How much do you make from ads, and how much does upkeep cost?
Not much = about 30 euros/month.
Really nice, although I’m liking the 2D version as well 
What do you use for your GUI ? FengGUI ?
And why JPCT over jMonkeyEngine or any other engine ?
Thanks!
I made the GUI from scratch, I just paint image over image… 
I had much trouble with Ardor3D, which i tried first. JMonkeyEngine seemed like a complete game engine to me. It would be too big for Forgotten Elements, that already existed as a 2D game before I started developing the 3D version.
JPCT is quite “developer friendly”, straightforward and it really fits well with my project.
EgonOlsen (developer of JPCT) helped me pretty much, without that support I would’nt have advanced that fast.
It is my first 3D game, btw…
There are some examples on the official repository. Renanse, MrCoder and other contributors (including me) would have been glad to help you. I admit there are a few open source games using it :persecutioncomplex: Ok there is only one open source game using it but it’s mine so it’s not my fault if other developers don’t release their source codes. Ardor3D is reliable but it concentrates on fewer aspects than JMonkeyEngine, you have to fill the gap by yourself to create a real game.
JMonkeyEngine has a very large community, tons of tutorials and lots of features but you’re not forced to use and deploy them all, it is modularized.
As it is proprietary (as far as I know), you still have to rely on its developer (who is kind).
I was really impressed as I saw the Ardor3D demos on its website. Its really looking great and its fantastic what possibilities you have with the engine!
I wanted to test it, but after hours of work (In October 2011 I made a thread in the Ardor3D forum: http://ardor3d.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3579&p=12591&hilit=marlon#p12591), I gave up.
And yeah, now I remember, you helped me! The community and the team at Ardor3D is really nice!
But maybe the engine is not the first choice for my game.
On the same day I switched to JPCT and after a few minutes I had my first test program running…
WRT: Making money. I really like the “The Kingdom of Loathing” method. There’s a regular in game currency. And when you donate you get a special currently per $10 donation. The trick is that the donation currency is effectively a regular item than can be bought, sold and traded for in-game. So no one is locked out of any special content that must be bought with the special currency. And as most of the items only buyable with the special currency can be sold, bought and traded for in-game (monthly stuff BTW)…this creates a very interesting economy.
Guild wars 2 is doing that exact thing, and when I read it I was pretty psyched, becuase finally I won’t feel constantly locked out becuase I am cheap :P.
Wow, this is a really cool idea! I will think about it!
Really ? Wow I didn’t know one could build such complex GUI from scratch…
How do you detect mouse click over GUI elements ? With OpenGL picking ?
I just wrote functions for that (isHover(), isTouch()) and calculate mouse click on object priority (childs of a gui element have higher priority for example).
The whole GUI system wasn’t that hard. It was more hard to actually design them as I am not a born graphic designer. :persecutioncomplex:
OpenGL picking is not recommended, see the official OpenGL FAQ.
How to register? :clue:
Why is it not ?
Is it because of slow performances ?
Are you referring to this page ?
http://www.opengl.org/archives/resources/faq/technical/selection.htm
Ok, I think I found it.
http://www.opengl.org/wiki/Common_Mistakes#Selection_and_Picking_and_Feedback_Mode
So instead, is color-based picking a viable solution nowadays ?
I’ve read that the only problem is being careful with the color precision of OpenGL, depending on how many bits are used for a color.
Why are you thinking in such a complicated way… ;)…to detect if the mouse clicks on/hovers above a simple GUI element, you just have to compare 2D mouse coordinates with 2D screen coordinates of the GUI element. No need for any kind of advanced picking or something like that.
Yes
My question was broader, for picking in general in a 3D scene, because I didn’t know that OpenGL picking was obsolete.
Nice art. Who did the art?
We use a third party library or any build-in feature to do that. For example, Ardor3D uses software picking.