Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter IV
Appearance Objects
IntroductIon
In the last chapter, the creation of the skeletons or shapes of 3D objects has been discussed
through the use of geometry objects in Java 3D. In order for these objects to be as realistic
as possible to the user, it is often necessary for these objects to be covered with appropriate
“skins” under good lighting conditions. In Java 3D, details on the skins can be specified
by using color, texture, and material, which can be specified through the associated ap-
pearance objects.
In this chapter, all the important attributes, including the ways for rendering points,
lines and polygons as well as color and material, for an appearance object will be discussed.
The use of texturing will be covered in the next chapter.
As mentioned earlier, the creation of a virtual 3D object in a virtual world can be car-
ried out using a Shape3D object in the associated scene graph. This object can reference a
geometry object in Java 3D to create the skeleton of the virtual object. In addition, it can
also reference an appearance object for specifying the skin of the virtual object.
On its own, an appearance object does not contain information on how the object will
look like. However, it can reference other objects, such as “attribute objects,” “texture-re-
lated objects,” and “material objects,” for getting appearance information to complement
the object geometry.
Since the use of an appearance object to enhance the geometry in the creation of a
virtual universe is a basic requirement in Java 3D, we will now discuss some important
aspects of appearance object in this chapter.
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