Practical Java Game Programming (Game Development Series) (Paperback)

by Dustin Clingman (Author), Shawn Kendall (Author), Syrus Mesdaghi (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Java™ 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.

About the Author
Dustin Clingman (Oviedo, FL) is a professor of Game Design and Development at Full Sail Real World Education and President of the game studio Zeitgeist Games, Inc. He frequently speaks at IGDA events and conferences around the country. Shawn Kendall (Winter Park, FL) is the professor for Real Time 3D Graphics at Full Sail and has developed cutting edge Java and Java3D based game technology demos for both Full Sail and Sun Microsystems. He is the founder of Immediate Mode Interactive, LLC, a Java game technology company. Syrus Mesdaghi (Orlando, FL) is the professor for the A.I. course at Full Sail, has developed cutting edge game technology for both Full Sail and Sun Microsystems and is active in Java gaming and A.I. communities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 508 pages
• Publisher: Charles River Media; 1 edition (June 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584503262
• ISBN-13: 978-1584503262
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #739,025 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The Charles River Media Game Development Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice intro into the + and - of Java as a game language, February 7, 2005

By	WidgetBoy (Gaithersburg, MD United States) - See all my reviews

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 rendering and collision detection.

Topics include bindings to OpenGL (jogl), JNI (it's cost vs. benefits in it's use), performance of java.math and where it can be optimized, some simple treatment of sockets vs. datagram/multicast sockets, audio integration, proper use and performance with direct bytebuffers vs. java arrays (java.io/java.nio), also a little on GC collection algorithms. Also a treatment of java's +/- as a scripting language, as well as a good look at rendering and collisions.

Overall a very interesting techical look at the VM and performance challenges that java as a GAME language faces.

The author makes it clear that good java games can be written but good PERFORMANCE games takes an understanding of the JVM and proper code architecture that takes into account java's strengths (as oppsed to it's weaknesses).

I would recommend this a a great starting point for someone interested in making good java games or just learning about java performance issues. If you want a 'cookbook' you'll need to look elsewhere.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, July 29, 2004

By	A.Jobes - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have been waiting for this book for a while as the publishing date slipped a few times. Having recieved the book, I wish I never bought it. To start with 2/3 of the book is about java, optimisation, a poor section on JDBC and some networking stuff that you can find anywhere else. The remaining of the book is a general discussion of Java and the last chapter (Ch 15) is about a simple 3d engine (jist 3D)which is pretty incomplete. The book has many incomplete code snippets and no games in sight which is surprising when the authors have been around the game development forums for such a long time.
The book seems to be a poor attempt in discussing games development in Java. More like an attempt to cash in the market demand.
If you are buying this book to learn about Java and 3D, then there are better books such as -Developing Games in Java- by Brackeen which has good explanations about various aspect of game development in java.
My advice is that dont waste your money on this book!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Beats a trail around the camp fire without ever cooking anything, December 4, 2005

By	J. S. Harbour (Arizona) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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").

The focus of this book is off-point from the start, in my opinion. The chapters toward the end on 3D graphics provide insufficient information to build a 3D game, and yet the material up to that point is insufficient to build a 2D game. What you end up with in the end is a lot of knowledge about Java, but not a single practical program, let alone game.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the CD includes .java and .class files, but no explanation on what to do with them (the back cover does say this is a Beginning-Intermediate book, not Advanced).

The Java Developer's Kit comes with much better demos than you will find in this book WITH convenient .html files with code to run the applets, which is something these authors should have included.