It seems that most people are sure that sun will continue to say they are developing j3d…
well, in developpement or not, it’ll stay a very good and robust api.
Well a fork is a very good tool to eat spagethi but not soup. Java3d is very good for education purposes and if people dont have big demands for their games it can be nice too.
But look at things this way, if you want to develop a game with fair graphics for today standards then you will require some help from artists and musiciens. These guys use programs like 3dstudio and maya and music programs that export to midi or mp3. I cant say i have seen such good import utilities in java3d for 3dstudio or maya 3d formats.
There are some fair alternatives like java opengl or java openal but we can’t join java3d benefits with the flexibility of those apis. People cant create or modify the c++ bridge that comunicates with the lower level apis like opengl or directx to customize its own version of java3d with it.
Java3d is a very monolitic api at the lower level and that was probably the biggest mistake the java3d developers made. Being extremely flexible is a primary requirement for an api to be used in graphical intensive computer games development. Even more important than good and clean code or excelent documentation.
Im afraid that Sun has to concern themselfs with market share. Making an api that is good for teaching purposes means less bucks than making one with which computer game programers can make visually stunning games.
Only 7.4% of the voters was daring enough to believe it: Java3D being open/community sourced.
I guess there is no lesson to be learned from this poll, beside fulfilling my curiosity. 