detto

Funny you mention Jedit. I use it every day and it's one of the smartest text editors I ever used (and I used a lot).

Using Netbeans I like, too. For example to program Swing GUI applications.
I can also edit, compile, run and debug the Java source code with Netbeans on HP UX machines for example, and out of the box -- i.e. the very same Netbeans ZIP archive I use on Linux and Windows. That's impressive not only for me, but also for the HP UX guys who're usually not familiar with good looking GUI programs let alone an IDE.

"OpenGL 3.0 support fail"

:-(

Unfortunately I can't run your game. My PC is about 3-4 years old and appearantly the graphics card can't do OpenGL 3. The card has shaders, however.

Would really love to run the demo, because I liked the original Alien Breed on Amiga -- it was one of the most atmospheric games at its time!

Voxels?

That's Unlimited Details Technology finally arriving on Java, isn't it? :-)

You and your games came actually to my mind, when I posted.

Congratulations to you and your success in putting these two worlds together! That's a very rare skill these days, I think.

I started to program when this cute little ZX Spectrum 48K was released, this was in 1982 IIRC. Which means I too am programming now for about 30 years. Still I'm not very bright. But older!

And I've to say that programming these little home computers (first Sinclair's ZX Spectrum, then Amstrad's CPC, then later Acorn's Archimedes) was the best computer time ever for me. Not because back then it was just a hobby and today it's more of a profession, but because back then it was incredible fun to work in a restricted hardware and software "frame".
Today, when nearly everything goes concerning hardware and software, developer's tend to "get lost in ... infinity" what's concerning games. I mean, when I played Cholo for example, I was there in these dark vector towns with these frightening robots... because imagination filled all the gaps which the little 8bit hardware and software left plenty of, whilst today you see everything and your imagination has hardly any room to unfold (it's like with black-white Hitchcock movies which always use the audience's imagination).
Of course the Cholo remake on today's computers is pretty cool, too, because often "less is more" -- and that's why I just love Java Gaming with you retro inspired Java developers. (So many of these 4 K and bigger Java games are really fun.)

Of course programming in Java is one of the most comfortable and effective things I can imagine because I really can concentrate on the task which needs to be solved. Still, as Cas says, it's a good thing when you didn't start with a complex object orientated computer language... (is there anything cooler than pure ARM assembler, for example? Hardly, hehe!)

Added. Thanks!
And I agree with your entire post, too.

Cookies! With disabled cookies (my default) it won't run. But with enabled cookies your game runs in Html5 mode. A little bit out of sync sometimes, but it runs. Nice.

What exactly do you mean with the following, by the way?

The sprites look really well and I like them. I like retro things in general, and that's why I usually like all your work, Kev.

Keep up the good work!


P.S. The HTML5 version doesn't work with my Firefox10 at the moment, but probably
because I've set too many restrictions for it?

I think Java is the best platform available for most general tasks. It's fairly easy to use and you can produce excellent results in a reasonable time window with a fair amount of work. The resulting programs cover an amazingly wide area like servers, desktops (GUI), games, etc.

I've professionally programmed many years in assembler, C, C++, Pascal/Delphi, Java and even particpated in some 40 years old Fortran programs (that's not so funny). But Java was and is the only platform I see as a really smart tool to produce the software you actually need to, without too many restrictions and crazy hurdles.
(I.e. when you've to hunt "memory leaks" in a huge C++ application developed by a team of people including you in several years of work, you'll see that basically C is just another variation of macro assembler and C++ is just an object orientated macro assembler. So, no matter if a byte shifting program in C is 20% or 30% faster than a Java byte shifter, you really don't want to go back normally. And I didn't mention byte shifting accidentidally, because today's software usually is no byte shifter anymore because you've got your hardware or libraries for that. Using the correct algorithms and data structures (Collections) in your application is usually the key for performance.)  

By using Java as platform you don't get chained to a certain operating system and still have got a powerful programming language at your hands.
Usually as a software developer you're confrontated with certain tasks to solve in software for a certain platform, and the main question is: will you manage to develier the finished product? And for all that Java is the real "Software Swiss Knife" in my experience. It's still a knife, and work will always be work, but it's a smart tool for a good work.

Howgh. :-)

Thank you very much, Hharrison. This is good news.

I always liked Java3D and it's very useful for many projects. It would be a shame in case it died.

Shlax, I tried your demo by downloading the ZIP archiv containing all files, and it works well on my Windows XP machine with an older ATI Radeon graphics cards.
Your demo looks very nice. Congratulations. Maybe a bit too dark and the camera is still hard to control.

But I had Java3d's DLLs already in my Windows PATH, otherwise your demo would not have run.

You could just put the four Java3d DLLs into your base folder containing the main "callie.jar". For Windows this works well then.
For Linux things are slightly different but basically you can also put the two ".so" files next to your base folder and supply a mini shell script which starts your demo, for example either
a) "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=." and then start the JAR file.
or
b) java -Djava.library.path=. -jar callie.jar

Yes, one of the main inventors of this nice little computers, David Braben himself, said in one of the announcement videos that the device should be out for the (mass?) market in about one year or so.

I always loved the cool ARM processor, especially in the good old Acorn Archimedes days back then. Braben's Zarch (and then Conqueror) was just incredible.

Maybe Braben does a kind of Zarch-II for the launch of Raspberry? :-)  Java-Zarch? hihi.  I always love him because of Elite.

PS, just for nostalgia: Acorn ported Java to the ARM'ed Archie back then, I think already the A5000 run Java. Not today's OpenJDK, though...

The new forum's fast! Lovely.

Plus all the old posts of the users do count now. Well, database migrations have also their good sides. No greenhorn anymore. :-)

Thank you very much, Riven & ChrisM.

Hi,

Is there a professional Java 3D engine for Android?

Say you would like to have large, bones/skeleton animated 3d characters with skins, and some static models.
The 3d model and its many animations is already there and has to be imported from a professional 3d package (Maya, Blender, or such).

Currently I "just" see Ardor3d for Android which is in Alpha state (I didn't see it in action yet).
jMonkeyEngine announced an Android version but I don't see much talk about it...
jPCT surely is nice, but I absolutely need 3d model import _and_ bones animation.

Is Ardor and jMonkeyEngine comparable to C/C++ engines like Ogre, for example?

--

Well, I think this means Ardor... I saw its PC demos including the bones animated Collada import, which is nice, but no textures. However, the docu is minimal and the question is: will Ardor for Android have got all Ardor's PC version features or just a very cut down feature list?

In case Java 3d engines for Android are not up to the task (yet?), which professional "native" 3d engine would you recommend which works nicely together with Java @ Dalvik?

Thanks.

Edited, inluding an extra mention of Cas' newest Titan game. :-)

When there's an URL to a game available, I'm happy to include it.

You're welcome.
Kapta expressed it precisely: "Very nice, simple and highly polished."

So JBox2D does the heavy work? However, who made this "heavy work" accessible in a "light and happy" way? I think a certain "Kev" with his "Fizzy"... :-)

Riven is right, it's a must to have an installed Virus-Killer (an an Internet router firewall, too).

For example you (DzzD) could try the (free) AVG Antivirus from Europe, available for Windows or Linux: http://free.avg.com/

;-)

Very well done, Kev. As always.
Thanks for sharing it.

Two evenings? Unbelievable!

Hi Orangy, nice to read you.
I fully understand you, and some of my Java friends use Mac OS X, too, which technically is nice.

"Niche" I didn't mean in a negative way; actually we Java developers know niche(s) very well! (Except for Markus Persson's Minecraft, hihi)

With "niche market" I wanted to say that Apples decision is not the end of the Java world.
(Also Mac applications can be distributed in the classic way, for example via own Web sites, without App Mac Store. Unfortunately the Store will attract the "masses"...)

Yes, that would be very bad, and for the sake of Java and its community I hope Apple won't stop the JVM. Or in case they would, let's hope they help the official (Oracle) Java or OpenJDK or such a thing so that they can deliver a solid JVM for Mac OS X.

Thanks, very nice. Edited into the old list article.

Unfortunately this is true, I think.

I don't think that such egocentric people like Steve Jobs think in normal ways. They want something in their head and will take nearly any measure to achieve this, no matter how sensible it is.

This of course is not limited to Steve Jobs. I think Larry Ellison is similar. Higly egocentric.
In the ancient Rome such persons have been named with the well known Latin word "idiot".

On the other side, I don't think you've to worry too much. Apple Mac will always be some niche market. (Please note I don't say that Mac OS X is bad, but I agree with Thiagosc on Apple.)
Android will overtake iOS easily, starting 2011; actually it is already starting in number of sold Android devices compared to iPhones. The reason could be that the world's mobile manufacturers do not want to be Jobs' serfs). 

Yes, it would be worth a separate topic.

The "write once run everywhere" paradigm doesn't work perfect, indeed.
On the other side I don't think any human work could be perfect. :-)

I agree that Swing is somewhat difficult to make look the same or say "very similar" on different platforms, mainly because of different fonts I think.

By the way, does anybody know why Java doesn't use the same own vector fonts on any platform but relies on the platform's fonts and just maps "similar" ones to the Java logical ones? This way we've to put own fonts next to our application and load them in the Java program in order to look the same or "very similar"...

A carefully written Java2D application however can look and work in exactly the same way on many different platforms, for example if it's focused on Java2D and doesn't use Swing too extensively.

It all depends on what your application has to do or doesn't need to do...

Indeed! ;-)

Well, they're only starting to reach my field of view, but I can say it's really nice to see!

Yes, amazing.

Hi, I understand your question. Unfortunately it's all not very simple.

Java as a "system", ie JVMs on many very different platforms, has its own GUI and this is helpful.

However C++ or other languages do not. You have totally different GUIs for C/C++ on Win32, Linux, Unix, etc. and even these platforms have very different GUI systems (Gnome, KDE, Xfce, Qt, etc etc).


If you use Netbeans (or Eclipse?) it's comfortable to design small and midle-sized GUIs with the mouse and some graphically connected event handlers, plus a more code for your application's logic.

Such a GUI'ed application you can use on many different platforms and it will look and feel very similar.

If you focus on Java and take all the "do's and don'ts" into account, you can deliver GUI'ed applications no matter what platform they have to run on. The old Java motto "Write once run everywhere" wasn't working very well in the beginning of Java, but since several years it is.
Everything takes its time.

Sorry, can't resist:

Add:
° Minecraft

(Not strictly a CD/boxed game but it is a commercial game using Java and OpenGL...)

Its website states currently:
1 513 285 registered, 476 648 purchases

This is good.

Oh, I see. What a pity!

However, please keep trying. :-)

Thank you for looking anyway.

Oh, what a dangerous fail safe strategy for worst case scenarios...

Well yes, it's indeed not very important. It's funny to be a "senior JGO n00b"... ;-)

I don't intend to hijack this old topic, however it seems to fit my small question... :-)

Could a kind moderator please let the forum software do a re-count on my number of postings, which must have been reset by a forum update or a new forum some years ago.
Well, unfortunately I've been absent quite some time... however, when I click on "Show Posts" in my profile, all the old postings of mine are still there.

Thanks!