A LongTerm Java Venture

[EmperorJon]

Ok, well, first post here.

I have some programming experience. But not in Java. I wish to make a game in Java, and I wish to use OpenGL, so LWJGL seemed like a good idea to use. I've yet to download it and get started, because I wish to ask a few questions first. (BTW, I'm willing to spend a long time learning, so I'm ok with throwing myself in the deep end.)

(Warning, I've done not much background research, possible obvious questions...)

1. Are there any nice tutorials out there for me to set up a 3D 'world' and start applying textures. (Start with the graphics, add some actual coding in later)
2. Does it include basically everything I'd need to get started with Java coding along with all the libraries?
3. Er... I was going to ask something else.

Oh well.

Thanks in adv.
Please don't go all 'Oh you should get started on something simpler/not 3D/not using OpenGL etc. etc. I'm willing to persevere.

[CodeBunny]

Glad to know you're interested in Java and LWJGL! Both are pretty awesome for a lot of reasons.

It's good that you're willing to take a long time; trust me, that's what will happen. However, since you accept it, you now are able to relax and not worry about how long things are taking!

1: The "standard" recommendation is the NeHe tutorial set, they're a bit old and written in C but they cover the basics of OpenGL very well (additionally, a lot of the code has been ported to a lot of languages, so you can usually find examples in LWJGL). And you'll actually want to begin with straight code and then transition into using ported models, etc. Things will go faster in the long run.

2: By it, I'll assume you mean LWJGL. The answer: yes! LWJGL is a very complex library, but an extremely enabling one. Some things take a lot of code, some things relatively little, and some things are helped by additional packages (Slick-Util, for example). However, once you have the basic libraries, you can do basically anything you want.

And, yes, I did read your last line, but:

Advice: Take this stuff in steps. "Divide and conquer." First learn the basics of Java (if you know object-oriented programming in another language, this shouldn't be too hard - say a weekend or so). Then, do some simple 2D rendering with LWJGL (textured quads with GL11.glBegin is a easy entry into the complex land of OpenGL). Once you've got that down, you can start figuring out how 3D works.

I don't doubt that you're willing to persevere - I know the feeling. However, that recommendation is based on a belief that you'll actually get to well-executed 3D faster than if you muddle through everything all at once. Keep in mind I'm not telling you to lay off, I'm simply attempting to lay out a simple path to get where you want to go.

[Mickelukas]

I can also recommend reading (and posting) on http://www.java-gaming.org. There are a lot of helpful people there (pretty much everyone here posts there too) and they taught me a lot.

Mike