jMonkeyEngine.org

Hi,

I added a preliminary version of a pretty big improvement to the way scenes are loaded. You can now use Controls that you have in your code or that are contained in libraries of your project directly in the SceneComposerA plugin in the jMonkeyEngine3 SDK, allows editing the content of j3o files which represent a complete scene or model.. Actually all kinds of classes that are in your project can be used directly in the editors now. Just make sure you have “compile on save” enabled in your project settings under “Build->Compiling” so you don’t have to build your project after each change. At the moment the scene has to be reopened to reflect changes in the code but its already a quite convenient way to test code of Controls.

In this example I created a simple Control class in my project, added it to the sword of Sinbad via the new “Custom Control” entry in the SceneExplorer “Add Control” menu and then directly saw the movement caused by the Control and its parameters.

Update:
Heres a video example on how to make a simple windmill with it (IDE in dev mode is a bit slow with assertions enabled and video recording):

Update2:
Scenes are now automatically reloaded when a class has changed, this way the effects of changes in the code can be directly observed in the scene.

Cheers,
Normen

A control containing data, or one that controls an entity like a VehicleControl or CharacterControl or extensions of these. You don’t necessarily have to “use” it in the SceneComposerA plugin in the jMonkeyEngine3 SDK, allows editing the content of j3o files which represent a complete scene or model., maybe you just want to save it along with your j3o with prepared data. A good, simple example might be the turning wind blades of a windmill, I’ll post a video on that some time, I have that lying around from my very very first AI-driven game Its about generally being able to use classes of the project in the editors.

Added a short video on how to create a windmill without the new SpatialAnimation system

wow! cool!

I hope its not too silly to ask what’s the new Spatial animation system is and what’s it for?

@normen I’ve always under the impression that I am the only one who is suffering from NetBeans slowdown and occasional dfkasjdofjasodf. Now, I see the same things happens to you. So, don’t you think the more you add to jMPThe jMonkeyPlatform, a full-fledged IDE with plugins for editing jME3 content and assets. Integral part of the jME3 SDK. the slower/the more crash prone it will be? Why not make the Scene Editor a complete stand alone module? a rather light version?

Great way of integrating controls in the editor! I think a lot of generic controls can be coded this way and its also a nice way of testing basic behaviour without having restart you own application all the time, much like particles. I guess where it becomes harder to use is if your control needs some initialisation besides simple properties, like how it should interact with other objects in the scene. Although this is also possible through the use of strings to locate objects in the scene. For example if the windmill object itself should start vibrating if the speed is very high.

Other examples I can think of that I know I will try out in my game soon:

- Animation to simulate rocking of a boat on the sea (e.g. using two parameters to adjust rocking amount for x and z axis)
- Animation to simulate a soaring bird in the sky (even the ability to birds behaviour based on other birds in the scene through parent lookup to make e.g. “follow the leader” behaviour)

I guess a problem could be that objects that also exists in physics space shouldnt use translate or rotate calls on the spatial itself but its equivalent physics space.

We can even have/create a generic control library from the community.

I have learned that Java on a 32bit OS = crashes and out of memory troubles. Generally it seems that Java on 32bit is being somewhat neglected and ignored. People (including me) have a lot of problems with e.g. Minecraft, proabably because most developers sit on 12GB memory 64bit OS machines these days and never see the problems others have with 32bit OS’s. Rather than fight the problem I plan to move onto 64bit myself as its getting rather tiresome to get into these problems when developing myself. jMonkey always locks completely up if I let the IDE be open over the night.

Added a screen with a list of results from a scan for classes that extend AbstractControl or implement Control for easy selection: