My Story*
Not a neccessary read
New to JOGL and new to these forums. Like many other programmers, i started out with C and C++. Despite all the negative hype about performance Java was getting, i fell in love with java as soon as i started with it. It just feels so much cleanier....easier to program... but that's another topic... and possibly flamebait in other forums.
anyways, i started out using OpenGL with C and C++ a few months ago. I wrote a simple terrain editor with the GLUT and GLUI libraries. Needless to say, it was ugly. i was proud nonetheless and decided that a mesh editor would be much more useful and much more fun to use.
I came to the conclusion that if i could program a mesh editor that satisfied my tastes, it would be good enough to sell. However, i was writing in VS.NET (Student and Teacher Edition). i remembered that the EULA said that i technically couldn’t sell anything i designed with it. VS.NET has some nice GUI design features… but i can’t afford a standard license.
I wish there was an easy way to create attractive GUI elements like Java has… I remember java had a 3d package (Java3d) but i had never taken a look at it. so i started doing some research and came to the obvious conclusion that my decesion was to be LWJGL or JOGL.
although LWJGL seems to be the popular choice JOGL because it seems more likely to become part of the runtime in the future. also, i wanted the easy to use UI controls.
so i download and installed JOGL. i got the code compiled and running from the “Getting Started” post. In the past, i was one of those “just start coding” programmers. but as i mature i find myself planning/researching more (and in effect debugging less).
that’s my story up to date
*start reading here!
there seems to be a lack of resources on proper practices and uses of JOGL. i’ve googled the crap out of the internet (it can be done! ;)) and i’ve been searching as many forums as i could find. the best resources i could find were the NeHe ports on http://nehe.gamedev.net. although many people are loyal to NeHe, i found their “tutorials” better for reference, rather than learning. I also found a book, but it’s online preview was disappointing. this brings me to my first questions
is there a descent collection of online resources available for learning JOGL?
are there any good books on it?
i know JOGL is still fairly new, but there are certainly enough descent JOGL programmers out there to help the rest of us get started. right?
something i read that’s kinda been bothering me is that JOGL can only render from one method. this is not so different from regular java apps, but it is different from openGL. My openGL/C++ renderable object classes have a method called renderGL(). this method simply calls the OpenGL commands neccessary to render that particular object.
What is the best solution for this process using JOGL?.
sorry for the long post, but nobody at my uni and none of my peers get into this stuff. i've excited about openGL and Java for a while now, and nobody understands! i figured this would be the best place to get some straightforward answers and insightful discussion. Thanks!