Delta3D game engine - Please Read!

General Discussions
#1

Hi guys,
I come to you with a request that posses a great oppurtunity for all of the Java game developers out there.

First, a little history before I get to the request section of this post. The Delta3D game engine (www.delta3d.org) is a game engine backed by government funding that is completely open source and leverages many popular open source projects already in existence. It uses OpenSceneGraph for rendering, ODE for physics, any many others. The engine is being developed by researchers at the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, CA. I work for BMH, a modeling and simulation firm and we have been tasked with writing a level editor for the engine.

We have just finished the requirements and design phase of the project. We have a lot of experience with both Java and C++ but have decided (based on many pros) that we would like to write the level editor in Java. I have written several editor type applications for 3D environments in Java and the performance is quite good. One of the biggest benefits to using Java is the fact that we will also be building Java bindings for the entire engine. Much like OpenSceneGraph has Java bindings, so will the Delta3D game engine. Unfortunantly, we know that Java is still not very excepted in the gaming world.
so where as we are very excited, the community as a whole may not be.

I have seen numerous posts stating that the Java gaming world suffers from the lack of good technology such as a solid game engine for Java. Delta3D can be the answer to those problems. It is heavily funded and being developed by several professional software development teams, definantly not a hobby coder’s basement project.

Well, now that I’ve pitched my case, I along with my team, need your support. If you guys would like to see Java bindings for the Delta3D game engine, please go to the Delta3D website, read about the engine, and post on the forums stating your interest. If anyone wants further information, you can send me an email at my work address below. I trust that you guys will help and not hurt this process, so please no flame wars with either this post or any posts on the Delta3D forums. I would also like to note that the engine is under heavy development and many many features are in the works for the upcoming months.

Thank you for your time, and this is definantly an oppurtunity for the community to come together and really demonstrate the awesome qualities of open source software development.

-Matthew W. Campbell
Software Engineer, BMH Associates, Inc.
campbell@bmh.com

#2

Is this project intended to compete with software such as gamestudio? It seems interesting and I’d definitely be all for a tool like that, where I could use java instead of some crazy goofy scripted jive that’s extremely quirky (like cscript). I’m pretty sure that this is what the project is, and that’s great… but um, and this is the important part, just how far along is it now, what can it do, are there working projects that we can see and touch? Basically could I develope a game with delta3d right now, and there be some signficant benifit to using it in place of the existing technologies that are in frequent use here in these forums (things like jogl, lwjgl, xith, java3d, or even the java bindings for OpenSceneGraph)?

#3

Sounds well. Will have a closer look on your Web site.
Thanks for the URL.

#4

The Delta3D project was started because the government was more or less tired of paying costly fees for other engines. So now, not only is the government benefiting from this, but its entirely open source to the public. You can most certainly write a complete game using the engine now, but there are a lot of features in the works. Check out the website for more details.

In its current state, it could not be used in place of things like jogl, or the java osg bindings because it is a C++ based game engine. But we are at a crossroad. We are currently researching whether or not to provide Java bindings for the engine so all you Java develops will get the same benefits as the c++ developers. So, if you guys are interested please let us know. If we do decide to include Java bindings it will take about a month to complete.

#5

I’d say do it to just increase options to the developer community, although personally I’m currently committed to the excellent jME.

It would probably be worthwhile to attend the following as well, seeing as it’s the GDC and I’m sure the topic will be under heavy discussion.

Practical Java Game Development
Speakers: Dustin Clingman (President, Zeitgeist Games), Shawn Kendall (Course Director Full Sail), Syrus Mesdaghi
Time/Date: Tuesday (March 8, 2005) 10:00am — 6:00pm
Track: Programming
Format: Full-Day Tutorial
Experience Level: Intermediate - Basic familiarity or some experience.
Description: Practical Java Game Development introduces attendees to the latest advances in game development on the Java platform. Topics will include 3D graphics programming, high performance audio rendering, as well as a number of tips and tricks for developers leveraging Java in current production.

Idea Takeaway: The key takeaways from this tutorial center on a strong understanding of the core technologies available on the Java platform, along with an analysis of the challenges and benefits of working with Java.

Intended Audience and Prerequisites: The intended audience is comprised of existing Java game developers, as well as intermediate programmers of all technologies. Knowledge of Java is a pre-requisite for attendance.

http://www.cmpevents.com/GD05/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=3935

#6

[quote]Hi guys,
-Matthew W. Campbell
Software Engineer, BMH Associates, Inc.
campbell@bmh.com
[/quote]
wow, my name is Matthew W. Campbell too! :o
My middle name is William…

#7

That sounds very interesting. Especially to me since I havent invested a lot of effort in any of the existing 3rd party tools and libraries. There are several reasons behind that.
[]Most 3rd party tools are still buggy and/or only work on certain hardware
[]Most 3rd party tools are still in incomplete stage
[]The future of many 3rd party tools are very uncertain
[]The documentation is bad or non-existant
[*]Lack of real examples. (You are on your own if you want to do more than rotate a texturized cube)
I am sure that you will get big support from community quite quickly, if you can tacle the above issues.
I would do backflips of joy if I could have some sort of high level 3D gfx tool (OSG), ODE, CAL3D, sound and user IO in one solid package!

Keep posting on the progress!

#8

Why don’t you do your engine completely in Java, except for the opengl bindings of course. Then if you think its too slow probe your engine performance and rewrite only those crytical spots in C++ for speed.

I have to do a C++ engine core at the moment and its a pain compared to java. Its horrible to work with threads, its very troublesome to make protable code and if you want to do something as simple as loading code dynamically at runtime and assign it to a class its very hard to do and debug.

#9

The Delta3D engine is very good. It’s fast, light-weight and has alot of powerful features. I would love a Java binding for it.

[quote]Why don’t you do your engine completely in Java, except for the opengl bindings of course. Then if you think its too slow probe your engine performance and rewrite only those crytical spots in C++ for speed.
[/quote]
The engine already exists and has alot of users. It’s to late to switch, and maintaining two versions is probably out of the question. If they did, the Java version would probably end up falling behind. A binding is a good solution to get Java into the picture.

#10

[quote]But we are at a crossroad. … So, if you guys are interested please let us know.
[/quote]
Why don’t you write an article on it? That could get a lot of people more interested, assuming you explain what the engine is (in your own words) and why it’s good, and throw out some bluesky ideas about how java games devs could benefit?

If you have anything except internet explorer (there’s an MSIE bug on the submit page which we need to workaround because MS are lazy bastards), then you can go to JGF now (link below), go to the developers seciton, and file a proposal for a new article.

We’ll then get people to comment on it, provide suggestions or requests for you to add more detail in certain areas etc, and then you can write the article and we’ll spellcheck it, fix grammatical errors etc, and publish it…

#11

A good decision. Its better to have Java bindings than some strange scripting language or none at all. I remenber when i played, Vampire the Masquerade, at the time it come out, every other game was bugged like hell and VTM was very stable. They used a javavm inside the the game for characters behavior and quest logic.

Strangely as it may seem most bugs are not on the core engine itself but in the quests logic. I find it quite weird that some game devs use python or some simplified almost cryptic scripting language when they could use a javavm.

For instance Morrowind (a game i know well) uses a simplified scripted language that could be made by a school kid that doesn’t even allow for nested if-then-else constructors or allows to associate boolean expressions.

The most weird part is that the game designers have built more than 100 scripts in this crazy language. Strangely the game wasn’t that buggy but they took more six months beyond the estimated time to complete the game.

#12

I’ve had a very brief play with Delta3d through work and I must say that I was fairly impressed. In the furture I may get to do some work with it and having a Java binding would help me in my quest to convert people from C++ :wink:

I also got a quick response on their forums too although the froums are quite small and thus give the impression of not beign used much. I just think it’s probably not too well known about at the moment.

I think that this is a good move, but I personally don’t know that I would use it above a pure Java solution like jME for my hobby work.

How do you intend to allow access to the underlying api’s like ODE and OSG? are you going to try and use the existing bindings to them or roll out some more that are more focussed on presenting a unified api? (if this makes sense?)

Dan.

#13

Hi,

 I don't really post on this forum, I mainly try to lurk and learn; however, as someone very impressed with the capabilities of Delta3D as an engine, and also someone who hugely prefers programming in Java, I would really be interested in a Java binding of this engine.

Sorry to necro an old thread, but I think this is important! :wink:

#14

The world has changed in the last two and a half years… you want to be looking at the Monkey Engine.

Cas :slight_smile:

#15

I know, I know…but there’s so much useful code just lying around there! :’(

(And my conservationist programmer doesn’t like seeing perfectly good code wasted).

Plus, Delta3D has mainly been getting attention from the military SIMULATION group of people, not the gamers (even though it technically fulfills most of my requirements for a game engine), and I want to change that (or see that changed)…

#16

Do you plan to rewrite Delta3D entirely in Java? It is interesting but a simple binding is not enough. This engine has got many features and has been used for professional military applications unlike JME as far as I know. I find this engine really impressive and rich.

:frowning: cegui is written in C++