I want to be a dreamer, and play

I'm sometimes critical (hopefully constructively) of how people communicate to new people who want to learn more about 3D games and how to create their own games.

Highly educated people get use to their concepts and language used in their community. Where they might express themselves by stating semantics are important - and they are - Newcomers aren't always aware of the language used or what specific words or concepts are intended to convey, and experts don't understand their honest innocent and sometimes ignorant perspective. Wouldn't you agree that all things being equal, it is just as easy to state "The meaning of words are important" rather than using the term "semantics"? It makes it so much easier for so many people to understand.

No, I don't want to be a graphics PROGRAMMER, but I do want to understand what is involved, so I can be aware of the key issues, and communicate with programmers, to include those who may not have the same level of experience and education as professional programmers, but like me, work their way through and learn as they code. That said, I find looking into the educational matter suggested  by others to help map out the concepts and technologies that we should be able to reduce to conversational concepts and abstracts: http://diaryofagraphicsprogrammer.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-want-to-be-graphics-programmer.html

But please, understand that in open source projects and approaches, if you really want to leverage the intelligence and wisdom and great ideas of people that you've never met; that aren't part of your core team; that it serves you well to communicate as easily, as naturally, as possible.

Well communicated

jMonkeyEngine 3 is a 3D game framework for Java developers (http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/engine-core/) and they've done a great job communicating what their project is about, provided example demo videos, and show the reader how the framework might be used.

Blend, blend, purée!

Started playing with Blender; the free open source 3D content creation suite.

I've a lot to learn, but I've been through the basic tutorials. I think I can get the hang of it before too long. It really has me wondering about what file formats are used in other game systems. Right now I don't know one file format from another, but I would think it would be wonderful to be able import and export to and from the various formats out there so I can better learn about the game systems, and not so much about the 3d models and formats.

At least that is my thoughts as someone new to all this at a code level. I understand there is a difference - older model file formats might not have as much resolution, offer animation effects, handle other features of the game engines, but I'm still looking around for a decent open source introductory course or site that explains it and makes it more readily accessible to those who want to learn, but don't know where to start.

Captain's log

Well, I finally have enough to share and will be posting my noise here on the blog and hopefully reducing any signal over to https://sites.google.com/site/mezzsmess/ for right now.