Once again, the help offered is greatly appreciated. Believe me there are ppl out there who are really wanting to move to an industry that motivates someone to push their limits. I've found the gaming industry to do that for me and reading all the information poured out onto this thread shows that there are ppl here who would make the gaming industry here successfull if not for the circumstances that need their utmost attention.
I take my Hat off to all of you, gentlemens
QUOTE(hwa107 @ Aug 9 2005, 11:08 AM)
flash? java? director? or even php! (web based game) any languange will do!! who say must C++? right??
wat's the ideal language, i think is none! any language can create game, even javascript! however for a beginning, i would suggest flash, coz it's easy, n doesn't need lots of programing skills, n there r whole lot's of sample code outside, n even more free flash game out there that u can take as an example, n
here got whole lot of them.
actually wat i trying to say is to urge u ppl to start ur project, starting ur projec is not easy, instead just think of ideas, like i wan to make this n that, y dun ppl go n actually do it? coz once u started it, mean u r doing somethng...
n yes i know the limitation of programing skills, actually me also facing this problem
but i dun think that will stop u from doing games right? think that as 1 of the obstacle u have to face, nth is easy on this world right?
btw, i dun thnk u should wait untill u fully master a certain language then only u can start making a game, not only C++ but other language also, coz this definally will take times. i suggest do while u learn, n learn while u do, u will relised that u actually having fun while learning something
that's my RM0.02, hope i din offended someone here, but if i do, i'm sorry.
take my word for it, your Rm0.02 worth is like RM200 to ppl like me. I agree that we should start a project and get the ball rolling as that will actually put the entire idea in motion. Which will spawn a much more productive approach then just writing ideas down.
Would you agree that a strong understanding of the programming languages would benefit the person using it because, he/she would be able to know what that language has to offer or do you think learning on the fly like u have said poses a better stance of grasping the language in a much more refined way?.
QUOTE(crabjim @ Aug 9 2005, 03:30 PM)
lol, nice thread n good resources.....thanx
people here were nice too.....yeah, i juz notice this thread few days ago n i'm so interested in learning game prog.
i'm a Multimedia student fr a local Uni, i get 2 learn some programming skill but i nvr learn making games b4, it's not in the syllabus. i'm very interested with the course offered in gameprogramming but i dunno wether got time 2 participate or not
i thk the code fr hwa107 is a machine code, it redirect ur CPU to run instruction which is only understood by the CPU, all the leftmost 4-character number on every line resembles the address of the memory while the rest is the instruction. I thk so
Well thank you for your comment. Well if youre learning multimedia, you have a greater chance of going into the graphic side of gaming. Havent you considered that path?.
I noticed that too about the gameprogramming course.
QUOTE(jason83 @ Aug 9 2005, 07:44 PM)
Hunt, don worry you are free to give comments here.
in my opinion, all u need to do now is to learn a basic language, a common language such as java or c++ or visual basic. these three languages are important if u wanna really do quality games, im not saying languages such as flash are useless, but from what i can see they can only make simple games, correct me if im wrong.
c++ is currently the most popular language used to program games, together with directx (more on this later), games created using c++ and directx are said to be the fastest, however due to the language complexity, productivity is quite low, meaning u write a lot of code to do a task
java has a sort of branch now,its known as java 3d, capable of developing games in short periods of time, the code is short, i read the book before, but the concepts is quite different from other languages, so i dumped it anyway... hahaha
visual basic... hmmm not many ppl has written games using this language, but im going to say something which may get me flamed, i believe visual basic.net ( of its similar sibling c#) is the future of gaming language, as from what i have seen, a task written in C++ will take 2 days but if .net technology is used, it can be done in 2 hours. from my point of view, if you are weak in programming, you should take up visual basic.net and get the managed direct sdk.
eventhough your games maybe slower, your productivity is higher.
in game programming, the hardest part is not to code, but to understand the concepts... what is the FOV (field of view), the various spaces ( object, world , forgot the other one) and so many other things, if the language is already a barrier to u, imagine how many years will u take to make a game as simple as mario.....
the above comments are only my opinions, no offense meant to flash fans out there, hhahah personally i have tried using c++ and dx and i have learnt how to load models from .x files, make the background of the world, rotate camera, movement, basic collision detection, however i have yet to learn animation of models, all these in c++
but due to lack of time, i have gave up.. hehehe now waiting for more time to learn managed directx for visual basic . net
Thanks jason83 for your assurance. Just didnt want to offend anyone as i believe the crowd here has been ever helpful. Well looks like you got yourself to a good start. Did you learn this by yourself or attending courses?. Its just that im a bit lost on how i can get started. Right now im following those books i bought and working my way through them.
I'm still adamant about learning a concrete programming language that will help me in the long run.
QUOTE(C-Fu @ Aug 10 2005, 04:05 AM)
ok sorry guys I didn't reply sooner. I'll give you an example of a research gaming project that I'm trying to push to the Uni.
Basically what this project is, is a public art installation thing. My block recently setup 12 rear-projection screens arranged in a grid, and the Uni wants to do something about it to reflect the Uni being all technological or whatever
So my proposal is about using the screens to show an eye that is watching us, kinda like the god Ra or the tv show Big Brother. There will be sensors around the University that detects motion, and if people passes the sensor, it will send the data to the eye, and the eye will move to the sensor's position lah. If nobody passes thru any sensors (like at night) then we can have the eye crying or sleeping or whatever. So this is basically the "game" that I'm doing right now. Trying to break the tv-joypad convention in gaming.
Or, another proposal is to setup a camera and a hole around uni, and people would get curious about the hole and look into it and they can see London in real time, and vice versa, kinda like a warp hole yaknow.
As about the programming language, go ahead and learn ANYTHING. Anything is good for you, because basically all programming languages are the same. They might not have the same capabilities or speed, but the methodology, the way you do things are similar. Heck, learn COBOL if you can too (COBOL is an ancient language for making business database stuff). And then make games on it, like similar to MUD or something. These kinda things that makes you go around the limitations of a language is necessary if you wanna be creative.
I haven't tried VB.NET before, but I heard lots of good things about it, like you can do rapid prototyping of a game or a concept. But I used VB + DirectX to create a puzzle MMOG before for a project in APIIT, and IMO unless you wanna do something superhardcore (like Lineage2, which won't happen for sure), VB + DX will yield very very similar speed and performance as C++ + DX, but without all the complexities of C++. You can make simple 3D games and it will still be as speedy as a C++ code.
Flash is teh powah! The scripting is not really scripting; it's a language just like C++. and it's ECMA-compliant, which means you learn ActionScript, then you basically know C++ and Java and .Net. And game engines rarely depend on the language since most of your work would be writing mathematical algorithms. And with flash, animation or the graphics part is done for you so just lukis2 onli. If you ask me, learn flash because you can directly create a simple game or move a character on the screen after a few hours. You can learn C++ or whatever, but you might get dissapointed or blame someone's mother
just because there are tons of things that you must do before displaying a guy moving left or right
and that binary thing is machine code.
Also what is this dragonback? You mean DragonRaja ah?
hey dude, no need for apologies. Its because of you we are able to have this discussion in this thread. Correct me if im wrong, it sounds like the project is a survellance system. Sorry if i got it wrong. I was planning to learn .NET as they were few ppl telling me that its beneficial to learn that.
dude i would still like to know how old are you, if you dont mind. If you do mind, i wont ask anymore. Im so sorry i did in the first place.
QUOTE(Cheese @ Aug 10 2005, 09:46 AM)
baliklar dragonraja pulak!! made me have to actually move my finger muscles to get this link:
http://www.dragonbackgames.com/but i think they're more into publishing and rebranding as well. not sure.
annnnyway... flash is far from inferior to the thre languages you mentioned.
C++ is truly the core language, and what hardcore devs out there will want... IF you want a fast and powerful game. The strength in C++ is speed. That's about it.
Java is slow as hell no matter how the Jenthusiast will try to convince you otherwise, but it's still bearable. I don't know of any top games made in Java, but most games tend to have a hybrid mix of Java and C++ in between. If you look at UnrealScript, it's really similiar to Java though the core of UT runs on C++
VB.. well, VB is not a bad choice at making games, but it lacks the flexibility Java provides and the raw power of C++. And if its in VB, youre more or less stuck with M$. I'm an M$ fanboy so I don't mind, but for those linuxlovingtreehumpers out there, they'd probably sabo your game or boycott it. On the other hand, there are tons of API and thankfully there is one for opengl too, but if you're interested in making hardcore 3d gamestuff with VB, you should check out darkbasic instead. It's like vb on speed.
Flash.. well, flash has evolved alot more than you'd like to think Jason. Agreed that it will lose out to C++ in the speed area since activescript is very high level but you can pretty much pull off almost any game with flash. Check out Dofus (google if you bastards, i'm not wasting anymore finger muscle) for a great flash based MMOG. To top it off, flash saves many hours of dev time trying to built your own graphic tools and rendering engines. In fact, it's the best choice for rapid game dev projects.
[edit]Forgot to mention that if you are really serious about getting into the local industry, currently what's hot or at least what they're mainly up to are handphone games, so you'll want to pick up J2ME for that. It's not an easy language, for a handphone game at least since you need to cramp everything up wthin a certain limit... not more than 50kb sometimes.. depending on the complexity of th game
Also,
FOV and spaces have nothing to do with games or at least, they are not required if you're not making 3d games. A game like mario would just require some tiling knowledge.
Lastly, never, ever confuse game design and programming, as is the case most people tend to do. design, is design, much like how a mapper plots out his levels, and programming, is the guy who built the tools for the mapper to map with.
thanks for your effort cheese. believe me, your help goes a long way. I believe gamedesign is the overall structure that guides each part of the game creation process and which makes the game a successful product or one that will go down like the titanic. Forgive me cheese, if i offended you.
Well i wanted to ask you is it too late for a guy like me who's 24 to be changing careers. i always wanted to do gaming but couldnt due to unforeseen circumstances but now am trying to make that a realisation. Well let me know what do you think.
Well i would like to ask what do you guys think of which is the more preferred 3D Graphic tool to be used for game programming. Would it be 3DsMax or Maya.
Oh before i forget, please check this site out. In my opinion its worth it checking out.
These guys work are so encouraging.
http://www.projectoffset.com/
... now not free liao cos working... ehehhe 
. 
), it is easier, and u don have to worry so much about the technical part, u only need to know the concepts the basics and so forth, from there on, once u r familiar with making mods, u can go deeper by trying to understand n develop a game engine, get some books, they are important.