Has anybody enrolled their game development courses? I'm thinking of buying a few (dx1 and dx2) but I'd like to hear what I'll get from someone who's been there because 500$ is a lot for me.They sound great but still, I don't want to get ripped off.

Ive never enrolled in one, but from what I understand, if your in school you'd be better of waiting till summer vacation cause they are like real classes but online.

I'm a student and "enrolled" in most of the available courses. IMO, they are awesome. Seriously.

From everything I've seen, the courses are not "real-time" (I believe GameVersity is). For example: I've been enrolled in the first graphics class for years and still have access to all the materials (textbook/workbook PDFs, source code, etc). Personally, I've never taken any of the quizes or formally "finished" a course. I just enrolled for the knowledge. The course materials are, IMO, far better than 95% of the books out there.

The only thing that borders on real-time is the "timeblock" concept. You have X amount of timeblocks. You activate/use one timeblock and then you can access chat/forums and interact with the teacher and other students for a period of time. You have read-only access while no timeblocks are active. I've never activated one, but you've got plenty, should you want to do so.

Edit:

One of my favorite aspects of the GI courses is the lecture module. Each course has a set of Flash applications that combine a slide featuring diagrams and/or code snippets with an audio track. Typically a lecture module is paired with each chapter of a course's textbook.

Thank you guys for your replies! Thanks spartanx for a breifing! Did you enroll the DX module 1 and 2? Can you tell me if you really learn what they present at the video clip?

Professionally (and personally), my evaluations have not been favorable. As a qualification to that statement, I've not bothered to look at them in any detail in almost a year now.

So, take them for the knowledge, if you like and you feel like paying their price for it, but they should not be considered as a substitute for an actual formal education. Everything they teach you can be found elsewhere, since for the most part the lesson plans indicate a concentration on API rather than theory.

Quote:Original post by bsdpowa
Thank you guys for your replies! Thanks spartanx for a breifing! Did you enroll the DX module 1 and 2? Can you tell me if you really learn what they present at the video clip?

IMO they do. :)

My favorite part in the first course is the beginning, where you build a very simple software renderer to get a grasp on how the whole transformation pipeline works.

The second course is also nice, especially when it runs you through broad-phase collision and various trees (bsp-/quad-/kd-/etc).

The first has a lot of API discussion, which is certainly available in many places, but they also run through a lot of background info and tell you how and why things work.

The second has a lot of discussion regarding the auxillary D3DX library, but is quite nice in that it explains so much of the workings that you'd probably be able to make your own version should you desire. For example, while going through the portion covering D3DX's animation system, the discussion includes many code snippets that duplicate major functionality from the system.

It's not "perfect" by any means, but, having purchased a LOT of D3D/game programming books, I believe it's better than the vast majority.

Their third course was broken into several "workshops". The first of which has been released, covering radiosity and other similar lighting techniques.

jpetrie: I understand that but I learn very hard by my own.I've tried before, I also have, in my opinion, one of the best OpenGL books out there, OpenGL Superbible but when I don't understand how certain thing works I have difficulties proceeding.That's why I need somebody dedicated to me who will explain things step by step

spartanx: Once again thank you big time for such a great review, if I may call it that.I'm now 70/30 to purchase DX1 and DX2 courses.

Quote:
jpetrie: I understand that but I learn very hard by my own.I've tried before, I also have, in my opinion, one of the best OpenGL books out there, OpenGL Superbible but when I don't understand how certain thing works I have difficulties proceeding.That's why I need somebody dedicated to me who will explain things step by step

I didn't advise against taking the courses; it's your money, go for it. I advised against taking them and thinking they'd be a subsitute for a real education (i.e., a four year degree from a college or university). Because they aren't.

In school we learn everything but not game or 3D programming that's why I want to enroll these courses.I've checked the program for future years of faculty and there isn't any 3D programming in the schedule.

Most colleges do not offer graphics-related courses as undergraduate work, that is true. "Game programming" is not a field of study, it is no different from any other kind of programming.

Do yourself a favor (since money obviously isn't a huge deal) and get yourself these two books, as well:

The Geometry Toolbox
Fundamentals of Computer Graphics