[sora123]

Hi, Im a new guy here and please do not flame.
However, i would like to know any links or so about the important commands of C++ in game making, im gonna make a game like counter strike or battlefield, just quick match games.

So i wanna make a game engine aswell with it, im not sure about the Physic engine and graphic engine.

So first i would like a C++ tutorial about a Character that is shooting another character and dies.
So, i can make sound,animation,modeling, photoshop but im new at this.

So i wanna know any ideas about how a good game should look like, For my engine im just happy if you can actually jump,move and shoot things:)

maybe a tutorial about the first person camera view,inputs,save/load,game menu (me designing)
any tools i need?
im using microsoft visual c++ 2008
and Dev-C++ as i think its better.

i dont like Dark GDK.

basically i can start of with either RPG or FPS, but id prefer an FPS.

[fountainoftruth]

Hi sora123,

This thread right here might help you get started. It gives you an idea as to what you're getting yourself into. DIC also has a Game Programming section. Just know that making a game isn't something that happens right away.

Best of luck!

[chris772]

fountainoftruth, on 19 Mar, 2009 - 01:18 PM, said:

Hi sora123,
{snip}
Just know that making a game isn't something that happens right away.

Best of luck!

I second that. Also, don't expect your first few (dozen) tries to be at all good. start out by making something that works, then move on to making it look good and perform well.

[JackOfAllTrades]

Very ambitious. I'm going to move this to Game Programming.

[SigurdSuhm]

I agree with the previous few posts. Game programming is very hard and takes a lot of time to master. That being said I don't think you should forget the idea.

First step to being a good game programmer is always mastering your language and knowing exactly what it's capable of. If game programming is your real passion then I suggest that you read some articles or tutorials (tons can be found on the internet and even here on DIC). Whenever you're learning something you can try to see how you could fit it into a simple game. The more fun you have learning the faster you will learn. At least that's what my experience tells me.
Now I'm not a C++ guru so can't say exactly what you need to master but you should at least be comfortable with topics like program flow, loops, object oriented programming, pointers, memory management, dynamic memory allocation and such.

Next thing would be graphics. This can be a real pain sometimes. If C++ is your language of choice the obvious picks for graphics would be a framework like DirectX, OpenGL or perhaps SDL. But you'll quickly see that each of these are an art of it's own. I think it would be a good choice to start with some middleware. I recently went and downloaded the Irrlicht Engine (which is free). Playing around with something like that could give you a good idea of what you want to accomplish. And you will definately learn something about game engine design while you're at it.

Hope that helped you out. If there's anything else then give us a shout.
Sigurd

[Hyper]

You forgot about Allegro and GDK, SigurdSuhm, also...! Welcome to DIC, sora123.
Making an FPS isn't exactly "easy" unless you know what you're doing.

[ghst]

Passion is the number one thing you need to do well in the gaming industry. But do know that there is not one person on any teams who codes the physics,gameplay, graphics, etc. Making games is mostly a team effort, it takes the collaborations of many people who are disciplined in their respective areas of game development. I applaud you for being passionate about making games, but making an FPS as a solo person is not an easy task. The first step is getting familiar with C++, learn it from the ground up and know all about it, next step is to find your discipline, something you like doing in games. Whether it's AI, Physics, Graphics, Gameplay, Networking, UI. Find out what you like and work hard at it, perfect it.

[sora123]

Uhm ok, so how should i start? im kinda confused:S

I think im gonna start reading some OpenGL?
and 1 more question, i dont know what is the best and easiest: OpenGL or DirectX?

[WolfCoder]

OpenGL is easy to learn and runs on multiple platforms. DirectX only runs on Windows, but overall it has better support with video drivers and performance. However, the biggest problem with DirectX is that it's Windows-Only (no, Wine does not work, don't say it does) and it's difficult to learn.

I still can't seem to make any sense of DirectX! I'm doing just fine with OpenGL so far, though.

[ghst]

Good way to compare OpenGL and DirectX is that OpenGL is more Highlevel coding where DirectX is more low level. What that means is in OpenGL a lot of things happen behind the scenes, but with DirectX you have access to do whatever you need to do, you can grab the video buffer and use pointer arithmetic to adjust pixels manually.

So with this OpenGL is a lot friendlier to learn but you won't get as much control as DirectX gives you, but this isn't counting the programmable pipeline(Shaders) since both HLSL and GLSL are great.

But for a new person to game development I would definitely recommend starting out with OpenGL.

[Hyper]

ghst, on 22 Mar, 2009 - 11:11 PM, said:

Good way to compare OpenGL and DirectX is that OpenGL is more Highlevel coding where DirectX is more low level. What that means is in OpenGL a lot of things happen behind the scenes, but with DirectX you have access to do whatever you need to do, you can grab the video buffer and use pointer arithmetic to adjust pixels manually.

So with this OpenGL is a lot friendlier to learn but you won't get as much control as DirectX gives you, but this isn't counting the programmable pipeline(Shaders) since both HLSL and GLSL are great.

But for a new person to game development I would definitely recommend starting out with OpenGL.

Unless I'm mistaken, you have that bass ackwards. Which is why people prefer DirectX over OpenGL.

[sora123]

I see, but im only using Dev-C++

Any other tools i need to use?

[ghst]

Hyper, on 22 Mar, 2009 - 09:42 PM, said:

ghst, on 22 Mar, 2009 - 11:11 PM, said:

Good way to compare OpenGL and DirectX is that OpenGL is more Highlevel coding where DirectX is more low level. What that means is in OpenGL a lot of things happen behind the scenes, but with DirectX you have access to do whatever you need to do, you can grab the video buffer and use pointer arithmetic to adjust pixels manually.

So with this OpenGL is a lot friendlier to learn but you won't get as much control as DirectX gives you, but this isn't counting the programmable pipeline(Shaders) since both HLSL and GLSL are great.

But for a new person to game development I would definitely recommend starting out with OpenGL.

Unless I'm mistaken, you have that bass ackwards. Which is why people prefer DirectX over OpenGL.

Please highlight what I have backwards? DirectX can be very confusing for new people because of COM objects, Matrix Manipulations, Callback functions, #define indirection Microsoft uses where 3 different named DX types are all the same. And like I stated the ability to get in and edit the video memory yourself makes DX a lot more low level then OpenGL is.

The fact you can't go in and actually edit the WorldMatrix of an OpenGL scene proves they like to do a lot of things behind the scene and don't like to give the user low level control of things. Which would make it a higher level api.

I used to use openGL2.0 so maybe they changed some things in the recent updates that I don't know about. But OpenGL is more user friendly then DirectX but less control

sora123, on 23 Mar, 2009 - 08:47 AM, said:

I see, but im only using Dev-C++

Any other tools i need to use?

You will need to use one of the graphics APIs discussed in this thread, either OpenGL or DirectX. The Dev-C++ will be used to compile all of your code into an executable(your game). If youre making a game though you are going to need a Sound API and optionally an Input API. DirectX provides both of these with DirectInput and DirectSound. OpenGL doesn't have either.

So as you can see picking an API you want to use for your game can be a grueling task. Don't ever forget the greatest resource in the world. www.google.com

[sora123]

Yea, ill choose OpenGL, but in the game engines features i want it to have the following:

Level editor, script editor, networking,sound,inputs,graphics,3d coordinate system.

I cant find any downloadable link for OpenGL,
Respect me please because i really have no idea what your talking about soz.
But i just need a download link for the programs i need and i think i can find the tutorials myself.

Yea, ill choose OpenGL, but in the game engines features i want it to have the following:

Level editor, script editor, networking,sound,inputs,graphics,3d coordinate system,physics

I cant find any downloadable link for OpenGL,
Respect me please because i really have no idea what your talking about soz.
But i just need a download link for the programs i need and i think i can find the tutorials myself.

[modi123_1]

sora123, on 23 Mar, 2009 - 12:30 PM, said:

Yea, ill choose OpenGL, but in the game engines features i want it to have the following:

Level editor, script editor, networking,sound,inputs,graphics,3d coordinate system.

I cant find any downloadable link for OpenGL,
Respect me please because i really have no idea what your talking about soz.
But i just need a download link for the programs i need and i think i can find the tutorials myself.

Yea, ill choose OpenGL, but in the game engines features i want it to have the following:

Level editor, script editor, networking,sound,inputs,graphics,3d coordinate system,physics

I cant find any downloadable link for OpenGL,
Respect me please because i really have no idea what your talking about soz.
But i just need a download link for the programs i need and i think i can find the tutorials myself.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=opengl+download

specifically http://www.opengl.org/sdk/

Regarding "Level editor, script editor, networking,sound,inputs,graphics,3d coordinate system,physics" - you typically build those things... you know.. develop the game and what not.