In my previous post, I hinted that, in addition to getting back to work on Shipyard, I had also started a “secret new project” that I would share if it went well. Well, thus far, that seems to be the case, so here’s a little sneak-peak of what I have so far:

I’m not going to give any details that would get people’s hopes up, as there is still potential for this to go beyond my current skill level, but I will explain what’s going on in the video. You are given a (currently untextured) 3D model of a tank, which you can fly around and look at. You can also control the turret rotation and gun elevation/depression using the arrow keys. It’s not much, I know; the important thing here is that it has 3D graphics — something I’ve never personally experimented much with until now.

Like Shipyard, the game runs in Java. However, rather than using Java’s built-in graphics API the way Shipyard does, this demo uses LWJGL, or “Lightweight Java Game Library” to render 3D objects in OpenGL. LWJGL is the same library Minecraft uses for its 3D rendering. I’m not entirely clear on the technical details, but generally speaking it handles rendering more efficiently than plain Java and thus allows for much more complex game design.