Reminds me of the plastic soldier scene from Toy Story.
this does look great.
Ehhhh… In my opinion, it boils down to having aesthetic assets created, and being able to put together a digital world which is suitable and relevant in style… Well, at least that’s how I look at it when it comes to Java games. And I don’t think many indie developers can really afford insane quality asset production - or would even want to invest $ - until the code is finalized and the GAME itself is alive and playable.
JME - over kill IMO as well
Unity - ehhhhh, nice, but not my taste. I enjoy the raw development process more than anything.
jPCT - it’s not bad. you may be limited in some aspects since essentially you’re using another mans code/api to build an actual game with, but once you “master” the api it should be easy - and at that point - you’d have a solid grasp of the general 3D usage and be able to start over the application without jPCT if you reallly wanted to (I’m biased… <3 jPCT4life)
Agreed. What the op is probably referring to is a game which just has high quality, detailed assets with some beautiful shaders running. The language doesn’t really matter if it can: a) use hardware rendering either through opengl or directx, and b) is decently fast. Also, having a team of programmers doesn’t hurt either. 
GqTtXzOOpy8
6 months. 2 guys full time.
Gimme an engine in Java that can do this, and we will make it happen.
Cas
My grandson’s review of the Basingstoke vid:
I’m gonna get that!
Curious, what in particular do you find to be lacking in Java tech?
I understand Basingstoke is in Unity, is it simply the ease of use compared to other 3D environments that makes it stand out?
I’ve used Unity for a long time, and I honestly don’t feel like it’s all that great. I mean, yeah It’s much easier to use, but as far as that video shows, it was mainly just lighting changes. Unity makes things really simple for smaller games, but it also makes things fairly complicated for bigger ones. The moment you start to move outside of what’s expected from MonoBehaviour and using regular C# in your code, things start going haywire really fast.
There is no comparable Java tech really. (There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye)
Cas
You can’t compare java to Unity easily because unity is more of a visual development environment whereas java isn’t. I think , I have never really worked with unity much.
One thing I do like about java and lwjgls integration of Opengl is how much more simple it is to call opengl functions, no memory handling or pointers all handle within it.
Thank you for confirming my suspicions. You just saved me a bit of time.
Regarding pretty Java games, Spiral Knights comes to mind. This is mostly due to great art direction, and not so much to a game engine with a bunch of fancy-pants features.
Yeah, exactly. OP is asking “what programming language will let me have the best art” and the answer is “none of them”. Art is completely separate from what language you use.
However, I wonder if people think that Unity games look better because more “artists who want to be programmers” start out there, as opposed to us “programmers who wish we were artists” sticking with a “real” programming language?
Unity being based on C# means it very much is a real programming language though…
Cas
Fair enough. I’ve never used it. I’m just going off of what I’ve heard other people say, which is probably biased.
I just meant that people from a “programming” background might be more likely to stick with Java, whereas people from an “art” background might be more likely to go with Unity. It’s just a thought, I have no actual numbers or anything to back it up.
- Java and C# are almost identical at a pure language level. The ecosystems are very different.
- The game engine is probably more important than the programming language. If you want to use jME or libGdx, then you have to use Java. If you want Unity, you have to code in C#. If you want Corona or CryEngine you code in Lua.
- If you want to code straight to OpenGL, without a high level game engine, then you can really choose any language, and Java is relevant.
- If you are really enjoying doing Java programming, that’s a reason to stick with that for the time being. If you get sick of it later, you can always change course.
- Coding great graphic games in Java is definitely possible. But great graphically polished games require art talent that most programmers do not have access to.
A “real” language? Is Lua not real? Is JavaScript not real? I don’t see why not. The core engine to Unity and most game engines is written in C/C++.
If you write enough Java, you will want to upgrade to something else. Even on the JVM, Scala is a more elegant, fancier, higher level language. I also love Haskell and would like to try writing more serious stuff in that.
[quote=“gene9,post:36,topic:52793”]
I don’t want to start a flame war, but uh… [citation needed]
Hmm “upgrade”?
I agree 100% absolutely.
Small prototypes you can make much faster. The bigger and more complex the project gets, the more unity gets in the way.
Well he is talking to a really good engine accompanied by a really good editor. Similar to also UDK.
Lua definitely is not; and JavaScript… well if it is, it is the worst “real” programming language.
Not at all, no. In fact a really good C++ game engine like Unreal Engine is pretty enticing because you got everything at your disposal. So if anything I would go there.
This is what happens when you play in somebody else’s sandbox: all of those convenience features that were incompletely or incorrectly abstracted impose boundaries on what the developer can do.