Early Android results

Worked on this now for about a day and have things up and running now. One thing I realized as I've been working on this is that the Android version of jME will need to be a little Android specific. For example, OpenGL ES does not support drawing with unsigned integer indices, so all the IndexBuffers had to be changed to ShortBuffers. Ideally the default version of jME would also accept ByteBuffer and ShortBuffer... Maybe in the future. So far I've still kept the same abstract renderer/display system classes used in the main jME intact, but there's several things in there that don't really apply to OpenGL ES (VBOs for example) so I might trim those down eventually as well. Currently the .dex file for the library is about 1.6MB and even includes a nice BaseGameActivity class to extend for getting up to speed quickly.

The bulk of jME has come across intact though, and what really might be gained here is an understanding of how to detach jME better from lwjgl concepts.

So what's not done yet is input handling, text, sound, texturing, drawing of points and lines, and most of the state classes. I'm only focusing on com.jme, so none of the jmex stuff is in. Also, rendering to a texture is not in (but might be implemented as a copy from backbuffer type deal.) It's pretty exciting to see things start to emerge though!

The TestBoxColor demo:


Now, with a Capsule:

Holiday Coding

Unfortunately I've been sick this holiday week - lots of coughing, sore throat, etc. - so in between a little bit of gaming and such I've had time to just sit back and code. (Yes, I find it oddly therapeutic.) My choice of projects during my vacation here is an Android port of the jMonkeyEngine. It's certainly been discussed and even poked at a bit by various folks, so I figured putting my two cents in wouldn't hurt.

So where have I managed to get so far? Well, I have jME's core stripped down and some basic Android classes going into place. I don't have a lot to show yet because I'm going straight for a true port here... But I'm guessing I'm about 8-12 hours of work away from a basic running prototype (simple geometry, etc.) Hopefully I'll be able to wrap that up by New Years and then spend a few days getting states and such working.

For now though, it's off to the doctor for me.

Merry Christmas

Season's Greetings to all ten of my blog readers. :) I hope you are all enjoying it with family and/or loved ones.

Student Games Part 2

The second game mentioned yesterday is called Matics and has a stylish look and physics based game play. From the video and postmortem, the gameplay appears to consist of building contraptions to get your avatar from the start to the end of a level (a la Lemmings.)



I've always liked games where you "invent" your way through a puzzle and this looks like it could be a contender for my leisure time is they spent time to push it to commercial release. Nice work guys.

Student Games from Georgia Tech

Two jMonkeyEngine games developed by students at Georgia Tech were shown at the Winter 2007 Demo Day.


The first one is called Lord of the Fjords. Described as a "Viking boat bongo battle", the game is a multiplayer boat race using Nintendo's Donkey Konga bongo drums as a control device. You can read more about the project, including a quick postmortem over at the jME forums.

The second one is described as "[a] platforming puzzle game that closely resembles the visual style of Kirby with the debug mode from Sonic 2." More on that project as information becomes available.

See also this enthusiastic news coverage of the event.

jMonkeyEngine jobs in Atlantis...

There's another project looking for jME developers, this time in Denver, Colorado. I dont know a lot about them, but here's their pitch:

We are building Atlantis…

The Chimera Foundation, a Denver-based nonprofit whose mission it is to build a global network connecting thinkers, scientists, health professionals and "regular folk" is recruiting a team of top-notch Java-programmers to build Atlantis, a virtual multiplayer environment. Atlantis is a conceptually and graphically breathtaking, living and changing 3D environment in which users can experience and research an accessible wealth of health-related topics. Help us make our world a better place!

Are you interested? Please contact us at info@chimerafoundation.org or at 303-996-6603 (Don't be perturbed by Faber & Bantz. It really is us :-)

jME Video player

Particle Boost

The latest version of the particle system has a few updated features. One of them is the particle time-line... A way to set basically "key-frames" along the life of a particle for various particle attributes (color, alpha, spin, size and mass) to change. This is useful for all kinds of things, such as dispersing mass over time, or easing a particle in by starting the alpha at 0 and rapidly increasing it early in its life cycle (as demonstrated in the below screen shot.) You'll also notice a few changes in the layout of RenParticleEditor, giving you easier access to the various layers you have set up. What you can't see is that you can now also set your camera up vector for editing in either Y or Z mode, which is handy for those of us stuck in the world view of various modeling programs. :( If you look closer you may see another difference in the actual view itself...



Soon to come is a way to change particle coordinates over time to allow for animated textures using texture atlases. Stay tuned!

Happy 50th Mom

My mother turns 50 years young today.

She is really an amazing person. She selflessly postponed her early ambitions for a career in forestry to give her time and energy in caring for and nurturing six children. I know from my own two kids how hard it is to even stay sane with little ones in the house, let alone be a positive force in their lives. Somehow she had the strength to not only keep us all alive and kicking, but she also taught us many valuable lessons - things I still use every day in my adult life.

My mom, always the industrious woman not only taught us the basics like how to cook, clean, and sew - things everyone really should know - but also things like carpentry and animal husbandry (we lived on a small ranch for about ten years or so.) She also engendered within us a love for writing and art and other forms of creativity.

Through all the years I can not recall a single time my mom fought with my dad in front of us, squandered our family resources selfishly or belittled her children... things that (if you believe the television and media) seem all too common in family relations today. Instead she constantly encouraged us and expressed her love and pride in us, even when we let her down from time to time. I wish I could honestly say the same things about myself!

Even after her children have pretty much all left the nest, my mom continues to amaze me. Even with the pains of Fibromyalgia she's still continued her education, worked as a traveling notary public, written and published children's books and novels. She's very web savvy with her own website, blog, and profile on LinkedIn. Even with her last child close to college and "freedom" close at hand, she still insisted on stepping up and bringing her aging parents into her home to give them the care they needed.

I am not a good enough writer to really do her justice, but in writing this tribute to my mom today I really just wanted to say how much I love my mom and wish her a very Happy Birthday!