There comes a time when you leave the basic shapes behind and make something fancier. Whether the 3D game of your dreams is set on a terrain, in a city, or in a space station; whether the characters roaming your maps are unicorns, warriors, or race cars: unless you generate procedural graphics on the fly, you need 3D models to populate your world.
In the previous chapters, you acquired the two essential skills that a 3D game developer needs: you can initialize a scene, and you can make it interactive using the update loop and input listeners. With what you know, you could already write your own Blockout! Granted, falling cubes are not very exciting. Where are the ninjas, space ships, and cities?
In this chapter you will learn:
How to build anything from triangles
How to create 3D models and scenes
How to store and load 3D models
How to animate 3D models
How to load 2D icons and text
Let's add some character to our game!