Tutorials

These tutorials try to provide a starting point for beginners to get something working in Java3D. Thats not to say these bits of code are good or even correct in parts. We're not going to try and get into the details of the theory behind the scene graph and 3d generally, hopefully we'll just get started and get something to play with. :)

Remember you need to get Java3D for them to work.

They're loosely based on the NeHe Tutorials which were a great help to me when I was playing with OpenGL.

Comments & Suggestions

1. The basic framework
	Tutorial 1 attempts to establish the basic bits of code need to get a 3d window onto the screen. The rest of the tutorials will be based off this code. Note: The Duke image isn't a result of this tutorial!

2. Basic Geometry
	Moving on from the first tutorial we're going to add some geometry to our scene. We'll build a simple square to put into the scene. We'll also update our view so we can back off a bit and actually be able to see the square.

3. Adding some colour
	As nice as our square is, its a bit bland. In the third tutorial we'll add a bit of colour to the scene. This tutorial we illustrate how each element of quad array contains settings for a set of different attributes.

4. Rotating
	Now we'll add some movement, to be exact, in this tutorial we'll make the square rotate around the X axis. We'll cover quite a bit in this tutorial including transform groups, behaviors and a simple appearance node.

5. 3D Shapes and Texturing
	Up to now the 3D tutorials have been a bit flat. In this tutorial we'll progress to an 3D object. We'll also extend the use of the appearance node to add a texture.

6. Keyboard Control
	This tutorial builds on the tutorial 5 and adds keyboard control to the mix. We'll extend our behavior to manipulate the rotation of the cube based on keyboard input.