This is possibly going to be a lengthy message that doesn''t necessarily apply totally to this group, but here goes.. I was thinking of a way to improve game programming in java that was "outside the box". The idea is to use a 3d api (be it Java3D or OpenGL java bindings) to accelerate 2d graphics. The idea I had would be to have each sprite essentially exist on a square. The square would be texturemapped with the actual sprite image. Assuming you had alpha enabled, you could have a sprite with transparency. All sprites would be coplanar, except for perhaps the background. Anyway, the gist of this idea is that you could render out these 3d sprites letting Direct3d or OpenGL accelerate the graphics in hardware (hopefully). I know this idea isn''t fleshed out very well, but I was hoping to generate some discussion. Thanks, Shaun

I thought Java2D existed for 2D purposes...

It appears that this is actually a fairly common technique. I am using the same concept to develop a cyberpunk game in Java 3D. As I was looking into this concept for my own game I found out that the technique has been used in a couple of commercial games, including Dungeon Keeper 2.

There was a similar discussion in the Isometric Game thread on this board where they questioned the use of 3D API''s for 2D isometric games. The benefits they listed included accurate Collision Detection and 3D Lighting (which is going to be more effective than trying to simulate lighting with a 2D engine).

I am not that far along yet, but the only problem I have found in my development is that Java 3D apparently doesn''t support animated textures.