Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 794.81526 EAN: 9781584503262 ISBN: 1584503262 Label: Charles River Media Manufacturer: Charles River Media Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 508 Publication Date: 2004-06 Publisher: Charles River Media Sales Rank: 253945 Studio: Charles River Media
Product DescriptionJava™ is gaining more and more acceptance in the game development community, and with good commercial-quality Java games on the market, it will become a definitive choice. Practical Java Game Programming identifies the technological path developers need to take to make this happen. It explores and illustrates cutting-edge Java game programming concepts and techniques through specific explanations from existing Java game projects, with fully executable example code. Intended for both Java programmers new to game development, and for game programmers interested in Java, the book offers usage patterns that leverage Java’s strengths and points out weaknesses to avoid. It teaches Java programmers how to deliver outstanding games and details the specific issues in Java to make game development straightforward and efficient.
Java has always provided a powerful platform on which to develop interactive content, and with the addition of the Java Technology Group’s gaming APIs, Java becomes a third-party platform choice and delivery model for game developers. Each chapter includes working code examples that can stand alone for easy implementation into one’s own projects, or be used toward the creation of a fully functional demo game. This allows beginning programmers to follow the topics step-by-step, and more experienced programmers to use specific areas of interest. Although this book is centered on Java and the platform technologies, its message is for developers to maintain a wide view regarding new technologies, as well as to keep creative ingenuity intact while implementing games on the Java platform.
Highlights * Provides a complete guide to Java game development for Java programmers new to game development * Focuses on Java specific topics such as performance issues and the virtual machine, garbage collection, Just-in-Time (JIT) compiler, native timers, and Java as a scripting language * Covers 3D game development issues including the new Java bindings for OpenGL (JOGL), using JOGL to make a 3D Render Engine, and Collision Detection and Response * Includes a chapter on 'Local Area Networks for Java Games' by Jeff Kesselman, the Sun Game Server Architect, and 'Game dbases and JDBC' by Sun Certified Java 2 Programmer, Will Bracken * Explains genre specific issues for sports, puzzle, racing, strategy, action/adventure, and massively multiplayer online role-playing games * Provides up-to-date information on J2SDK 1.5 in the book and on the companion site
On The CD-ROM * FIGURES: all the figures from the book by chapter * CODE: examples, libraries, and materials from each chapter * SUN® J2SDK: the latest version of the Sun J2SDK 1.4.2_04 as well as Java3D™ and JOGL for Linux, Mac OSX and Win32
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Windows 2000 or better, Linux or Mac OSX; Pentium 1Ghz or better, 100MB free hard drive space. For 3D graphics examples, OpenGL 1.2 accelerated video support is required. For some 3D graphics examples full OpenGL 1.4 support is required.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Beats a trail around the camp fire without ever cooking anything
This appears to have been written by a Java evangelist who loves to talk shop about the ins & outs of Java programming. Unfortunately, this is supposed to be about game programming, and in that regard, I found nothing practical about it. A single chapter on 2D graphics? This book goes into great depth providing the mathematics of 3D collision detection (chapter 16), but doesn't get any further in the graphics department than drawing a few static (non-animated) Actors (i.e. "sprites").
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Rating: - Interesting but flawed
Overall I find this a good book. It has interesting discussion and introduction of several topics that interest me. However it is flawed with typos and misstatements (sometimes contradicted in the next sentence). It's also fairly out of date now (JDK 1.5 comments are somewhat out of date now and JOAL comments are a bit out of date).
Pick it up at a bargain price (under $5) and I do recommend it as a good book on JOAL and several other topics of value for Java programming (not just games).
Rating: - Also found it disappointing
I also found this book to be disappointing. I would also agree that the author sees it necessary to discuss the techniques involved rather than talk about a technique and then present the code for that technique.
I bought this book on the basis that it was going to be "practical" programming, i.e techniques and code, but all i found was a long winded discussion on the topic. The author does show that he has a great knowledge of java game programming but it is poorly presented to the intermediate java ... Read More
Rating: - A good starting point for game development
Hi. First off, id like to state that I am by no means a professional programmer. I am a high school junior, who is currently working through AP computer science. I picked this book up on a trip as reading material, and it has been very informative. The code samples are extremely well written, and easy for me to follow. My only major critisim is that the printed code samples have several typos in them, but if you look through the code included on the cd, then you'll have no problems. Overall, I thought it was ... Read More
Rating: - Nice intro into the + and - of Java as a game language
Be careful of your expectations here. This is NOT a 'how to' book with 100+s pages of code samples. This is not a book in the 'java cookbook' series.
What this IS is a book that describes the +/- of the java language and the JVM and talks about PERFORMANCE issues extensively. The author goes out of his way to talk about the issues surrounding the use of Hotspot VM/JIT and benchmarks with math/IO, etc.
The last 1/2 of the book (maybe less) deals with some high-level understanding of ... Read More
- Beats a trail around the camp fire without ever cooking anything
- A good starting point for game development
- Nice intro into the + and - of Java as a game language
