Getting Started

Prerequisites

For developing with scenery, or scenery itself, it's quite useful to have an IDE that supports you in your coding tasks. We recommend using IntelliJ as IDE, which is available as free Community Edition from Jetbrains. In case you are an Eclipse user, there is a Kotlin plugin available in the Eclipse market place that can be used for development with scenery.

scenery and IntelliJ require an installed Java Development Kit (JDK), with version 21 and upwards being supported. scenery is fully compatible with OpenJDK, which you can download at https://adoptium.net/.

Getting the code

The git repository for scenery can be found at https://github.com/scenerygraphics/scenery, you can clone the repository to your drive by running

git clone https://github.com/scenerygraphics/scenery.git

Should you already have a Github account and an SSH key set up with that account, you can also use

git clone [e-mail]:scenerygraphics/scenery.git

That'll clone the scenery repository to a folder named scenery on your hard drive.

Repository structure

The scenery repository consists of the following major directories:

• src/main/kotlin/graphics/scenery contains the main scenery source code.

• src/test/tests/graphics/scenery/tests/examples contains example code and small applications for getting started and for demonstrating features of scenery.

• src/test/tests/graphics/scenery/tests/unit contains unit tests that are automatically executed when scenery is built to ensure everything is still working. scenery uses the JUnit testing framework for that.

• src/main/resources/graphics/scenery contains images, shader files and other files that are not Kotlin or Java source code.

Furthermore, there is an artwork directory, containing some scenery logos.

As a build system, scenery uses Gradle, which stores all project information, such as dependencies, in the file build.gradle.kts.

Running your first example

Using Gradle on the command line

To build scenery on the command line, change to the scenery directory and run

Bash (Linux, macOS, git bash)

./gradlew build

cmd (Windows)

gradlew.bat build

This will download the Gradle version required automatically, followed by all dependencies required. Then, it will build the scenery JAR files in the build/libs directory. The first build will take a while because all dependencies are downloaded from teh interwebs. When the build is successful, there should be multiple files there, named scenery-[VERSION].jar, scenery-[VERSION]-tests.jar, andscenery-[VERSION]-sources.jar

From the scenery repository directory, you can then run

Bash (Linux, macOS, git bash)

./gradlew TexturedCubeExample

cmd (Windows)

gradlew.bat TexturedCubeExample

... and the TexturedCubeExample should (semi-)magically show up.

Using IntelliJ

First, import the project in IntelliJ:

• Click File > Open and navigate to the scenery directory,

• Open the file build.gradle.kts there. When IntelliJ asks to open as project or as file, select Open as Project,

IntelliJ will now resolve and download all dependencies of scenery, which might take a while when you are doing this for the first time.

When IntelliJ is done importing, navigate to the examples directory with the directory browser on the left. The directory is src/test/tests/graphics/scenery/tests/examplesa. You can alternatively switch the directory tree to Packages mode and navigate to graphics.scenery.tests.examples.basic.

Find an example you want to run, e.g. TexturedCubeExample, open the file, and click on the small green Play button that appears next to the main routine in that file:

The example should now compile and magically show up on screen.

Where to go from here

The examples of scenery are a good starting point for exploring features or developing your own applications. Tinker around and modify them to your needs.