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 – navigating the scene


Let's look at things from a different perspective:

  1. Run the BasicGame template once more.

  2. Press the W, A, S, and D keys to move forward, left, backwards, and right. Move the mouse to turn around. This navigates your camera away from the default location.

  3. Press the C key while the application is running to print the current camera location and rotation to the console.

In your Java code, you can access the current camera location, which is also the location of the player in a first-person game, using getters on the cam object:

Vector3f   loc = cam.getLocation();
Quaternion rot = cam.getRotation();

If you want the camera to start out at a different location in the scene, position it using the following:

cam.setLocation(x,y,z);
cam.setRotation(q);

The default navigational keys in the included samples are optimized for QWERTY keyboards. Every game has its unique navigation that you will have to define yourself, including a way to let your users with a non-QWERTY...