i was also involved in doing my own self study on game development... one year ago when i was working ... now not free liao cos working... ehehhe

as a contribution, i would like to provide the following link..

www.gameprogramming.org

its a FREE programming course... have to register... but got lots of homework to do... and forces you to follow the sequence... ie u cannot do graphics programming before u do the c++ course. .

and u cannot be inactive for a long time or your account will be deleted... good site though... cheers for the malaysian game development community

anyone really successful in doing self study n research?

its sad to know that there are many ppl keen to learn but due to lack of guidance... they gave up... like me

This post has been edited by jason83: Aug 3 2005, 12:43 PM

what u are u from brother??

maybe we should have some gatherings... so tat we can have discussions or have some mini projects to do? u guys all use directx right? opengl?

This post has been edited by jason83: Mar 14 2012, 12:57 AM

well i once participated in the forums... but i hate the moderator there... well those who are there will know who he is... i mean doesnt mean he is a white or doesnt mean he is a pro in this industry, he can do watever he likes... like not respecting others..

since then i found out that its not a frenly place to ask for help..

i think the best is www.gamedev.net

however sherman in the IGDA forums is nice... i respect him.. very helpful

well it was one yaer ago.. the mod... he closed my thread... cos he said IGDA is not to ask technical questions... its about the industry... well i was angry... nobody was asking him questions, and sherman didnt complain that im asking too much...

so until now whenever i hear his name or his company name.. one word..... f***

i believe what this industry in malaysia needs is help n support, guidance... not some pro who shows off in front of newbies... everyone was once a newbie....

yes i believe i asked at the wrong place... but at least u can pm me to give me a warning first, this is respect.. for the ppl above n below u

This post has been edited by jason83: Aug 4 2005, 06:21 PM

yeah at least send me a pm or reply there to say its not the right place first... some mods are really teruk.. at least not at here at lowyat.net

so c-fu, have u done any demos yet?

okok.... so any of u had made any demos or simple game before?? can tell us a bit about your project ar? C-Fu got?

well there is a sickness with many game programmers wannabes here in malaysia... there are many i know whom said yes, they are interested in making games, but they say they ONLY want to design... tell u wat to do and other ppl do it...

this is the biggest problem ive encountered, the fact is, ANYONE can be a game designer.... AYNONE can be a crappy game designer, but if the whole team wants to be the designer, who is going to program the game? who is going to do the artwork?

to me, here in malaysia... as an advice... to those who wan to start to venture to this industry, first n foremost, DO NOT start by doing a document....it is quite a waste of time as now u r not in the market yet, you may think of many many ideas which u r not able to implement it yourself... heck u may not even know how to create a directx window using the win32api and dx api...

so trust me... get into programming, learn from the basics... at least when u have the idea, u can start to write instead of depending on others, no point if u waste your time getting the doc, finally demotivated trying to find a team to write it for u.......

wah long one... hahah just an advice la...any suggestions or feedback welcomed!!!

no offense ya!!

well im not saying that game documentation n design is useless, it is one of the most important aspects in the industry, however, if u wanna enter this industry, try to learn by yourself, trust me, there arent many game programmers out there, so u have to do all the things by yourself..

last time when i was in college, i used to ask those of my frens who play lots of games... whether if they are interested, they say yes they have ideas... then who is going to write the game?

there is also another problem, most game companies wants someone with some experience or someone who can make a demo .... its already hard to find someone who can make a demo, don even think of finding an experienced game programmer when none of these companies arent willing to invest in training ...

however, i still believe that going freelance has a future, all u need is lots of time n effort... 10 years from now, who knows... good games are made by a malaysian who make his own games at home...??? hahahha

cheers to all...!!!

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

just for motivation, there is a game written by practically one guy, the name of the game is Starshatter, took him 5 years i think, 95% of the game written by him i think

the game is quite good, for a space simulator, it even has features which other big titles do not have, however due to the er.. not so nice graphics, it wasnt tat popular... i remember gamespot gave it a 7- 8.5 rating.. forgot liao...

oh yeah hunt, i don think its necessary to get a gaming degree in order to be in the game industry, now all these companies, what they need is for u to show them a demo of a simple game written by yourself, to show that u know about all these stuff.... as long as u have a general com science degree, that is enough..

do u think ppl like john carmack or peter molyneux have a gaming degree?? ahhah they learn by themselves....

totally agreed many ppl want to be game designers, they have their ideas, their vision bla bla, but who the heck is going to write the damn game for them? in malaysia, unless u have the money, nobody is going to write for u, so do it yourself... if u knw game programming but not good at art design, u can still find someone to do it for u, if u r only n aritst, or if u only have an idea... u can wait for another decade till u can easily find game programmers in malaysia

the same goes for the definition of a gamer... i dunno how to consider someone a gamer , or a hardcore gamer , but for sure, those who alwaz 'pou' at cybercafe's msot of them arent gamers at all.. what do they know bout games? cs, wc3, ro, bla bla. only those at the cafe's. ask them about ut2004 or half life 2, most of them havent even heard of it....

so in this world... there are people who only dream, and there are ppl who take action to realise their dreams.

yo crabjim, actually im not very sure of the answer for your question , last time when i program, i started from scratch, means i learn to program the game engine too, but it seems not it is not necessary anymore, there are so many sdks around which u can lay your hands on... well some free , some like the source engine sdk, u have to buy the original, which i don have

but in my opinion, it is better to start game development by making mods, use engines like the unreal engine or the source engine ( i want it badly but no money to buy ), 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.

as for models... sorry man, im a total idiot in that, hahaha but if i have a need for models, then i will find u.

i wanan ask a question le, anyone here tried using managed dx with vb.net?

huh?? meet where? up there? u ok or not bro?

www.32bits.co.uk

tis is the best of the best of the best game development tutorial site... trust me... he is good...

sometimes u don need to have a team of 50 - 100 people to create a good game... who knows one freelancer working on a game by himself (maybe with the help of some other ppl) may create a hit game..., sometimes big corporations know nothing about the fun in games

wana ask something guys... i heard that windows vista will be using a new API for anything to do with graphics.... as far as i know... directx will be dumped... and be in our history books... so any idea where can i get my hands on the SDK ar??

the directx 10 sdk is released... and it has some sort of beta version of the new graphics api in the new windows??? not sure bout tis but download to check it out!!!

hey man, its ok if u know nothing bout programming, they have a few mandatory topics which teaches the basic C++ before they really get into the game development topics such as directx and others....

but the thing is that u need to pass up your homework.... and u cannot skip any of the topics...

was just browsing thru www.gamedev.net and i was just thinking.....

wat are game engines actually? are they completed directx projects and ppl can use them to create their own games... by just calling ready made functions?

second thing is the difference between the plain normal directx and the managed directx to be used with .net languages... i wonder how much easier is managed directx compared to the normal one? i once read an article that a normal job which requires two days can be completed in two hours using managed directx!!! is this true?

i don think there is any class being conducted there, its just read thru the article and do the exercises and ask any questions u don understand in the forums.... but i guess there will be an instructor for every topic.... so shud be fine

and IT'S FREE!!!!