2D/3D Environments in Java: Where to start?

[Jan Hoppmann]

Heya!
I'm not sure if this would belong intto the games forum, but I thought I'd just post it here.
My problem is that I want to start a bit of game development in Java after my current web application project is finished, because I have some spare time on my hands for this. Now my question is, does anyone of you have a tip where to start and what to read? 2D development should be simple using AWT, but what to do if I want to move up to 3D? I've seen a simple 3D Engine written within 2 days, so I thought that this shouldn't be so hard.

[Jesper de Jong]

One thing to look at is jMonkeyEngine.

[Dieter Quickfend]

Well, personally at first I found the jMonkeyEngine to be a trifle difficult to get into, so first I experimented with Java3D... allows you to import .obj and .lwo out of the box, and there are several jars out there that allow you to load 3ds and ms3d files... I just made a model viewer, and added new features until i had a fully functional 3d environment, and once I get the time for it again, I'm probably going to go ahead and learn the ropes with jmonkey and its brand new great-looking IDE based on NetBeans.

Be advised that, to make something good in 3d, you need the models, so unless you have peeps that do that for you, get Blender or something and first learn that.