[JAVA][Beginning Java 8 Games Development]

Chapter 4 ■ An Introduction to JavaFX 8: Exploring the Capabilities of the Java 8 Multimedia Engine
Figure 4-2. The javafx.scene package and its 16-core Scene Graph, Scene utility, Lighting, Camera, and Cursor classes
I have grouped these 16 javafx.scene package classes logically. The Scene class is inside the Scene Graph section
of the diagram, because Scene objects, which are created using the Scene class, contain Scene Graph objects, which
are created using these four Scene Graph–related classes (Node, Parent, Group, SubScene) and their subclasses. I will
be covering the Scene Graph classes in detail later in the chapter (see the section “JavaFX Scene Graph: Organizing
Scenes, Using Parent Nodes.”
Scene Graph architecting classes in JavaFX start at the highest level, with a Node superclass, and its Parent class,
and include the Group and SubScene classes, which are subclasses of the Parent class. These core classes are used
to create the JavaFX Scene Graph hierarchy and to organize and group objects that have been created using the other
JavaFX classes in the JavaFX packages.
There are three Scene utility classes, as I call them, which allow you to take a snapshot (like a screenshot) of
your scene or any of its Scene Graph nodes at any time as well as to turn SceneAntialiasing on and off if you are using
3D primitives in a scene. The other half (eight) of the classes in the javafx.scene package are used for scene lighting,
scene cameras, and cursor control for your scene. I will be discussing these classes later in the chapter (see the section
“JavaFx Scene Content: Lights, Camera, Cursor, Action!”), after you take a look at the Scene Graph classes, which
create, group, manage, and manipulate your JavaFX scene content. Thus, I will be covering the javafx.scene package
classes shown in the figure, from the left-hand side of the diagram to the right-hand side, in the order in which you are
most likely to use them, from least to most.
JavaFX Scene Class: Scene Size and Color and Scene Graph Nodes
The two primary classes in the javafx.scene package are the Scene class and the Node class. I will be covering the
Node class and its Parent, Group, and SubScene subclasses in the next section, as those classes, along with their
subclasses (such as the StackPane class used in the InvinciBagel class) are used to implement the Scene Graph
architecture in JavaFX. Also, in a sense (and in my diagram) the Node class and its subclasses can be viewed as being
below the Scene class, although the Node class is not a subclass of the Scene class. In fact, the Node (Scene Graph)
class and subclasses, or rather the objects created using these classes, are contained inside the Scene object itself.
For this reason, you will first consider how the Scene class, and its Scene() constructor method, is used to create
Scene objects for JavaFX applications. This section will provide reinforcement of what you learned in Chapter 3
regarding overloading constructor methods, as there needs to be several different ways to create a Scene object.
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