This graphics class has inspired me some to play around with the Java3D SDK. It is quite a lot more complex than I assumed it would be, but once you get your head in about the tutorials it is fairly obvious.

I decided to go with Java3D over C or C++ and OpenGL for the simple fact that I can run them as either applications or web applets. In fact Java3D has an excellent utility class that allows you to give your applet a main method and allow you to run it as an application in one line of code. The only worries I have with using Java is that it is not best known for its graphical speed. If this becomes a real problem later on then I may switch back to OpenGL and C. In fact the Java3D implementation is actually based on whether you have DirectX or OpenGL installed, so I should be able to convert the code fairly easily will keeping the output exactly the same.

The first plan is to combine all the techniques I have learnt so far and to improve them. I plan to create a very simple tank game to start with based on an old classic I used to play when I was younger. Java has excellent support for creating your own loaders for different 3D modelling package output files and there are no doubt loads out there already. So I think I will design my Tank in a 3D modelling package and output the file to a format I can load and go from there.

On top of all this, I have been playing around with Vector mathematics over the past few days and I am considering on using it to emulate forces in my game accurately.

So I think that should keep me going for a while. Not quite sure when I will get back to the OS project....lets just say for the moment it is ongoing. ;)