Starpoint Arena
Overview
This is an overview of the most important application implementation issues.
Application structure
Starpoint Arena consists of three main packages:
- StarpointArenaNG contains all components of the platform-unspecific 2D-game. Some aspects of 3D-gaming are prepared (menu structures,
player view directions, 3D-items) but not implemented when it comes to 3D-display.
- StarpointDesktop contains all components for the javax.swing-based main application.
- Starpoint3D contains all components for the JAVA3D- and javax.swing-based main application that requires an installed JAVA 3D.
Any main application must implement interface StarpointContext, that is used for interaction between the core game and the surrounding application.
The main application control flow is described in this diagram:
In 2D gaming, the context application only requires to provide platform specific implementations for:
- GraphicContext for 2D graphic display - StarpointDesktop implements this by delegating to java.awt.Canvas-methods.
- SoundContext for platform specific sound playback - StarpointDesktop implements this by using javax.sound
- Vibration - not used in StarpointDesktop game
- Mouse- and Keyboard event handling - StarpointDesktop handles java.awt-Events and passes them to the StarpointController
Since Starpoint3D requires the JAVA3D-API, it is implemented as seperate application (allowing 2D gaming as well). It provides an own PainterFactory for
3D-specific painters, special mouse handling for changing camera perspective and the complete 3D-scene creation and -modification based on the GameState-updates.
2D painting
As shown in the initial diagram, StarpointArenaNG is completely capable of doing all 2D-painting necessary for the standard game.
Depending on the GameMode (Menu, Editor, Game etc.), a PainterSet consisting of layered painters is used for painting to the GraphicContext (provided by the main application).
During game, these layers are as follows:
The Painter2DArena-class implements the logic for displaying the field and all game elements. Its paint sequence is as follows:
