Hello, everyone.

I'm trying to learn SketchUp to make 3D models after moving from Flash game design.

Can SketchUp models be imported in Java applets and used as game objects? Does anyone know of any libraries to do this? I would prefer not to use Unity, by the way.

If you plan on using SketchUp, your best option may be to export your SketchUp models to .obj format. That way, you have a lot of options to choose from library-wise, including writing your own importer, since the .obj model format is very straightforward and a great place to start.

If you want animated objects that can bend, however, I suggest learning Blender and using an intermediate format that supports skeletal deformation such as .dae, since SketchUp and .obj do not meet these requirements. Blender's learning curve is steeper than SketchUp's, but it's free, doesn't bog down your system like other professional 3D modeling software, and is very rewarding once you get the hang of it. Likewise, parsing .dae files (or whatever other skeletal object format you go with) will be a headache at first if you aren't familiar with the territory, but, like .obj, there should be libraries available that work well enough if you don't want to write your own importer.

Best of luck!

Thank you for your response. I don't plan on making objects with skeletons, just spacecraft that can rotate on  the axes, shoot projectiles, explode, and a few that will have internal rotating objects like turrets. Essentially, I want to take what I have done in Flash and start doing something similar in pseudo-3D.