JPCT on MacOS X - Beginner help

[Raven]

Hello everyone.
Recently I've taken interest in 3D games using java and have been looking for a simple engine to help me on my way. I was delighted to find jPCT as it seems very intuitive and simple.

However, I don't seem to find any beginners information on how or even if the jPCT examples run on OS X ?

Usually I learn the usage of libraries from examples, so not being able to run them really steepens the learning curve for me.

Can anyone help me step by step as to how I should run e.g. the FPS demo?

Thanks in advance and best regards.
- Raven ('Hrafn') Thorisson
Reykjavik, Iceland

[RavenT]

Actually I got the FPS running.
I included the wrong library earlier.
But thanks for reading.

The engine is very impressive.

-Raven

[EgonOlsen]

Good to see a Mac guy around here. I have seen jPCT running on Windows, Linux, Solaris 10 and even on a PDA, but never on a Mac (Well on an old iMac, but that doesn't count...:wink: ). Macs are virtually none existent here in germany.  

[Raven]

Oh, that's too bad. They're increasing in popularity here in Iceland.
I grew up using a mac, so a Mac has always been my preference.

I'll be experimenting with jPCT over the next few weeks, going to try to add functionality to the FPS demo -- so it's great to see that there's still activity on  these forums. I bet I'll be needing some help, I've never really programmed 3D programs but always wanted to experiment with FPS type of games.

Right now I'm trying to figure out the best approach to the general architecture of a flexible FPS. I'm guessing that my first step would be to divide the demo into seperate classes, for example: Items, Player, etc..

Any beginners advice is appreciated.

- Raven

[Raven]

Actually, to intrigue you (I gather you are the main developer of jPCT?), I'm a student at Reykjavik University and I was hoping to be able to create a FPS platform for the Artificial Intelligence enthusiasts at RU.

I hate talking about "what I want to do" since it's always vaporware until it's accomplished. But my general aim right now is to try and create base architecture that supports characters -- basically add a computer controlled character to the FPS platform.

Nothing fancy, I would simply like an object (character) that can move around. The trick is that this would have to be as extendable as possible to get the RU students to want to experiment with it.

Right now I've at least managed to add an object that I can swirl around by pressing a button  :wink:, but the code is still in the same FPS file and is basically just a copy paste hack of the weapon.


If anyone has any experience in creating FPS-type games, I'd really appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction. Where should I start? What do I need to do to keep the implementation flexible?
-Raven

[EgonOlsen]

I'm guessing that my first step would be to divide the demo into seperate classes, for example: Items, Player, etc...

Yes, that's a good idea. The fps example doesn't do this to stay as simple as possible, but for a "real" application, it's definitely needed. The car example does something like this by introducing an Entity interface, letting an AbstractEntity implements that interface as well as extending Object3D and the actual objects in the "game" are extending the AbstractEntity.
That's not entirely great because even if there is an interface like Entity, you have to code against AbstractEntity sometimes (or wrap the required methods from Object3D into the interface) because there is no interface for Object3D in jPCT due to historical reasons. However, depending on your needs, you may come up with something completely different (more MVC-like for example).

[Melssj5]

Hey Egon, if you want to try a MAC OS X system, try Pear PC, its a very small virtual machine that allows you to install MAC OSX over windows.