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I am learning LWJGL. unity 3d and UDK are the best game engines I notice when I Google. But game engines for java or LWJGL are j Monkey engine, adore 3d, libgdx etc. Can I use unity 3d or udk while learning LWJGL or should I stick with j Monkey engine, adore 3d, libgdx etc?

Kate Gregory
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atique
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  • please some one knowledgeable help me out specially about performance comparison( in terms of game quality not learning easiness) between jMonkeyEngine and unity 3d... – atique Jun 17 '13 at 05:42
  • What do you actually ask about? "Can I use unity 3d or udk while learning LWJGL?" - yes, you can, these are free engines (more or less). You want to use Java/LWJGL for a Unity/UDK game? No, that won't work. As of now, your question is like "Can I use knives while learning to use forks?". – Jacek Przemieniecki Jun 17 '13 at 22:42

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LWJGL and UDK/Unity are very different beasts. LWJGL is a low level API from which you could build a game engine, while the UDK and Unity are complete ready-made game engines from which you can start building games without having to care about low level stuff like OpenGL/DirectX, Input controls, Audio, etc. So these engines will not help you to learn LWJGL but they might give you some ideas on how to do certain things (e.g. how to organize scenes, what formats to support, how to do an asset pipeline, etc.).

If your ultimate goal is to actually write a game, I'd say go for one of the engines directly and don't bother with the low level stuff and LWJGL. Writing a game engine is hard to do and the engines out there cater for most types of games. If you have super-special needs or just want to build a game engine for the sake of it, then go on with the LWJGL path and have a peek at every game engine you can get your hands on for getting ideas.

Jan Thomä
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  • Thanks a lot @Jan Thomä. But what about most of the professional game developers? Do they write on existing game engines or develop their own game engine? can anyone answer please? – atique Jun 21 '13 at 16:31
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    I'll answer that. It is really a matter of choice. Just look at many popular games - many game developers (mostly indies) build their games from scratch with a basic engine made just for their game. Examples of this are Minecraft, Blocks that Matter, Super Meat Boy, etc. Many others work on building an in-house engine and using that. Some examples are Bethesda's in-house engine, Polytron's trixel engine, Source, etc. And others still use the big engines, namely Unity, UDK, and Cryengine. It really is a matter of pure choice, and what you want to do. – Flafla2 Jun 23 '13 at 20:41
  • thanks @Flafla2, in fact i fell in love with lwjgl. Now if i go with a game engine whatever engine it is(since the game engine does things behind the scene hiding details and coding is completely different)my study and knowledge about lwjgl comes to no use, so i am a bit confused. – atique Jun 24 '13 at 15:40
  • As far as programming goes, that is true, however knowledge of things like game design, creating nice looking GUIs, etc. will still be useful. Also most game engines are extremely code friendly so they are very easy to pick up (Unity for example can be written in 3 languages if you have Basic, including C# which is pretty much the same as Java as far as syntax goes). – Flafla2 Jun 24 '13 at 15:57
  • @Flafla2, But is opengl or any opengl bindings like lwjgl going to be useful in game engine? Bro, can i write C# code directly in unity3d? – atique Jun 24 '13 at 16:16
  • No, but that is the point of the engine. It does 100% of the rendering for you (except for shaders, that you pretty much have to do yourself. However most engines come with basic shaders to start out with like Diffuse/Specular, etc.). The point of a game engine is to abstract out all of the OpenGL, low-level logic, etc. so that you can focus on your game. – Flafla2 Jun 24 '13 at 16:20
  • @Flafla2, if i want to use unity3d, do i need to learn any of the 3 languages like Basic, C# etc. Can't i just simply go with unity3d without learning Basic java-script or C#? – atique Jun 24 '13 at 16:29
  • @Flafla2 as a matter of fact you can do low level OpenGL calls in Unity (http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/GL.html). – Jan Thomä Jun 25 '13 at 07:18
  • @atique with pure Unity3d you won't get very far without any kind of scripting. However there are extensions to Unity like PlayMaker or Antares which allow you to create game logic visually without scripting. So if you don't want to learn a programming language, you could go with these. – Jan Thomä Jun 25 '13 at 07:19