Mark Watson

The Java programming language and platform are revolutionizing the development and deployment of distributed software. I believe that the huge "twitch" game market (based on game consoles and PCs) will continue to grow, but the largest market growth eventually will be in distributed games and entertainment experiences. With steady improvements in runtime performance, Java is well positioned to be the language of choice for writing distributed entertainment software. JavaSoft has recently released the specification for the Java3D API that will provide a cross-platform solution to real-time 3D graphics. Microsoft has also released a beta API of Java bindings for their DirectX libraries. The Microsoft Java API for DirectX is specific to the Windows environment. This article demonstrates the relative ease of generating a simple 3D world using Java and the Direct3D reta... (more)