This is just a general question about the limitations of J3D. Has anyone been able to develop a highly detailed, fluid 3D game (i.e. on the scale of a Unreal Tournament, Quake III etc.) ? I'm debating on whether to learn J3D, but if it isn't possible to develop cool games etc. then I don't want to waste my time. If someone has could you point to where I could see an example.
Thanks,
Dan
To be honest: I think the first limit you will encounter while trying to build a game like XXX or wathever is your own skill not the language you are using. Sorry.
But back to J3D try
www.javagaming.org
for some examples
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jsp?forum=21&thread=182718
for some discussion...*sigh*
That disscusion is old.... october 2001 or something... lets get some new stuff in here..
Someone once asked me why OpenGL wasn't built into java. The said any platform indepented implementation of 3D graphics should use OpenGL as its API... That was a good point.. However, Java 3D goes one better then OpenGL. It's what I like to call "3D API independent" also. If OpenGL happens to be the best API supported on your system, Java3D will use it. If DirectX happens to be the best... Java3D will use that. Pretty good right?
With Java 1.4 you have direct access to video memory using Java. The BufferStratagy class allows you to move the video memory pointer to flip images on the screen. This is how the "big boys" do it in C.... There is still a bit of overhead in calling these native things with Java.. However, that overhead is getting very small. A game written in Java3D should be able to easily get 60+ fps on the average gaming PC. Javagaming.org had some pictures of a race game that was entirely java3d... very slick...
Read the volatile image paper on javagaming.org. Great place to start learning how to make Java graphics fast... and how it's done... 2D or 3D.... Java graphics are here to stay, and with Java development cycles in the gaming world... the fun has just started.