Book Description
Over 80 practical recipes to expand and enrich your jMonkeyEngine skill set with a close focus on game development
In Detail
This book provides you with engaging hands-on game development tips that will keep the game we'll be developing in focus. Each chapter will provide insight into the how's, what's, and why's of jMonkeyEngine and game development step by step.
The book starts by giving you useful tips on the SDK itself, and how using it will make your life as a developer easier. The book then moves on to cover a variety of patterns which you can use to control cameras, characters, and animations, followed by how to make real-time networked games and dynamic game worlds.
If you are a jMonkeyEngine user or Java developer interested in delving further into game development to expand your skill set, then this book is perfect for you.
What You Will Learn
- Make an online game with the SpiderMonkey framework
- Design dynamic and attractive GUIs with NiftyGUI
- Create cutscenes and smooth camera rides with cinematics
- Build AI that sees, follows, and finds its way through the game world
- Use Bullet physics to build a more dynamic game world
- Explore useful tips on taking your game project to the next level
- Develop a more maintainable project by using Controls and AppStates
Downloading the example code for this book. You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.PacktPub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.PacktPub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
Table of Contents
- jMonkeyEngine 3.0 Cookbook
- Table of Contents
- jMonkeyEngine 3.0 Cookbook
- Credits
- About the Author
- About the Reviewers
- www.PacktPub.com
- Preface
- 1. SDK Game Development Hub
- Introduction
- Setting up a project
- Importing a model
- Using Scene Composer
- Modifying heightmaps with Terrain Editor
- Adding a sky box and lighting
- Adding water using a filter
- Adding some ambient audio
- Creating bitmap fonts with Font Creator
- Retrieving an attachment node
- Using ParticleEmitter – Soaring Birds
- An advanced ParticleEmitter class
- 2. Cameras and Game Controls
- Introduction
- Creating a reusable character control
- Attaching an input AppState object
- Firing in FPS
- Firing non-instant bullets
- Creating an RTS camera AppState object
- Selecting units in RTS
- Making the camera follow units
- Following a character with ChaseCamera
- Adding a game controller or joystick input
- Leaning around corners
- Detecting cover automatically in a third-person game
- 3. World Building
- 4. Mastering Character Animations
- Introduction
- Previewing animations in SDK
- Creating an animation manager control
- Extending the animation control
- Handling jump animations
- Creating a custom animation - leaning
- Creating a subanimation
- Lip syncing and facial expressions
- Eye movement
- Location-dependent animation – edge check
- Aligning feet with ground – inverse kinematics
- 5. Artificial Intelligence
- 6. GUI with Nifty GUI
- 7. Networking with SpiderMonkey
- 8. Physics with Bullet
- 9. Taking Our Game to the Next Level
- Introduction
- Creating a muzzle flash using ParticleEmitter
- Creating a trigger system
- Creating a timer trigger
- Adding an interaction trigger
- Controlling AI with triggers
- Creating a dynamic skybox with a moving sun
- Improving a scene with postprocessing filters
- Performing complex movements with MotionPaths
- Cutscenes using cinematics
- Using a positional audio and environmental effects
- A. Information Fragments
- Index