jMonkeyEngine (abbreviated JME or jME) is an open-source and cross-platform

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

for developing 3D games written in

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

. It can be used to write games for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi ( ) is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in collaboration with Broadcom Inc., Broadcom. To commercialize the product and support its growing demand, the ...

, Android, and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

(currently in alpha testing). It uses

Lightweight Java Game Library The Lightweight Java Game Library (LWJGL) is an open-source software library that provides bindings to a variety of C libraries for video game developers to Java. It exposes cross-platform libraries commonly used in developing video games and ...

as its default renderer, and also supports another renderer based on

Java OpenGL Java OpenGL (JOGL) is a wrapper library that allows OpenGL to be used in the Java programming language. It was originally developed by Kenneth Bradley Russell and Christopher John Kline, and was further developed by the Game Technology Group at Su ...

. jMonkeyEngine is community-centric and

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

. It is released under the

New BSD license BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD licen ...

. It is used by several commercial game studios and educational institutions. The default jMonkeyEngine 3 comes integrated with a software development kit (SDK).

jMonkeyEngine 3 SDK

By itself, jMonkeyEngine is a collection of computing libraries, making it a low-level

game development tool A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art (su ...

. Coupled with an

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, an ...

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 has its own plugin repository and a selection between stable

point release A patch release (often colloquially also known as a point release, dot release, or bugfix release) is a software release of a product or other project, especially one intended to fix bugs or do small cleanups rather than add significant features. ...

s or nightly updates. Since March 5th, 2016, the SDK is no longer officially supported by the core team. It is still being actively maintained by the community. The term "jMonkeyPlatform" is also used interchangeably with "jMonkeyEngine 3 SDK."

History

jMonkeyEngine helps to improve the lack of full featured graphics engines written in Java. The project has evolved over time.

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 original core developers gradually discontinued work on the project throughout the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, Version 2.0 had not yet been made officially stable. The code-base became adopted for commercial use and was most popular with the engine's community at the time.

jMonkeyEngine 3.0

Since the departure of jME's core developers in late 2008, the codebase remained practically stagnant for several months. The community continued to commit patches, but the project was not moving in any clear direction. Development on Version 3.0 started as an experiment. The first preview release of jME3 in early 2009 drew positive attention from many members 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.

Projects powered by jMonkeyEngine

*''

Nord Nord, a word meaning "north" in several European languages, may refer to: Acronyms * National Organization for Rare Disorders, an American nonprofit organization * New Orleans Recreation Department, New Orleans, Louisiana, US Film and televisi ...

'', a browser-based

massively multiplayer online game A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players to interact in the same online game world. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent world, persistent open world, although t ...

(MMO) on

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, created by

Skygoblin Skygoblin is a Swedish video game developer based in Gothenburg, formed in 2005 as SLX Games. They became Skygoblin in 2011, after they adopted the name used by the development group of the freeware version of The Journey Down. They developed th ...

*''

Grappling Hook A grappling hook or grapnel is a device that typically has multiple hooks (known as ''claws'' or ''flukes'') attached to a rope or cable; it is thrown, dropped, sunk, projected, or fastened directly by hand to where at least one hook may cat ...

'', a first-person

action Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...

and

puzzle game A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are different ...

, created by an independent developer *''Drohtin'', a

real-time strategy game Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time." By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to pl ...

(RTS) *''Chaos'', a 3D fantasy

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...

(RPG) by 4Realms *''Skullstone'', a 3D

retro Retro style is imitative or consciously derivative of lifestyles, trends, or art forms from the past, including in music, modes, fashions, or attitudes. It has been argued that there is a nostalgia cycle in popular culture. Definition The term ...

-styled

single player A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the gameplay. Video games in general can feature several game modes, including single-player modes designed to be played by a single player in addi ...

dungeon crawl A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may find. Video g ...

er game, created by Black Torch Games *''Spoxel'', a 2D

action-adventure An action-adventure game is a video game genre, video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Definition An action adventure game can be defined as a game with a mix of elements f ...

sandbox video game A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or with a goal that the players set for themselves. Such games may lack any objec ...

, created by Epaga Games *''Lightspeed Frontier'', a space sandbox game with RPG, building, and exploration elements, created by Crowdwork Studios *''Subspace Infinity'', a 2D top-down space fighter MMO *''3079'' and ''3089'', randomly generated and

open-world In video games, an open world is a virtual world in which the player can approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay. Notable games in this category include ''The Legend of Zelda'' (1986), ''Grand ...

RPGs by Phr00t's Software *''

New Star Soccer ''New Star Soccer'', also known as ''NSS'', is a series of Sports game, football video games developed and published by New Star Games. The games let the player create and control a Association football, soccer player's career as he moves through ...

'', a mobile football video game, created by

New Star Games New Star Games is a British independent video game developer specialising in sports game, sports role-playing video games. It was founded by Simon Read in 2003. Their most well-known product is the ''New Star Soccer'' series, role-playing assoc ...

Reception

* JavaOne 2008 Presentation * Finalist in PacktPub Open Source Graphics Software Award 2010

Ardor3D fork

Ardor3D began life on September 23, 2008, as a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...

from 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 The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

and

NASA JPL The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researcher ...

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 The zlib license is a permissive software license which defines the terms under which the zlib software library can be distributed. It is also used by many other open-source packages. The libpng library uses a similar license, libpng license, s ...

and continue to be freely available. However, a subset of Ardor3D called "JogAmp's Ardor3D Continuation" was still actively maintained by Julien Gouesse as of 2014.

References

External links

* {{Video game engines 2003 software 3D scenegraph APIs Free 3D graphics software Free game engines Free software programmed in Java (programming language) Java (programming language) libraries Video game engines Software using the BSD license