interactive and add various multi-media effects.You will find answers to common questions including best practices and approaches, how game characters can act and interact, how to simulate solid walls and physical forces, how to take it online to play over a network and much more.From Zero to Hero, start your journey to make your game idea a reality.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
jMonkeyEngine 3.0 Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Time for action – you are the CubeChaser


Let's do something more interactive than just look at rotating cubes. Can you write code that lets you chase one of the cubes? By chase we mean, if the camera moves closer than 10 WU to this cube, the cube should move away from the camera.

  1. Make another copy of the BasicGame object's Main.java template.

  2. Rename the copy to CubeChaser.java. Remember to also refactor the first line of the main() method to the following:

    CubeChaser app = new CubeChaser();
  3. Delete the blue cube and copy the myBox() convenience method from one of the previous target picking examples. Don't forget to copy the mesh class field.

  4. Add a makeCubes(40); call to the simpleInitApp() method and fill the scene with 40 randomly positioned and randomly colored cubes. Use the built-in method FastMath.nextRandomInt(min,max) (from com.jme3.math) to generate random coordinates in the interval between min and max.

    private void makeCubes(int number) {
      for (int i = 0; i < number; i++) {
        ...