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 – nothing but blue sky


The following image shows a simple example of six images that make up a game's background panorama: you see the top (blue sky), the bottom (the ground), and four sides (a snow-covered mountain at the horizon).

The trick with skies is that you project these six textures onto the insides of a gigantic cube that encompasses your whole scene. This popular approach of faking a background is called environment mapping. When we use a six-image CubeMap to simulate a sky, we refer to the box as SkyBox.

You can create your own SkyBox from a vacation photo or poster in a graphic editor:

  1. Take six matching square snapshots of a panoramic view: one in each of the cardinal directions, plus one up, and one down.

  2. Use the tools of your graphic editor to make the seams of the photos match.

  3. Save them as six individual PNG files. Name them South, East, Up, Down, and so on.

To create a SkyBox, keep your six images ready, or use the ones provided with this book in assets/Textures...