Search icon
Arrow left icon
All Products
Best Sellers
New Releases
Books
Videos
Audiobooks
Learning Hub
Newsletters
Free Learning
Arrow right icon
Building a 3D Game with LibGDX
Building a 3D Game with LibGDX

Building a 3D Game with LibGDX: Learn how to build an exciting 3D game with LibGDX from scratch

€14.99 per month
Book Aug 2016 234 pages 1st Edition
eBook
€19.99 €13.98
Print
€24.99
Subscription
€14.99 Monthly
eBook
€19.99 €13.98
Print
€24.99
Subscription
€14.99 Monthly

What do you get with a Packt Subscription?

Free for first 7 days. $15.99 p/m after that. Cancel any time!
Product feature icon Unlimited ad-free access to the largest independent learning library in tech. Access this title and thousands more!
Product feature icon 50+ new titles added per month, including many first-to-market concepts and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.
Product feature icon Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.
Product feature icon Thousands of reference materials covering every tech concept you need to stay up to date.
Subscribe now
View plans & pricing

Product Details


Publication date : Aug 29, 2016
Length 234 pages
Edition : 1st Edition
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785288418
Category :

Estimated delivery fee Deliver to Hungary

Premium 7 - 10 business days

€26.95
(Includes tracking information)
Table of content icon View table of contents Preview book icon Preview Book

Building a 3D Game with LibGDX

Chapter 1. Setting Up Your Development Environment

LibGDX's development is very powerful, and that is why we will set up a nice and stable structure to work with before jumping into the code and project structure. We will use IntelliJ IDEA to do most of our development for the simply because it's productive (and of course, there are few neat tricks to combine with LibGDX), though it's very common to use Eclipse for development too. There are other ways to set up a 3D game with LibGDX, but to start off this book; we will build the game with basic assets created by code. In this chapter, we will explain how to download and set up all the required tools to get you started with setting up an environment to build 3D games with LibGDX, and to work on desktop and Android platforms. Although LibGDX also builds for HTML (WebGL) and iOS, we won't cover these builds because they do not fit with our game, but they are as easy as the following documentation guidelines on the official site (http://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/). You will learn more about this in this chapter.

Assuming you know LibGDX, you already have the Java Development Kit (JDK) installed and the Android software development kit (SDK) updated (you need API 22 with the LibGDX version [1.6.4]); otherwise, a simple Google search will do. The steps are OS-free and we will use Windows to implement them.

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

  • Downloading and installing IntelliJ IDEA

  • Setting up the LibGDX project and importing it to IntelliJ IDEA

  • Running and debugging the game

LibGDX 3D API overview


LibGDX is a Java cross-platform game development framework that released its first version in 2009. It lets you go as low-level as you want to and gives you direct access to all kinds of areas of development. It also comes with an OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0 wrapper interface, which is the one that lets us perform 3D development.

3D development with LibGDX already has a nice array of games under its belt already. The following screenshot shows a very popular game called Grandpa's Table, which is available on Android, iOS, and Amazon:

The following is a screenshot of an Android game named Apparatus:

The following screenshot is of the game Ingress, which is available on Android and iOS:

These are just a few of the most popular games out there.

We will not only cover as much as we can from this 3D API—to get the most of it and show a general structure for how to keep things organized and optimal—but also the use of other LibGDX tools to get the most of the framework too.

Downloading IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition


Download the latest version of IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition for Java developers from https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/download/; it will suggest the download versions compatible with your current operating system. Select the version that best suits your operating system platform, which will either be 32-bit or 64-bit.

At the time of writing this book, IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition (14.1.4) is the latest version.

LibGDX project setup


At the time of writing this book, LibGDX was in version 1.6.4 and we will use that version. Download the setup app from http://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/download.html and open it:

Set up your project name (ours will be called Space Gladiators) and package name (ours is com.deeep.spaceglad). Enter the game's main class name (ours is Core), set the destination path to your preferred directory, and point out the Android SDK directory location.

We will check the Desktop, Android, and iOS project, but leave out Html since we will use the Bullet physics API, which doesn't work on HTML because of the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) backend (for more information, check out http://www.badlogicgames.com/wordpress/?p=2308).

From Extensions, we'll select Bullet (Bullet physics API), Tools (Bitmap Font Generator [Hiero], 3D Particle Editor, and TexturePacker), Controllers (Controller Input API), and Ashley (Entity System API).

LibGDX comes, as you can see, with a lot of very useful tools that you should use for some time and explore them. We'll cover these selected APIs in some depth over the course of this book.

Click on Generate and wait. After it is done, open IntelliJ IDEA and click on Import Project. Go to your newly created project and look for a file called build.gradle, and IntelliJ will do everything else.

Basic use of IntelliJ IDEA with LibGDX


Running and debugging the app with IntelliJ IDEA is as simple as a click, but sometimes, we need to perform extra configurations on the IDE to avoid exceptions.

Running the Android app

Once IntelliJ is done with all the processes, the default app to run will be Android. To run it, click on the Bug or Play buttons to the right of the navigation bar:

Gradle will build and the Choose Device dialog will pop up, from which you'll choose the Android device on which you'll run the app (either an emulator or a physical device), for which you just have to plug in your device.

Running the desktop app

To run the desktop app we have to change the default configuration and add the desktop launcher:

  1. Click on android and select Edit Configurations; the Run/Debug Configurations dialog should pop up.

  2. Click on the + icon at the top left of it and select Application.

  3. Name it desktop. In the Main class field, select DesktopLauncher. For Working directory, go to your Android project and double-click the assets folder.

  4. Click on the Use Classpath of module field, select desktop, and then click on the OK button at the bottom.

Now instead of android at the top, you'll see desktop. You can run or debug with the two buttons to the right of it.

Summary


In this chapter, we introduced IntelliJ IDEA and its basic use; we also explained how to download and install it, and set up LibGDX Project for 3D work. We configured our work environment and launched the Android application into an actual device and the desktop application.

In the next chapter, we'll take the plunge to it and learn about LibGDX's 3D rendering API, perspective camera, 3D workflow, and more.

Left arrow icon Right arrow icon
Download code icon Download Code

Key benefits

  • Implement an exhaustive list of features that LibGDX unleashes to build your 3D game.
  • Write, test, and debug your application on your desktop and deploy them on multiple platforms.
  • Gain a clear understanding of the physics behind LibGDX and libraries like OpenGL and WebGL that make up LibGDX.

Description

LibGDX is a hugely popular open source, cross-platform, Java-based game development framework built for the demands of cross-platform game development. This book will teach readers how the LibGDX framework uses its 3D rendering API with the OpenGL wrapper, in combination with Bullet Physics, 3D Particles, and Shaders to develop and deploy a game application to different platforms You will start off with the basic Intellij environment, workflow and set up a LibGDX project with necessary APIs for 3D development. You will then go through LibGDX’s 3D rendering API main features and talk about the camera used for 3D. Our next step is to put everything together to build a basic 3D game with Shapes, including basic gameplay mechanics and basic UI. Next you will go through modeling, rigging, and animation in Blender. We will then talk about refining mechanics, new input implementations, implementing enemy 3D models, mechanics, and gameplay balancing. The later part of this title will help you to manage secondary resources like audio, music and add 3D particles in the game to make the game more realistic. You will finally test and deploy the app on a multitude of different platforms, ready to start developing your own titles how you want!

What you will learn

[*] Learn the potential of LibGDX in game development [*] Understand the LibGDX architecture and explore platform limitation and variations [*] Explore the various approaches for game development using LibGDX [*] Learn about the common mistakes and possible solutions of development [*] Discover the 3D workflow with Blender and how it works with LibGDX [*] Implement 3D models along with textures and animations into your games [*] Familiarize yourself with Scene2D and its potential to boost your game's design

What do you get with a Packt Subscription?

Free for first 7 days. $15.99 p/m after that. Cancel any time!
Product feature icon Unlimited ad-free access to the largest independent learning library in tech. Access this title and thousands more!
Product feature icon 50+ new titles added per month, including many first-to-market concepts and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.
Product feature icon Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.
Product feature icon Thousands of reference materials covering every tech concept you need to stay up to date.
Subscribe now
View plans & pricing

Product Details


Publication date : Aug 29, 2016
Length 234 pages
Edition : 1st Edition
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785288418
Category :

Estimated delivery fee Deliver to Hungary

Premium 7 - 10 business days

€26.95
(Includes tracking information)

Table of Contents

12 Chapters
Building a 3D Game with LibGDX Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Credits Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
About the Author Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
www.PacktPub.com Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Preface Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
1. Setting Up Your Development Environment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. An Extra Dimension Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Working toward a Prototype Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Preparing Visuals Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Starting to Look Like an Actual Game Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Spicing Up the Game Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Final Words Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Filter icon Filter
Top Reviews
Rating distribution
Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 0
(0 Ratings)
5 star 0%
4 star 0%
3 star 0%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%

Filter reviews by


No reviews found
Get free access to Packt library with over 7500+ books and video courses for 7 days!
Start Free Trial

FAQs

What is included in a Packt subscription? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

A subscription provides you with full access to view all Packt and licnesed content online, this includes exclusive access to Early Access titles. Depending on the tier chosen you can also earn credits and discounts to use for owning content

How can I cancel my subscription? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

To cancel your subscription with us simply go to the account page - found in the top right of the page or at https://subscription.packtpub.com/my-account/subscription - From here you will see the ‘cancel subscription’ button in the grey box with your subscription information in.

What are credits? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Credits can be earned from reading 40 section of any title within the payment cycle - a month starting from the day of subscription payment. You also earn a Credit every month if you subscribe to our annual or 18 month plans. Credits can be used to buy books DRM free, the same way that you would pay for a book. Your credits can be found in the subscription homepage - subscription.packtpub.com - clicking on ‘the my’ library dropdown and selecting ‘credits’.

What happens if an Early Access Course is cancelled? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Projects are rarely cancelled, but sometimes it's unavoidable. If an Early Access course is cancelled or excessively delayed, you can exchange your purchase for another course. For further details, please contact us here.

Where can I send feedback about an Early Access title? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

If you have any feedback about the product you're reading, or Early Access in general, then please fill out a contact form here and we'll make sure the feedback gets to the right team. 

Can I download the code files for Early Access titles? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

We try to ensure that all books in Early Access have code available to use, download, and fork on GitHub. This helps us be more agile in the development of the book, and helps keep the often changing code base of new versions and new technologies as up to date as possible. Unfortunately, however, there will be rare cases when it is not possible for us to have downloadable code samples available until publication.

When we publish the book, the code files will also be available to download from the Packt website.

How accurate is the publication date? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

The publication date is as accurate as we can be at any point in the project. Unfortunately, delays can happen. Often those delays are out of our control, such as changes to the technology code base or delays in the tech release. We do our best to give you an accurate estimate of the publication date at any given time, and as more chapters are delivered, the more accurate the delivery date will become.

How will I know when new chapters are ready? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

We'll let you know every time there has been an update to a course that you've bought in Early Access. You'll get an email to let you know there has been a new chapter, or a change to a previous chapter. The new chapters are automatically added to your account, so you can also check back there any time you're ready and download or read them online.

I am a Packt subscriber, do I get Early Access? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Yes, all Early Access content is fully available through your subscription. You will need to have a paid for or active trial subscription in order to access all titles.

How is Early Access delivered? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Early Access is currently only available as a PDF or through our online reader. As we make changes or add new chapters, the files in your Packt account will be updated so you can download them again or view them online immediately.

How do I buy Early Access content? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Early Access is a way of us getting our content to you quicker, but the method of buying the Early Access course is still the same. Just find the course you want to buy, go through the check-out steps, and you’ll get a confirmation email from us with information and a link to the relevant Early Access courses.

What is Early Access? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Keeping up to date with the latest technology is difficult; new versions, new frameworks, new techniques. This feature gives you a head-start to our content, as it's being created. With Early Access you'll receive each chapter as it's written, and get regular updates throughout the product's development, as well as the final course as soon as it's ready.We created Early Access as a means of giving you the information you need, as soon as it's available. As we go through the process of developing a course, 99% of it can be ready but we can't publish until that last 1% falls in to place. Early Access helps to unlock the potential of our content early, to help you start your learning when you need it most. You not only get access to every chapter as it's delivered, edited, and updated, but you'll also get the finalized, DRM-free product to download in any format you want when it's published. As a member of Packt, you'll also be eligible for our exclusive offers, including a free course every day, and discounts on new and popular titles.