2d Multimedia Library on the JVM

I'm searching for a rich 2d multimedia framework that's meant to be used with the JVM

There's SDL and SFML for C and C++.
I've used Pygame with Python. It's very productive.
XNA is great, too.

What about the JVM ? I know that there's a wrapper around SDL http://sdljava.sourceforge.net/ but since the last entry on the homepages newsfeed dates back to 2005 it doesn't feel particularly alive.

Basically what I'm looking for is a hardware accelerated 2d canvas for the JVM that is backed with a neat framework.

I know that C, C++ and even Python (to some extent) can be considered low-level languages. Java on the other hand abstracts over the hardware. Therefore what I'm searching for is not it's "natural territory". Nevertheless http://lwjgl.org/ is a great example of what is possible in Java.

Googling brought up this interesting project http://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/ . Have you used it ? Do you know alternatives ? Please note: I'd like to use Scala, not Java. Therefore the stress on JVM and not just Java.

Solution

Have you already looked at JavaFX 2.0?

Rendering engine is based on prism, which supports hardware and software rendering (this means it will use either DirectX or OpenGL or Java 2D depending on what's available). You can find more information about it's architecture here:

JavaFX Architecture and Framework

It uses Scene Graph in order to define things you want to render. Here you can find small introduction:

Working with the JavaFX Scene Graph

Scalafx project provides Scala bindings for JavaFX 2.0.