LWJGL and Rendering Objects based on co-ordinates

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Hello,

I have been reading these threads for quite some time, and have finally come across a question that I dont believe has been asked.
But how would one, bear in mind that Im working on a MMORPG based game as a personal project that could potentially take me years(Do note that I know it may be a waste of time, but hey Im learning and as long as Im still learning then time will never be wasted in my eyes).
But how would I get the client application to render a basic human body at a given co-ordinate then render items like weapons and armour based on the information that the server will send the the client.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. As I plan on become an active member of this forum and plan on asking loads more questions.

Thanks Termination.

#2

Do you know anything about OpenGL? Are you doing it in 2D or 3D?

In 3D, you could use an animated model which has various “control points” for items, accessories, etc. Then for each frame you simply find the control point, hide it (if it’s some sort of visible mesh), and replace it with your items/clothing. This isn’t really an easy topic if you are doing everything from the ground up; you may be better off using Ardor3D, jPCT, or jME.

#3

This will be a 3d based game, and as I said, doesn’t need to be easy, just want to learn and at the end of my learning have something I can say that I did based off my learning.

Good starting point though, is there a way in OpenGL to determine vector points on a 3d model that will be used to apple a different texture.
And how would one go about this for physcial objects in the 3d world. Obviously I would need to import an object that has a certain OpenGL render pattern and texture it.

Any guidance would be awesome.

#4

What game development experience do you have?

#5

I don’t have much experiance in game development, however Im a fast learning and have been reading about OpenGL for quite a while now.
As I said It doesn’t matter as much if it take me 5 years to get everything working this is a learning experience.
As such I have watched all TheCodingUniverse tutorials on youtube, have read davedes shading tutorials, and have begun reading Learning Modern 3D Graphics Programming tutorials to Java using LWJGL which is of great help.
Not only that but I have magnitudes of Java Books and have nearly finished my Associate Programming Certificate for Oracle on Java SE 6(Cant wait for the test).
I have many years of Java experience working with Swing Elements and as such Programming has inspired me exponentially in terms of I just cant stop thinking about it. Over the last 2 months I cant seem to get Java out of my head and it has overtaken my life when thinking of events and games.

When playing games I have begun to think logically of how the computer generates objects and handles them which is something that has been causing me to think long and hard about.

Please don’t judge me on my inexperience or think for one second Im incapable as nothing in this world is impossible, and as I said in my Open Post. As long as I’m learning there is nothing wasted.

Any information on how to achieve the question I have posed or atleast point me in a direction that I can learn to get to the possible outcome would be extremely helpful.
Think of the concept of Paying it Forward.
If you help me with guidance, I can help others with guidance which could help other and others and others.

#6

Maybe you are in over your head? It doesn’t matter how many tutorials you’ve read; if you can’t apply them in practice then you haven’t gotten anywhere. I’d suggest starting smaller; try animating a simple moving 3D sphere in OpenGL before you work on a human model. :slight_smile:

[quote]is there a way in OpenGL to determine vector points on a 3d model that will be used to apple a different texture.

And how would one go about this for physcial objects in the 3d world. Obviously I would need to import an object that has a certain OpenGL render pattern and texture it.
[/quote]
Commonly you would use OBJ or some other format. LibGDX includes some model loaders, as does Ardor3D, JPCT and JME (as I suggested earlier).

#7

It doesn’t matter how fast you learn, if you are going to attempt an MMORPG as your first game, you haven’t learnt enough.

The only true way of making the right first game is to make the best thing you can with no copy-pasting (though typing the exact code out is okay I guess as you understand what you’re doing) and to not ask for help anywhere, but instead to use google.

If you really are capable of making an MMORPG, you would not have asked for help here.

If you are just going to ignore everything else I/everyone else has said or come up with a reason to think I’m wrong, at least listen to this:

If you want to try making an mmorpg, don’t bother JGO with loads of questions.

Use google for what you get stuck on, and if you fail miserably, try something simpler, like a 2D singleplayer platformer. Then in the future, maybe you will make an mmorpg.

or maybe not

#8

Did I ask for code, I came to this forum because it is a forum that is both a combination of experienced java game developers and newbies, if your telling me to not bother Java-gaming.org with my questions then in all honesty why has anyone come to this forum.

As such, any program is a multi step piece of application, you build class after class and then at the end you join them all together, as as you go through you can learn how things work and ask questions along the way.

A MMORPG is not a big task and as such I wouldnt expect something sellable after my 5 YEARS of developing it.
Did Mark Zuckerberg get told to just make a messaging app as making a whole social network is too hard… NO so really why are you putting your claws in my back saying its not possible.

Anything is possible and those that think otherwise will get left behind.

“If you really are capable of making an MMORPG, you would not have asked for help here.”

So tell me, are people who develop such things as MMORPG’s shouldn’t come here because they know too much.
No one in this world who has created a MMORPG as none have been perfect and they all have flaws.

Im not asking you specifically to code out all my solutions, if anything I ask for guidance as to where to go for information or what to read to help me get where I wanna go.

If I ask a question as to how would I go about getting 10’000 items to render out on a client based application, I wouldnt expect you to just hand me code.

I would expect someone to push me in the right direction of thinking. As such a brain is a powerful thing and if your just gonna give code to people then you are not helping them, I don’t like copying and pasting code, never have never will because at the end all you end up with is a multi sourced application that you do no code on your own, and to be honest probably dont know what each method does.

If I ask “What is the fastest way of handling objects in memory” I dont expect 1 solid answer, I expect an explanation on how to get to that answer.

As such if you choose not to help me then that’s your choice. But just think you where once at a stage of asking questions and did anyone deny you that privilege.

As such, I dont expect to make an MMORPG for an extremely long time, but I do plan on getting there. I did not state I wanna make an MMORPG in 1 month or even 1 year. I said 5 years, which should give me plenty of time to learn. This project Im doing is not to sell commercially, or even try to make money off it. It is a learning project and even after 5 years I end up with 5 classes and a head full of knowledge Ill be happy. But if I keep on getting pushed back by the community saying Im not experienced, or that I need to do 2D single player game.

#9

Your 5 years is much better spent creating small games, gaining experience, then after each finished game, starting from scratch, taking into consideration all mistakes you made from the previous games.

Taking 5 years to build your MMORPG and you will end up empty handed.

Mind you, this is exactly how our educational systems works: you’ll spend some years in college / university. They don’t tell you on day 1 that the study involves 1 project, delivered on the last day of your study. It involves many small projects, and you all have to finish them. This is how ‘the powerful brain’ learns best, so better teach it well.

Drop your MMORPG plans, and after 5 years, you’ll be thankful you did.

#10

for an MMORPG the most difficult thing is NOT the renderer, but rather building a solid and robust server-client framework. You will need to take into consideration about user security, be able to defend against misc attacks, prevent cheating. Its a HUGE undertaking.

You will first need to master -

Network Programming
Thread Programming (Concurrency)
Database Programming
Capable of design and implementation of very large scale software - primarily what I refer to as “Runtime” software.
Security - Encryption

And i’m only beginning the list, and this is only the server architecture, think about the client side for the moment. You will need to implement Scene Management, Rendering, Collision Detection, Math libraries, Particle Systems and the list goes on.

Not trying to discourage you or anything, but I think you are underestimating the depth and knowledge (and time) needed in order to implement these kinds of systems.

Start small, a good starter ambitious project is mobile development. Go grab libGDX, read some documentations and start making tower defence, or pong. In fact, if you manage to make a good tower defence game, then you have probably achieved what 90% of us in this forum probably couldn’t (although we are more than capable).

For networking, open up eclipse and make a console based chat app, have server be able to accept multiple clients, be able to handle reconnection and be able to kick any user from chat room. This will teach you the basics of network programming and basic threading.

I wish you the best of luck.

#11

I think you should change your attitude if you want someone to help you at all.

As any software developer will tell you, writing an application is not a case of writing a few classes and joining them together. A well written application will have been in planning for weeks (sometimes months) before a line of code is written. There is so many things to worry about, such as software architecture, implementation issues, target hardware, etc, etc. The list goes on. If you don’t get all this right the first time round you’re going to run into problems which ultimately is going to result in your scrapping your work.

Mark Zuckerberg you say? Actually, the first recorded piece of software I can find written by him is a messaging app :).

Not to mention Mark Zuckerberg had years of private tutoring, I’m not sure why you seen that as a fit comparison.

Time after time I see newbies jump head first into game development with their dream of creating a fine-tuned unique MMORPGFPSRTS, it just won’t work. If you are really set on writing a massively online game I’d advise that you build a portfolio over the years and build a team of developers and content producers.

Look at this relatively simple MMO, WurmOnline (http://www.wurmonline.com/). It has been in development since 2003 and is still under development.

#12

I’m sorry for you, but I agree to all of you.

It looks like you are very motivated, but things will change. The problem is, as soon as you encounter any problem (and there will be a lot of them), you won’t be motivated anymore. If you’re not able to get something working for about a week (and this will happen), then you will stop programming. You will just keep your hands from programming for months. Believe me, I’m speaking from experience.

If you do write small games, however, then you will be “rewarded” all the time you finish a game. Such small games can be so addictive, even much more addictive than some MMORPG’s, and in the end, if you create small games for 5 years, you will probably be able to write an MMORPG after these years. But if you start writing a MMORPG for 5 years, you will almost gain no experience at all (relatively). You should do it like most successful man in gaming, for example Kevin Glass or Markus Persson did it: Write simple games at first, then start out with a bigger project, when you’ve got lots of experience. Notch for example made Ludum dare entries, he had lots of years of experience before starting minecraft.

You should also dive into 2D before diving into 3D! This is a really important point. (If you don’t start with Java2D, and you shouldn’t) 2D isn’t too far away from 3D, but much easier. To make 3D games look okey, you need lighting, shadows, ambient occlusion, normal mapping, decal projection etc. Yes these things will give you experience, but will you even be able to implement them first?
Start off with LWJGL in 2D. At first, to get used to LWJGL, get a texture on screen. Do some research / try out some cool techniques for 2D rendering, do some tech demos. Don’t throw all experience in gaming you get into one single project. When you keep writing small projects then you will find code you reuse often, and then put this code into a utility collection.

Even if you did all this, (if you want to do it alone) you need to learn modeling 3D objects, humans, start learning to make artwork, and finally invest half of your life into writing that game.

Believe me or not, but it will just not be worth it. Most of us are posting with experience, you should really listen to them.

#13

Well, there might be another way he can accomplish his goal in small steps. MMORPG’s are made up of more than just networking, multiple clients, and level grinding. You can design little mini-games for your MMORPG in the process of learning to build your full MMORPG.

Instead of starting from the game world and clients, for instance, you can create a mini game for your MMORPG that involves Pong or Tower Defense. You can let each mini-game you create be a different learning goal in your process to making the main game. What is better is your effort will not be wasted, because your game will have plenty of content at the beginning of the process.

As many in this forum have said and I will re-state, “You have to start small and build up to something great.” It doesn’t have to be a waste of time. You’ll find that mini-games are actually the hardest part of design. You’ll probably learn a lot more from designing a group of 5 mini-games then all the knowledge you can gain from the forums and tutorial books combined.

I personally love your enthusiasm, it is refreshing to see someone so determined (since most here seemed to have given up hope altogether.) Don’t let that fire go out by this forum. Use that energy to program those mini-games and learn those challenging concepts quickly. With enough dedication, you will get that MMORPG you’ve always wanted. (Though I can’t guarantee it’ll be within 5 years :point:).

#14

Let me clarify some of my points:

You came here looking for help on creating an MMORPG. We have given you help by saying to do something simpler. You have ignored us, which is why I told you not to bother JGO.

I said if you are really capable of creating an mmorpg then you wouldn’t be asking for help. You replied by saying why does anyone come here then?
People come here to learn, get help when starting up, discuss ideas, share code, and show off their code. They are not supposed to (but occasionally do) come here to be spoon fed answers to trivial problems.
You may reply saying how you are asking for help. As said above, we have given you help, just not the kind tou expected, or wanted, but it will help you if you follow it.

Also clarifying the above statement. To create an mmorpg, you require experience. Experience does not come even from reading every single tutorial in existence. That is knowledge of concepts. Experience is putting all of the concepts together in the best way possible so that the final result works. Bu the time you are ready to make an mmorpg, you will not need to ask questions like you have.

You said something about Mark Zuckerberg. Well he had EXPERIENCE (I think) in programming, an so was able to manage such a task. I never said it was impossible, I said you should build up your skills before trying to make an mmorpg.

(As a side note: You said that I was once at the stage of asking questions. Well, that’s where your wrong. I was lurking around here on JGO until just before/after I started my voxel engine (by that time I had created several (terrible) platformers). When I got stuck, I used google, and that at least worked for me, even if not so for other people)

You say we should be pushing you in the right direction. You’re right, and that’s what we’ve been doing.

Luckily for you, I was annoyed enough to go and find 3 articles on making mmorpgs.

If you want to be intelligent, and listen to people more experienced than you, use these:

http://sol.gfxile.net/mmorpg.html

http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-make-a-mmorpg

If you want to actually make a real mmorpg, here is a full tutorial covering every aspect*:

http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=147613

*Normal members of JGO, I recommend you read this too. It’s a laugh. ;D

If you are still trying to justify that you are better than the average n00b, let me make it clear to you:
YOU AREN’T!
Want to prove me wrong? Go make a simple game and I’ll take that comment away.

#15

I shall make an MMORPG, and its name shall be…Power Death…No!..The Death…NO!! Power Pain…NOO!!!..GALACTIC FAT!..NOOOOO!!! LAND OF ONLINE

#16

My personal favourite was “Land of Land” ;D

#17

Hahah, that’s hysterical :smiley:
And it has also made me finally decide on a name: The World of Land. It will be based on the movie Waterworld, and in it you’ll be guided by the soothing voice of Kevin Costner.

#18

Also, no one has mentioned “The War”