Technology for a 2D plataform game

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Hey all, as a veteran clubie I have another question, as alaways.

Well, I am currently developing a 2D plataform game in Java (of course!!!) and I am a bit dazzled by all surrounding game technologies…there is pure Java2D, LWJGL, JOGL and probably a few more I didn’t noticed.

So, I’ve started thinkering with Java2D and thought it was the best and all. However, I didn’t went far enough to start falling into certain performance problems because of it.

So, as an advice, what technology should I use for my type of game, which is not necessarily as simple as it may sound???

#2

Well LWJGL, Jogl or Xith3D are your main alternatives. Xith3D is a ‘proper’ scenegraph API so thats probably overkill for a 2d game, so you’ve mainly got a choice between LWJGL and Jogl.

Unless you’ve got a really good reason (like needing Swing components next to your display) go with LWJGL. Its more reliable, better cross platform support and less annoying gotchas to avoid. It also gives you audio and controller input, where Jogl’s counterparts of Joal and JInput are still somewhat buggy.

Having said that, I might be unfairly dismissing Xith, considering you could probably use a whole bunch of existing code (like texture loading). (Todo: learn Xith myself ;D )

#3

Well…I am almost set on using LWJGL…however I have another clubie question: is there any tutorial on LWJGL (or OpenGL, for that matter) for 2D games??

#4

Nehe productions is the best sourse for beginner openGL. http://nehe.gamedev.net/ There really arent any 2d openGL tutorials. What you do is have your sprite be a texture that is mapped toa polygon and then just never do z transformations on the polygon (I think that is it but I could be wrong) The tutorials listed at Nehe have code examples at the bottom of each tut page where you can find both JOGL and LWJGL implementation. Very useful concidering that the tutorials themsleves are written in C. Remember when you are using JOGL and LWJGL for you rendering you are no longer programming in Java. Instead you are using Java to program in openGL. So any tut or book about openGL will be a helpful resourse.

#5

[quote]Remember when you are using JOGL and LWJGL for you rendering you are no longer programming in Java. Instead you are using Java to program in openGL.
[/quote]
???

I’d rephrase that a little :slight_smile:
You are programming in java and using openGL as your rendering API.

#6

True… LWJGL has been heavily Javafied now.

Cas :slight_smile:

#7

Right, my bad. Sorry for the poor word phrasing. Erikd said it better.