Hi. I'm writing my first real Java game, and I believe I've learned enough Java 2D API to make it happen. Virtually all objects and game-play in the game is 2D, so that should be fine.

However, there is one important object in the game that has more of a "3D" manifestation, and it does a whole lot of rotating and tilting in various directions. Since the rest of the game is 2D, I was just going to make a different image of the object at each needed angle and direction. To save time, I went ahead and learned Blender, and made a 3D model of the object so I could just get pictures of it from different camera views.

But now that I have blender model, I'm wonder if it would be better/possible to have that one object rendered in 3D within the program, and just paint it onto my 2D world. Issues I'm concerned about:

- time needed to learn Java 3D (vs. time needed to make all 2D snapshots)
- impact on performance
- problems integrating 2D painting and 3D rendering

And sagely advice here would be appreciated.