JMonkeyEngine

jMonkeyEngine 3 SDK

By itself, jMonkeyEngine is a collection of libraries, making it a low-level game development tool. Coupled with an IDE like the official jMonkeyEngine 3 SDK it becomes a higher level game development environment with multiple graphical components. The SDK is based on the NetBeans Platform, enabling graphical editors and plugin capabilities. Alongside the default NetBeans update centers, the SDK includes its own plugin repository and a selection between stable point releases or nightly updates. Since March the 5th of 2016, the SDK is not officially supported anymore by the core team. Ever since then it is still being actively maintained by the community.

Note: The "jMonkeyPlatform" and the "jMonkeyEngine 3 SDK" are exactly the same thing.

History

jMonkeyEngine was built to fulfill the lack of full featured graphics engines written in Java. The project has a distinct two-part story, as the current core development team includes none of the original creators.

jMonkeyEngine 0.1 – 2.0

Version 0.1 to 2.0 of jMonkeyEngine marks the time from when the project was first established in 2003, until the last 2.0 version was released in 2008. When the core developers at that time gradually discontinued work on the project throughout the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, the 2.0 version had not yet been made officially stable. Regardless, the codebase became adopted for commercial use and the community actively supported the 2.0 version more than any other.

2003 (2003)

Initial work on jMonkeyEngine was begun by Mark Powell (aka MojoMonkey) as a side project to see if a fully featured graphics API could be written in Java. Much of the early work on the API was inspired by David Eberly's C++ book 3D Game Engine Design.

January 2004 (2004-01)

Mark was joined by Joshua Slack (aka Renanse) and together over the following two years, with the help of other community contributors, a commercially viable API was developed.

August 15, 2008 (2008-08-15)

Joshua Slack announces to step back from active development of the jMonkeyEngine.

jMonkeyEngine 3.0

Since the departure of jME's core developers in late 2008 the codebase remained practically stagnant for several months. The community kept committing patches, but the project was not moving in any clear direction. Version 3.0 started as nothing more than an experiment. The first preview release of jME3 in early 2009 created a lot of buzz in the community, and the majority agreed that this new branch would be the official successor to jME 2.0. From there on all the formalities were sorted out between the previous core developers and the new. The jME core team is now composed of eight committed individuals.

April 1, 2009 (2009-04-01)

Kirill Vainer "shadowislord" starts a new branch in the official jMonkeyEngine repository and commits the first publicly available code for jMonkeyEngine 3.0. Soon after, the branch was renamed to reflect its "test" status.

June 24, 2009 (2009-06-24)

The project sees a new beginning in the official jMonkeyEngine 3.0 branch, initially designed and developed solely by Kirill Vainer. Management responsibilities are picked up by Erlend Sogge Heggen, shortly later accompanied by Skye Book.

May 17, 2010 (2010-05-17)

The first Alpha of jMonkeyEngine 3 is released. The same date marked the first Alpha release of the jMonkeyEngine SDK, only a few months after the first planning stages. The "jMonkeyEngine SDK" has since become the default product download recommended to all jME3 developers.

September 7, 2010 (2010-09-07)

The jMonkeyEngine website was completely re-designed. A new domain, jmonkeyengine.org, is dedicated to all project and community activities. The old jmonkeyengine.com is re-purposed as a product promotion site.

October 22, 2011 (2011-10-22)

jMonkeyEngine 3 SDK Beta is released. Stable update track is introduced as an alternative to downloading bleeding edge nightly builds.

February 15, 2014 (2014-02-15)

jMonkeyEngine 3 SDK Stable is released. In spite of being technically stable for a long time, the official 3.0 SDK release was delayed until February 2014.

Projects powered by jMonkeyEngine

Nord, a browser-based MMO on Facebook, created by Skygoblin.

Grappling Hook, a first-person action & puzzle game, accomplished by a single independent developer.

Open Wonderland, a 100% Java open source toolkit for creating collaborative 3D virtual worlds

5089, the latest in an open-world futuristic action RPG series. The games are inspired by the Fallout series, Borderlands (video game) and Minecraft.

Gentrieve 2, a "Metroid"-style 3D action game featuring completely random & customizable worlds.

Maker's Tale, a Fantasy RTS played in a sandbox environment enabling the player to rebuild the level during play.

Pirate Hell, a fast diabloesque top-down shooter. Take command of a sailing ship and fight your way to honour, gold and all the pretty things a pirate likes.

Chaos, a 3D fantasy cooperative game based RPG by 4Realms.

HeroDex, a trading card MMO offering quick-paced matches, a unique feats-based advancement system and flexible deck building.

Drohtin, Realtime Strategy Game (RTS), Singleplayer/Multiplayer. Build your own village and be a great leader of your citizens.

Acknowledgements

JavaOne 2008 Presentation

Finalist in PacktPub Open Source Graphics Software Award 2010

Ardor 3D fork

Ardor3D began life September 23, 2008 as a fork from the jMonkeyEngine by Joshua Slack and Rikard Herlitz due to what they perceived as irreconcilable issues with naming, provenance, licensing, and community structure in that engine, as well as a desire to back a powerful open-source Java engine with organized corporate support. The first public release came January 2, 2009, with new releases following every few months thereafter. In 2011, Ardor3D was used in the Mars Curiosity mission both by NASA Ames as well as NASA JPL, for visualizing terrain and rover movement. On March 11, 2014, Joshua Slack announced that the project would be abandoned, although the software itself would remain under zlib license and continue to be freely available. However, a subset of Ardor3D called "JogAmp's Ardor3D Continuation" is still actively maintained by Julien Gouesse.