Advice Please...

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#1

I’m in the process of developing a ‘Zelda’-like Adventure game. Actually, I have been in this process for years but I still haven’t given up on the idea. :slight_smile:

After trials and failures I’m deciding to start anew and attempt using Java 3D. I had a working engine using a top-down 2D tile system but it was too sluggish for my liking and required me to produce about ten thousand .gif animations for everything I wanted in the game, and since I do not have the production impetus of Square or Blizzard I bagged the idea.

What I want to do is have a three dimensional ‘ground’ surface the player walks on. The camera will be at a set angle - above and tilted slightly over the main character. I imagine it will look something like the World map portions of the later Final Fantasy series (7,8,9). My question is: What is the best way to do this? Would it be relatively simple to use something like SceneGraph or would I be better off using one of the third-party APIs? Also is there a really good tutorial/guide on this? The run-of-the-mill Sun tutorial gave a pretty good introduction to the 3D Java system but proved pretty much useless for making a game as advanced as this.

Anyone who might have an interest in this project is more than welcome to join the circus. We have a lot of great ideas, artwork, music, sound, and such. Now comes the task of putting it all together and doing the nasty task of designing and building the engine.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Best,
Steve

#2

hi,
i don’t have the usual postion most people over here have, but i would tend to say 4 things:

1) Java3D: good choice
Why? Because it’s the most mature api, reliable and easy to start off with. (And i personnally love it!)

2) Not an engine, a game.
J3d has everything needed to implement easely a virtual world and manage it, give it live like you would do on real objects… It’s already a 3D engine, making the “zelda” engine is a layer over it.

3) Sun’s tutorial == everything needed
They are good, complete and sufficient. Nevertheless, only few people do the effort to read them well. However, this other tutorial from breakfast can give you an idea.

4) Be aware that the enormous difficulties remain
It’s damn harsh long work, never forget it. The main difficulties are doing it, making good gameplay, making it fun and polishing it. So be aware!

cheers

#3

Thank you. Most appreciated.

I’ve been mucking through the Java 3D Tutorial and I agree that it seems like a very manageable option. I also recognize that getting this game to operate and look good isn’t going to be easy even using the fairly straightforward Java3D API.

There is something that I can’t seem to find in the Tutorial doc, and that is how to set up an “infinite” plane. Does anyone have an idea of how to achieve the effect of having a huge flat plane that seems endless (i.e. ocean water)? To me it just seems like something that would be obvious but alas it is escaping me.

Also, is terrain rendering a portion of the Java 3D API or do you have to use a third party system (i.e. ‘VTerrain’)?

Thanks again,

Steve

#4

Java3d do not have an infinite plane. You have to use polygons. And the polygons will be clipped against the view frustum which limits the distance you can see. Fog can be used to hide the horizon.

Terrain rendering is not part of java3d.

#5

nothing is infinite, everything has dimensions. They can only look like infinite. Some techniques:
-Big terrain
-Using LOD (level of distance) to lower polygon rendering computation.
-Fog
-A “skybox”.

terrain is rendered like everything else, i guess you wanted to ask if terrain generation was available?
the answer is no.
Here are 2 j3d terrain generators:
http://code.j3d.org/
https://java3dgamesdk.dev.java.net/
i’ve no idea if they’re good or not and others exist, so you can take your time and seek your luck.